Apple PowerBook G4 15.2 in. (M8981LLABUNDLE) Mac Notebook

When I first laid eyes on the first Aluminum PowerBook I thought it was the best-looking laptop ever made. I only came to be more and more impressed with the laptop as time went on.

This is one of the thinest and lightest full-featured laptops you can get. The 1.25Ghz G4 processor is surprisingly fast and easily keeps up with the latest applications. Coupled with the 64MB graphics card I am easily able to run the latest Mac games like Stubbs the Zombie, Doom 3, and various Star Wars games. All run smoothly and look great on the 15.2 inch LCD screen.

I also love the fact that this computer has all of the latest periphrial connections such as 2 USB 2.0 ports, 2 Firewire ports, a DV output, S-video out, gigabit ethernet, and bluetooth. You can easily connect to the internet thanks to the built-in Airport card or the 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) ethernet, or if you're still low-tech, or stranded at a hotel without broadband, you'll get a V.92 56k modem. This computer really flies on the net using Apple's Safari browser. The PowerBook also comes with Apple's SuperDrive which allows you to easily burn DVDs and CDs using Apple's iTunes, iDVD, or a Burn Folder through OS X.

The PowerBook came with a surprising amount of bundled software, specifically Apple's iLife suite. iLife includes iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, as well as OS X standards such as iCal and the downloadable iTunes. These applications are perfectly integrated into OS X and let you do virtually anything you could ever want on a computer. iDVD allows you to create professional-looking DVDs of your own home movies as well as media you get from the internet. iMovie lets you cut together your own movies, as well as import video from your camera. iMovie includes great transitions, special effects, and other features which make Microsoft's Movie Maker look a decade out of date. iPhoto is a simple but powerful way to organize, print, share, and manipulate your photos. iCal is a nice application which can be used to store important dates and info, and integrates nicely into your .Mac account, or can be set to email reminders to any email address you'd like. Most everyone already knows about iTunes, Apple's famous jukebox, which easily helps you organize your favorite music, as well as buy new songs or albums (and now TV shows) from Apple's Music Store.

The best thing about the PowerBook is its portability. It's super thin (about an inch thick), super light (less than 6 pounds), and has a great widescreen 15.2 inch LCD. Due to the widescreen, the PowerBook isn't very long and can easily fit on airplane trays or the smallest desks. The included power adapter is also small and very lightweight, and therefore much easier to travel with than a typical power brick from other manufacturers. A cool feature of the power adapter is the light on the end of the cord which indicates the PowerBook's battery status. When connected to the side of the PowerBook, it lights up orange when the battery is charging, and is green when the battery is topped off. Nothing major, but a nice little feature Apple is so good about sneaking into products. The compact and light battery gives a great 4 hour battery life, or around 2.5 to 3 hours if you're watching a DVD.

Some fun features to show off to friends include the backlit keyboard, which automatically lights up when the room gets dark, allowing you to easily see what you're doing. The speakers at the sides have light sensors hidden inside the grill which control the keyboard backlight, as well as the LCD brightness. Speaking of the speakers, although they are quite small in size (the cone of the speaker is about the size of a US quarter) they produce great full sound and can get surprisingly loud. The PowerBook even includes a small subwoofer hidden under the keyboard! Therefore the surprisingly high-quality sound system makes watching DVDs or listening to music a joy.

Volume controls, LCD brightness, optical drive eject, and keyboard backlight controls all reside on the top of the keyboard coupled with the Function keys. You'll also get the imbedded trackpad with a single button, easily to use for basic computing, but I'd suggest an external mouse if you're planning on playing games.

Also, if you're interested in gaining some extra functionality out of the onboard trackpad I'd suggest checking out a program called SideTrack from Raging Menace which allows you to program the surface of the trackpad to function as a multi-button scrolling mouse. I've currently got the bottom and right edges of the trackpad set for scrolling and the top-right corner set for providing a right-click. This modification allows you to significantly increase your productivity and just makes OS X use a lot easier to use in general.

As far as problems go, there aren't many. The power adapter connector on my PowerBook is kind of shaky, it stops charging sometimes and I'll have to turn it in order for the connection to be made again. Sometimes a friend will use my PowerBook and won't realize the adapter has come loose and they'll have drained the battery which racks up charge cycles.

Other than that (which may just be limited to my PB) I really don't have ANY issues with this laptop. It's as close to perfect as you can get. A powerful, thin, light, quiet, long lasting, and ultra-cool looking portable from Apple. Do yourself a favor and buy one!