PowerBook 15-inch

The long-awaited aluminium overhaul of the 15-inch PowerBook came at the Mac Expo in Paris back in September, and although many Mac fanatics were disappointed with the specs, this update brings some interesting features to the designer’s favourite laptop. It’s a difficult one to assess, with the announcement and current shipment of the G5 desktops – a G4 PowerBook seems old even on the day it’s released. Nevertheless, Apple has made an effort to consolidate the PowerBook line and drop in the fastest G4 processors it has.

The model we’re looking at is the top-end PowerBook, costing nigh-on two grand and sporting a 1.25GHz G4. This is coupled with one of the best mobile graphics cards around – the ATI Radeon 9600 Mobility. This model also features a 2x slot-loading SuperDrive, meaning you can burn DVDs on the move, 512MB RAM and one FireWire port, a FireWire 800 port, two USB 2 ports, gigabit ethernet and DVI-out, s-video out and a PCMCIA slot.

All this connectivity makes the PowerBook an ideal desktop replacement for all but the most demanding of tasks, and it hooked up to our 20-inch Cinema Display (by means of the Apple DVI to ADC converter, sold for £79) without a problem. The PowerBook 15-inch – like the entire range – has BlueTooth built-in, meaning you can pair and sync a number of devices, as well as use Apple’s recently announced wireless keyboard and mouse. Wireless networking is provided in the form of a built-in Airport Extreme card.

Onto aesthetics. The aluminium housing looks every bit as good as its 12-inch and 17-inch brothers, and ports are arranged on the side, keeping everything simple and compact. This laptop looks fantastic, and it feels rugged enough to be knocked around a little. One thing that worries us is the noticeable gap between keyboard and screen when the laptop is closed, but this could be Apple’s way of preventing the keyboard damaging the screen.

On the subject of the keyboard, this model sports the same backlight system as the original 17-inch PowerBook (available as a £50 build-to-order option on the lower-end 1GHz model). It may sound like a gimmick, but if you’ve worked on a laptop in a poorly lit room, possibly showing a client a presentation, you’ll love it. The screen acts in a similar way – as the light in a room decreases, the screen dims. Our review model had no dead pixels.

The laptop runs silently, it won’t burn your legs if it’s sitting on your lap, and the instant-on sleep feature makes shutting down a thing of the past. One niggle, though: the model we reviewed featured a 4200rpm 80GB hard drive, and boot-up times were slow to say the least.

It took around a minute and a half for the Mac to boot – making the instant-on feature all the more useful.

This is a fantastically designed and engineered portable Mac that has enough power for day-to-day Photoshop, Web and layout work. More portable than the 17-inch model, a better size for designers than the 12-incher, it will undoubtedly be one of Apple’s best-selling models yet.