Just under three years ago I purchased my first laptop, a Macintosh 14" iBook 600MHz G3. I loaded it up with 384MB of main memory, a 30GB 4200RPM hard drive, an AirPort wireless network card, and a Combo DVD-ROM/CD-R burner. It also came with an ATI Rage video card with 8MB of video memory. With the 14" screen, it displayed a 1024 X 768 pixel video image. That all came to a little over $2,200.

This laptop became my workhorse for day-to-day use. Its battery would routinely give me 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours of use before recharging, and I loved using it. However, as the technology improved, and the web became more graphics intensive, the iBook had to increasingly work a bit harder to keep up. So, a couple of years ago I upped its main memory to 640MB. That essentially maxed out the machine, and I continued to use it up until this last week.

Last Friday I received its replacement, a new 15" PowerBook 1.67GHz G4. I also nearly maxed it out, with 1GB of main memory, a 100GB 5400RPM hard drive, a SuperDrive DVD±RW/CD±RW burner, and an ATI Radeon 9700 video card with 128MB of video memory. The new 15" screen displays a 1280 X 854 pixel video image. It came to a little over $2,400. Included in the new Mac is a backlighted keyboard, an AirPort Extreme wireless network card, a Bluetooth (version 2) wireless device module (for keyboards/mice/phones), trackpad vertical and horizontal scrolling, and a motion sensor that immediately parks the hard drive's read/write head if it's dropped (to protect the data on the spinning platter).

That's an amazing improvement for little more than an inflation adjustment, and I can share that it's everything I dreamed it would be. While it is true that the same feature set could be had in last year's model, albeit with a 1.5GHz max speed, a SuperDrive limited to fewer burning media options, a smaller hard drive, a weaker backlighted keyboard, no trackpad scrolling, and no motion sensor, that top-of-the-line 15" laptop cost $200 more than this year's model.

Many of us were hoping for a G5 PowerBook by now, and that's why I've waited, but that's apparently not in the cards for now. The current version of the G5 being used by Apple is apparently too hot to be shoehorned into a 1" thick laptop case. I'm looking forward to the next version of MacOS X (Tiger) to be released in the next few months, and didn't think my old iBook would support many of its new features with any grace. There's no doubt that this new laptop will.

So, what do I think after playing around with it over the past weekend? It's fast. I mean it's really fast... The difference between my old iBook and this new PowerBook is amazing. One typical user task, scrolling, is a simple example. On my iBook, scrolling down a web page was OK, but scrolling back up the page was painful and jerky. On the new PowerBook it's fluid in both directions, and now only involves a sweep of two fingers across the trackpad...no more holding the button down with your thumb while using another finger to scroll a bit on a web page. I also no longer rely on the up/down arrow keys for major scrolling since the two finger scrolling is so fast and smooth. On the downside? The new technology has cut down my battery life to 2 1/2 to 3 hours. That means I now have to consider customizing some energy savings options, turning off Bluetooth when I'm not using it, turning down screen brightness, and the like, all things I never had to consider with my old iBook, if I'm planning to use it for an extended period away from a power outlet.

The benefits to having a faster processor, more/faster memory, more/faster hard drive storage, faster wireless connectivity, and substantially faster video processing are too numerous to mention. While I could do most things fine on the iBook one-at-a-time, with the PowerBook I can truly multitask with virtually no user performance impact.

So, would I recommend this PowerBook? Well, that's a user-specific question. If you already have a 1GHz or faster G4 laptop, I'm not sure it would be worth it to you. Your user experience probably wouldn't change substantially. For me, I couldn't be happier.

It's not clear yet just how much further Apple is going to push ahead with the G4 in laptops. Freescale (the Motorola spin-off now producing the G4) has a new, lower power G4 and a new dual-core G4 due out later in the year. If IBM cannot get a cooler version of the G5 suitable for a laptop out before the next round of upgrades is due, Apple may have to use either of these in the next generation PowerBook. If IBM does come through, then these chips may be only destined for the next generation iBooks.

Whatever happens, I'm satisfied with my decision to buy at this time. I was also concerned about having a first generation G5 laptop. For my needs, a last (or nearly last) generation, mature G4 laptop suits the bill just fine. Then, in three more years...

- Dave Marsh