Slideshow: 20 years of notable Apple totables

The Macintosh Portable was Apple’s first battery-powered portable computer, and Apple’s first computer shipped in the traditional clamshell-style laptop configuration. Some considered the Portable a disappointment due to its large size, 16-pound weight, and extreme price ($6,500, the equivalent to $11,313 in today’s dollars). As a result, Apple sold relatively few Macintosh Portables. But the computer included a very sharp 640x400 active matrix screen and a uniquely repositionable keyboard/trackball combo. (Photo: Apple, Inc.)

Apple released the PowerBook 100—essentially a miniaturized version of the Macintosh Portable—along with the 140 and 170 in late 1991 to positive critical acclaim and strong sales. While the PowerBook 100 lacked a built-in floppy drive, this low-end model of the original PowerBook line remained notable for its compact, sub-notebook size for the time. The original PowerBooks set the design template for many future Apple portables, especially as the first laptops to include a trackball in a prominent center position in front of the keyboard. This also left room for one to set one’s wrists while using the keyboard, making for a much more ergonomic typing experience. (Photo: Peter Brockie)

The PowerBook Duo introduced a new concept to Apple's laptop line: a small, ultra-portable laptop with a reduced hardware feature set that could be expanded when placed into a desktop-based unit called a DuoDock. The DuoDock allowed the PowerBook Duo to interface with more RAM, a floppy drive, an external monitor, and a full array of peripheral ports, essentially converting it into a desktop PC. The Duo line remained popular with Mac fans throughout its run and lasted until the 2300c, released in 1997. (Photos: Vectronic & Apple, Inc.)

In today's world where we take color for granted, it’s hard to imagine a time when a color display was an expensive add-on option, not the default configuration in every laptop. The PowerBook 165c is notable for being both the first Apple laptop with a color LCD display and the first laptop in the world to display 256 colors on screen, a passive-matrix display with a 640x400 resolution. After 1993, many PowerBooks would offer color options, but they didn’t come cheap: color PowerBooks typically demanded a $1,000-$2,000 price premium over their monochrome counterparts until the late 1990s. (Photo: Apple, Inc.)

The PowerBook 520 introduced a range of new features to the PowerBook line. Among its achievements: the first laptop in the world with a built-in trackpad (marking the beginning of the end of trackballs in laptops); the first Powerbook with PC Card slots for expandability, built-in stereo speakers, and built-in Ethernet; and the first Powerbook to enter sleep mode when its lid was shut. Its relatively durable, stylish design and decent keyboard didn’t hurt either, making the PowerBook 500-series a favorite among Mac aficionados. (Photo: Apple, Inc.)

The PowerBook 1400c stands out in Mac history as the first Mac laptop to include an internal CD-ROM drive (6X speed, if you must know), an incredible feat of miniaturization for any laptop at the time. This new internal optical drive brought portable Macs a new world of software and the flexibility to easily access large collections of data on the go. The 1400c shipped with a PowerPC 603e processor, first introduced in the PowerBook 5300 the year before. (Photo: Apple, Inc.)

Many people didn’t realize it at the time, but the candy-colored iBook—Apple’s portable iMac counterpart—brought with it a revolution in networking. The iBook was the world’s first laptop to ship with built-in wireless networking support (in the form of an optional internal AirPort card), a fact that Apple chose to make integral to the iBook's marketing. The convenience of Wi-Fi soon caught on beyond the world of Macs, and laptops today (all of which support it) would seem useless without it. The iBook was also the first Mac laptop since the Portable to ship with a built-in carrying handle. (Photos: Apple, Inc.)

The PowerBook G4 series, with its sleek, thin, and uniform titanium enclosure, introduced a radical simplification of the PowerBook form factor in 2001. That cutting-edge design continued through the years as Apple introduced variations in PowerBook G4 screen size, from a petite model with a 12-inch display to the world’s first laptop with a 17-inch screen (introduced in 2003), the largest display on any notebook then available. (Photos: Apple, Inc.)

The MacBook Pro introduced Intel processors to Apple’s laptop line (and dual-core processors as well, coincidentally). With an external design similar to the PowerBook G4, the MacBook Pro mostly signified an internal design shift, with the exception of a new built-in iSight camera above the LCD display, a first in any Mac laptop. In 2007, the 15-inch MacBook Pro became the first Mac laptop to use LED backlighting, and in 2008, the MacBook Pro series received a considerable upgrade that included a unibody aluminum construction, an eco-friendly glass screen, and a glass multi-touch trackpad that supported iPhone-like gestures. (Photos: Apple, Inc.)

The MacBook Air marked Apple’s return to the ultra-portable category—a product class not seen since 1997’s PowerBook 2400c, which, like the MacBook Air, lacked any form of built-in removable storage media. The Intel-based MacBook Air is both Apple’s thinnest and lightest laptop ever, but it has been criticized for its low performance/price ratio and the inclusion of only one USB port. Despite that, the Air remains notable as Apple’s first computer to ship with both a multi-touch trackpad and a solid-state disk option. (Photos: Apple, Inc.)