Apple PowerBook G4 15.2 in. (M9422LLABUNDLE) Mac Notebook

I recently opened my own law firm, and thus had the pleasure of buying a whole slew of computers. First were the two desktop machines, a 20" G5 iMac for my office manager and a PPC Mac Mini with a 19" LCD for my associate, both of which to be reviewed soon. The desktops were easy, as my goals were modest: reliable MS Office, web browsing and calendaring, no viruses or spyware please! Essentially that means any Mac will do, with the only variables being price and speed. An el-cheapo desktop PC (Compaq Presario - $299) for those rare occasions when only IE 6 will do and that I can put temp help on when we get busy rounds out the desktop assortment.

For my personal use, however, things were more complicated. First off, I am EXTREMELY mobile, traveling frequently both by air and locally. My trusty 12" PowerBook G4 (previously reviewed) remains my constant companion when on the move. Despite being more than a year old, it remains small, light, fast and absolutely reliable. It even gets decent battery life! The only place where it falls down is in the office, where a 12" screen just doesnt quite cut it. Also, I don't always want to carry my laptop to the office and set it up. I prefer to have a computer on the desk, plugged in and ready to use.

Now another iMac or Mac Mini would easily solve the office problem, but I really didn't want the clutter of a desktop monitor and keyboard clogging up my office. I like to keep things open and airy, including my desk, which makes a laptop the perfect workstation for me. Honestly, I've not used a desktop computer for my personal use in well over a decade, and simply have no desire to start now. So, another Apple laptop was in order, the question was which one?

Right away I ruled out the budget solution (12" iBook) as my 12" PowerBook has the exact same display and already is slightly too small. The 14" iBook was a valid option, but i find iBook keyboards rather spongy and I do really like the aluminum look. That leaves the 15" and 17" PowerBooks and the new Intel-powered 15" MacBook Pro.

Right away I decided against 17" as a laptop size. Yes, I do still have my 12" which is my daily travel companion (.Mac is terrific at keeping all of these computers on the same page), but even when just sitting closed on a desk that 17" PowerBook looks more like an aircraft carrier than a laptop. 15" is clearly the right size for what I want to do, with the added bonus that if something should happen to my 12" or if I take a longer trip and want the larger screen, 15" Apple laptops remain quite portable.

The difference between PPC and Intel was, just as with the desktop models, rather easy. First, as an attorney frequently going into Federal buildings and courthouses, ANY laptop with a built-in camera runs the risk of being excluded at the door. True, I bring my camera-free 12" with me most days, but heck, I'm rationalizing here. More important for me is the simple fact that of all of the applications that I use on a regular basis, only Safari and iTunes are universal applications. MS Office, Photoshop, QuickBooks Pro, Immigration Pro (legal forms) are all PPC optimized applications that would run slower on a MacBook Pro using Rosetta (PPC emulation) than they run on the 1.5 GHz PowerPC G4 (same speed as my 12").

So, my mind set, I went out and bought a 15" PowerBook G4 1.5GHz with the combo drive (already have two superdrives in the office). Set next to my 12", the thing just looks huge. Set out on the desk by itself, however, it looks lean and compact - actually not much larger than the 12" in any dimension save width. In fact, its actually a smidge thinnner than the 12", and only 1 lb heavier. Of course, once you open the display and get to work, all comparisons to the 12" PowerBook vanish.

First off, the screen is simply a revelation. While I have the slightly older 1280X854 pixel model, image quality is incredible. I traded a 1440X1050 pixel IBM ThinkPad for this, and despite the lower resolution, images and movies look far better on the PowerBook screen than they ever did on the ThinkPad. Colors are vibrant and the whole display is amazingly bright (MacBook Pro is brighter still). Movies are simply stunning on this laptop.

The other key area of laptop use is the keyboard, and just like in the 12" PowerBook, this machine does not dissappoint. Key action is identical to the smaller PowerBook, which is not surprising as all three models use the exact same keyboard part. One difference is that the keyboard on the 15" model is backlit, with a sensor automatically brightening and dimming both the key caps and the screen (if you want it to) to match ambient lighting and save battery life. The only keyboard foible is something mentioned by another reviewer in that the front edge of the laptop, which hits me about two inches up from my wrists when typing, is a bit sharp and uncomfortable. If you don't rest your palms on the palmrest (a bad thing to do anyway) you won't have trouble, but I do have this bad habit and frequently get a line on my forearm where the edge digs in. While similar-looking, the 12" PowerBook does not share this problem and is thus, to me anyway, a little bit more comfortable for typing.

