Home > Consumer Reviews > Apple PowerBook Laptop 17" M8793LL/A (1.0-GHz PowerPC G4, 512 MB RAM, 60 GB Hard Drive, DVD-R/CD-RW Drive)

I finally got my 17" after an agonizing wait. It has easily replaced my old G4 tower. The big screen is ample. Being a bigger machine, it is still easily portable and has no problem handling many apps open in OS X. The smooth aluminum design is sleek and nice to the touch. The keyboard is comfortable. I got a couple dead pixels, but I have to live with this--Apple won't fix that. As of late, the left fan has a high-pitched buzz. I think some of the casing tolerances may not be enough--it seems to go away when I fiddle with the angle of the screen. Otherwise, this is a wonderful system and comes highly recommended.

Very nice screan is the first thing you'll notice here. The side to side angle of view is pretty wide, while the top to bottom isn't. You'll need to have the screan angled directly at you for optemimal viewing. The promised battery life is a joke of course. Without using the optical drive at all you might get 2.5 hours from it. I suspect the promised 4.5 hours happens only if the hard drive never moves and backlighting is off. It does seem to sleep for a good long time on battery though. As others have mentioned, the cooling system is a bit awkward. You have to keep the machine on a hard flat surface or it will overheat. The track pad is really awkward and I really dislike it. You cannot tap the pad instead of clicking the button the way i can on my addesso keyboard. That means mouse chores are two handed. The last down-side i can think of are the built in speakers. Don't expect much here, they're only basic speakers not loud enough or full frequency. You'll need to hook up something external to get a decent sound.

On the up side; This a nice slim design and the machine seems very stable. I have not problem putting it to sleep and taking to and from my office. (Be prepared to pay extra dough for the 17 inch carry case. I payed $... for mine!!!) It comes loaded with OS 10.2 which is a solid dependable OS. Among other things i use it for Final Cut Pro and deffinately adding the extra 512 ram is a good idea. The 1ghz speed is nice, handles big jobs smoothly. The reason I got this one instead of the 15 inch was because i thought i'd like extra screan realestate. I do think it's worth the extra $... Finally I can goof off and watch a dvd on this thing in my office. That's pretty cool;)

Bottom line is this an expensive machine with lots of plusses and several minuses. I'm glad i got it and would get it again. Just, don't expect too too much.

I have finally tried out a new PowerBook 17", and it was great. Everything in a desktop computerin an oversized PowerBook case. This can run anything I threw at it easily, and it looks great. A new light keyboard makes this great too. With larger speakers, music sounds normal, not like a pillow is covering the speakers. While this is great, it is not a laptop. This thing is a behemoth. It is so big and heavy, I don't think it is meant to be portable. Why not have a desktop if you can't move this thing. Other than that this is a great mac, with infinite possiblities.

I've had this laptop for close to three months now, and I have to say that it's a truly remarkable innovation. The aesthetics, of course, are perfect, but that's just the beginning. After using OS X (though this might be a separate review) it is virtually impossible to be satisfied using Windows, although I've used Windows all my life. I've had very few problems with this laptop, and those that I did have I fixed easily. I highly recommend it.

I have finally tried out a new PowerBook 17", and it was great. Everything in a desktop computerin an oversized PowerBook case. This can run anything I threw at it easily, and it looks great. A new light keyboard makes this great too. With larger speakers, music sounds normal, not like a pillow is covering the speakers. While this is great, it is not a laptop. This thing is a behemoth. It is so big and heavy, I don't think it is meant to be portable. Why not have a desktop if you can't move this thing. Other than that this is a great mac, with infinite possiblities.