New York Times columnist (and long time Mac pundit) David Pogue recently reviewed Apple’s 800MHz PowerBook G4 in a new article entitled “The New PowerBook G4: Sleek Looks and Hot Legs.” (New York Times articles are available by subscription only, but online subscriptions are free.)
Pogue explained that the PowerBook was his lifeline during last week’s Geek Cruise to Alaska, and it was “so effortless a performer that I didn’t miss my home-base desktop Mac for one millisecond.”
Pogue said that users just coming to the Mac platform are impressed by the PowerBook G4s because of their size, weight and battery life — about four hours per battery in real-world use, longer than comparable Windows laptops, he said. The PowerBook’s unusual screen gets high marks, of course, and Pogue said that the inclusion of a Digital Visual Interface (DVI) connector “only encourages” users to depend on the portable machine as their main workstation.
Within the great performance, form factor and other amenities, the PowerBook G4 is not quite perfect, according to Pogue. Heat dissipation through the bottom, for example, makes it too hot to handle on a lap (hence the title of Pogue’s column). And “despite kid-glove handling,” Pogue also noticed chipped paint. “That’s a real drag on a machine whose key features include its irresistible good looks,” he said.