Saving battery life is an important thing on this machine. While the newer high-resolution PowerBooks run fairly long on their batteries, the original-design 15" PowerBooks do not. I get about 3:30 with the screen at medium doing basic productivity work, 4:00 with every dimmed and slowed. Put on a DVD movie and I only get about 2:15, which is enough to watch most, but not all movies, with almost nothing left over at the end. This is one area where the 12" PowerBook is (rightfully so) a much better travel machine.

Everything else is about the same as I'm already used to. Yes, the 15" PB can accept more RAM (2.0 GB vs. 1.25 GB) and has a FireWire 800 port and a PC card slot, but I've never wanted nor needed either on my PowerBook. Both have BlueTooth, 5400 PM hard drives and AirPort Extreme built-in, with identical performance from them. Finally, both have 64MB video cards, and while the Radeon 9700 in the 15" is a better card with better driveers than the nVidia FX5200 in the 12", it is only noticeable when playing games.

That about sums up the hardware. The software is what really sets ANY Mac apart from the rest of the comptuer industry. Mac OSX Tiger is simply worlds beyond Windows XP or Linux. Windows XP crashes often, is a virus magnet that requires constant power-sapping scanning software and is just clunky and crude in its use. Linux, while extremely powerful and stable, is still for geeks only when trying to get simply things like DVD movie playback working.

Of course, until there is an MS Office for Linux, it will always be a geek-toy as most of us cannot use file-format translation. Simply put, open a Word document with complex formatting in OpenOffice or anything else other than real MS Word, and you will spend some time reformatting that document. That is jsut not acceptable in the business world, which runs almost exclusively on MS Office and MS Windows. Since the Mac version of MS Office uses the exact same file formats as the Windows version, there is no file-format translation to worry about, and documents do not require reformating as they do when opened in ANY other program.

In the end, I am very happy with my choice of the 15" PowerBook G4 as my office computer. I get a display large and nice enough for desktop replacement work in a machine that is still small and light enough that I'll bring it with me on longer trips.

*** Update 04/21/06 ***
On Tuesday I tried to upgrade the memory of my PowerBook from 1GB to 2 GB and ran into a bit of a snag. The lower memory slot is hit and miss, meaning it works most of the time, but occasionally the machine will slow down when there is memory installed in that slot, and "About This Mac" indicates that the computer doesn't see the memory. To confirm this, I took switched the ram from the upper slot to the lower and used only the one slot, and sure enough, the computer would not boot, instead giving three beeps and a blank screen.

This is a well-documented problem on 15" PowerBooks and I wasn't too upset. I thought getting it fixed would be a very simple matter due to the 2-year repair extension (and my computer still being under warranty). So, I went to my local Apple Store with PowerBook in hand to get it fixed. Things got ugly.

In the well-lit and crowded store my PowerBook decided to behave, and booted perfectly every time from either ram slot. Despite being under warranty, the Apple Store was unwilling to send the computer for repair on account of "nothing was wrong". Furthermore, they insisted that since my computer is outside of the serial number range for the memory slot problem that it couldn't be the slot and had to be the ram itself.

I drove home frustrated and went to turn on my computer, to you guessed it, three beeps. So, back to the Apple Store I went and this time I was able to show the problem in action. Long story short, I had to waste two trips and as many hours of my time to get this thing sent off for a repair that is so well documented that it shouldn't have been an issue. Actually when I bought the PowerBook I knew that more likely than not the lower ram slot would be bad.

Anyway, my PowerBook should be back Monday. Apple's website indicates that it was repaired, so with any luck it will come back working, will accept the memory and run in all its 2GB glory. I hope so, for while I love my 12" PowerBook, I bought the 15" for a reason.

*** Update 5/2/06 ***
I've had the laptop back from Apple for over a week, and to their credit, a new logic board was installed and the problems have not recurred. The laptop recognizes the full 2GB of RAM, and of course does not slow down regardless of how many applications are open at a given time.

