“Macworld” magazine editor Andy Gore has finally gotten his hands on a Titanium PowerBook G4 — and he’s keeping an online diary of the experience. The first entry tells how the anticipation of checking out the new portable was intense because Gore hopes it will “be the PowerBook I’ve been waiting for all my life.”
However, before he could get it set up, his family “clustered around the opened box, passing the PowerBook around like a holy icon.” Gore said this says something about the pure sex appeal of the new portable, “and probably reflects what would happen if a real life buyer was dumb enough to leave his or her brand new Titanium PowerBook G4 laying around unattended.”
The documentation package contains the “usual assortment of goodies”: warranty and AppleCare cards, a rather thin manual, PowerBook install and restore discs, iMovie 2 disc, Apple Hardware Test disc, and the “obligatory” two crystal Apple stickers. “There is also an odd addition, a slip of paper directing users to Apple’s Web site to download iTunes,” Gore notes. “This seems especially odd as iTunes currently doesn’t support third-party external CD-RW drives and the new PowerBook has no bays you can install an internal drive in.”
He notes that the power supply is the same as that of his PowerBook G3 except for the plug. The Titanium PowerBook G4 power supply sports a much smaller connector. That’s because the new portable is so thin, there wasn’t enough room to accommodate the old plug, Gore said.
“When I finally extract the PowerBook from the box and set it on my desk, the first thing I notice is how really, really light this PowerBook is,” he noted in the diary. “It’s more than just the loss of a pound: it’s the increased rigidity of the titanium shell that makes it so you can pick this PowerBook up with one hand — safely. I would find out later how nice this rigidity was for handling when one of my dogs ran between my legs!”
Gore said that opening the portable is slightly tricky. There’s a long silver button running just under the center of the lid that you must depress to release the magnetic catch. The keyboard is exactly the same as the one that comes with the PowerBook G3, with one notable exception: It’s not spongy. Apple mounted this keyboard on magnets, making it incredibly stiff, Gore said.
“The feel is reminiscent of the old Apple Extended Keyboard, probably the best keyboard ever made for a computer,” he wrote. “One other note: I really like the new metallic buttons Apple has added all over this machine, especially the power button. Very classy.”
For more on Gore’s initial impressions of the new PowerBook, check out his entire diary entry.
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