My initial impression of the 15" PowerBook's utility compared to its little brother remains, however I am continually impressed by the quality of the screen, and disappointed by the sound of the speakers. The screen is simply the best laptop panel I have ever spent time with. I've seen the new MacBook Pro, and it is brighter, but I think that the 15" PowerBook, at least the low-res version that I have has more even backlighting. I have no complaints about brightness, find the contrast and color to be impecable, and consider the added screen real estate the only real benefit of the higher resolution screen on the newer PowerBook and current MacBook Pro In fact, even in the brightly-lit Apple store, I found the MacBook Pro to be a bit too bright when on its brightest setting, as I do the 20" iMac G5 and Samsung LCD monitors in my office and home.

The speakers are the only area where Apple has failed to live up to my expectations. The small 12" PowerBook has a wonderful 3-speaker system, with a pair of small tweaters that bounce their sound off of the open display, giving real stereo separation and an ambient quality to the sound that I've never before experienced in lowly laptop speakers. In addition, a mid range driver in the center of the hinge also reflects its sound off the screen, adding depth and fullness much as a subwoofer does to a home stereo, only on a much smaller scale. No, the 12" PowerBook does not fill a room with thundering sound, but it does sound good enough to use for background music at the office without making me wish even slightly for external powered speakers. Media-center type laptops with their JBL or Harman Kardon speakers might play louder, but I've not heard smoother or richer sound from a laptop's speakers than those of the 12" PowerBook. Sadly, the 15" and 17" PowerBooks do NOT share this system.

The 15" and 17" PowerBooks have convenional tweaters mounted to the left and right of the keyboard, covered by very cool-looking metal grils that match the finish of the old iSight camera. While the speaker grills look terrific, they cover a pair of whimpy speakers that point straight up into the air, offering no spatial ambience the way the reflected sound of the 12" PowerBook's speakers do. The lack of the midrange driver makes sure that there is no base and that music sounds tinny. In short, where the 12" PowerBook has the best laptop speakers I've ever encountered, the 15" and 17" PowerBooks, while sounding no worse than the average laptop, don't sound any better either.

At veryu low vollume they are fine, I suspect because Apple put those tweaters in a larger enclosure than on the 12", allowing them to produce lower frequencies than they can on the smaller computer. The midrange driver of the 12" model, however, so augments the high-frequencly-only tuning of the 12" model's tweaters that the 12" model really is adequate for movies in your hotel room without resorting to headphones.

I guess Apple reasoned that the larger models would spend more time on a desk with external speakers or headphones while travelling (to give real thundering sound to match the incredible widescreen picture), where the 12" owner would travel lighter, not likely caring about audiophile sound while watching movies on the small screen. Likewise, it could be that the 12" model was planned from the start as something that would spend a lot of time in hotel rooms, making decent music reproduction a very nice feature.

The sound on the 12" has really been one of those surprise and delight features that makes that machine into a very personal possession. The 15" has its own charms, like the illuminated keyboard and of course that gorgeous screen. The sad part is, there is obviously enough room in the 15" and 17" cases for the sound system from the 12" PowerBook, and at the prices of the larger models, I just can't see cost-cutting as a reason to skimp, especially since the 12" is the budget model and lacks the cool backlit keybaord that an ultraportable travel machine would actually get more use out of than a larger desktop-replacement type system.

Despite the sonic let-down, I really have come to like the 15" PowerBook. While the sound isn't as good as I'm used to, it is fine for the low vollumes that I listen in the office. The larger screen does what I wanted, displaying more of my documents, either zoomed to a larger size for easier reading without wearing my glasses, or at a normal size with room alongside for reference material or another document.

*** Update 5/20/06 ***
I've been using the 15" PowerBook for more than a month now, and in that time I believe I've really gotten a feel for the machine. I've also spent some time with the (unofficially) revised MacBook Pro and the new 13" MacBook, and with most of the problems on the original MacBook Pro solved, I thought it was time to reevaluate both the 15" PowerBook itself, and how well it works for me.

I'll come right out and say it. I REALLY like the new black MacBook. That said, with integrated graphics it won't be the Windows gaming machine that will move me off of the PowerPC platform. In addition, while it has the same resolution as my old-style 15" PowerBook, the 13.3" screen is just too small for primary desktop use. Finally, the 5.2lb weight is close enough to the larger 15" machines that the size-to-weight compromise is better on the large ones.

The MacBook Pro, however, is now my absolute dream machine. With a fast ATI X1600 graphics chip and either 128 or 256MB of graphics memory, the MBP most definitely IS an ideal Windows gaming laptop. With the noise issues solved by the new logic boards (make sure your serial number starts with the letter D), the MBP is finally ready for prime time and except for the size compared to my current 12" PowerBook, makes an ideal primary computer. The only thing holding me back is the price.

At a little more than half the price of the MBP, the 15" PowerBook, now rock-solid after getting a new logic board from Apple, is every bit as nice with the singular exception of not running Windows and its huge selection of games. For getting work done, there just isn't any real difference for me at this point in time. Microsoft Office is not a universal application, nor is QuickBooks. Apple's Mail and Safari launch significantly faster as does the MacBook Pro itself (boot, not wake from sleep, which is the same speed), but in my regular work day, fast booting and quicker application launches amount to a few extra seconds at most.

As I mentioned in the main review, keyboard feel is identical between the PB and the MBP, as is the general look and feel fo the laptops. The MBP is a much better video chat machine as the camera is built-in, but for everything else there really is little difference other than speed. Speed is what Apple pushes in its advertising, and if you use your laptop for content creation with unversal applications, then the difference is real, as in 2-3 times faster (Apple claims 4 times faster).

If you spend a lot of time using Photoshop, you will get the opposite speed change in the new Intel machines. Photoshop is not universal yet, and therefore the fastest portable Photoshop machine on the Mac platform remains the recent model PowerBooks.

I've really come to like the 15" PowerBook. It took a while for it to grow on me as it is not as handy as the 12", but WHOA, THAT SCREEN! Once you watch a DVD movie in all its widescreen glory on a 15" PowerBook, all distinction between PowerBook and MacBook suddenly become insignificant. Whatever the magazines or Apple says, there is a whole lot of life left in these PowerPC portables.

***Update 05/24/06***
Wow, I keep coming back to this review, perhaps because of how much this computer is growing on me. I've actually started taking the 15" PowerBook with me on some of my outings instead of its little 12" brother, because the extra 1lb weight and hour of battery life just don't make up for the delight of the huge screen and backlit keys. I also found out that I was flat wrong about the speakers.

The speakers on my 15" rattled because the EQ function in iTunes was set with the lowest frequency slider all the way up (boosting the deep bass that the speakers cannot produce, BUT TRY VERY HARD TO. With the EQ functioned set properly, I've found that the sound is every bit as good as on the 12" at moderate volume levels, though it buzzes when played loud. The 12" has the edge for sure, but the 15" is better than my first impression, and more than up to using for movies or music in the hotel room.

Next month I will be spending four days at a legal conference in Texas, and plan on bringing a laptop with me to take notes during the conference, watch movies on the airplane, and video chat with my family from my hotel room. Initially I assumed I would bring the 12" with me for its more compact dimensions and better sound, but now I'm not sure. I'll be alone in a hotel room every night and prefer not to waste my money on entertainment, so I tend to watch a lot of movies on trips like this. The 15" PowerBook really is that good for movies.

The other reason my 15" PowerBook gets out of the office more is just the convenience of having everything on one computer. I find that it is just convenient to have the same set of documents and not worry if I have the latest revisions, which carrying the 15" PowerBook does for me. I'll also say again, THE SCREEN IS AWESOME. Just this morning I spent a few hours waiting at a coffee shop so that I could avoid morning traffic, and working on the 15" screen was so much nicer than the 12" on the smaller unit.

Chances are the 12" PowerBook will see less and less use, serving mainly as a backup machine and possibly even going to my daughter who now wants a laptop of her own. Its a VERY nice laptop for a middle-school child, but then good tools are never a disadvantage.

To sum up my 15" PowerBook experience thus far, I'll just say that my first impression has proven to be far short of the actual experience. I keep thinking about the joy of Windows games on the MacBook Pro, but when I open up my 15" PowerBook any thought of selling it goes right out the Window. This is, quite simply, the best laptop that I have ever used. It is fast, stable, beautiful and very powerful.