Home > Consumer Reviews > Apple PowerBook Laptop 15.2" M8981LL/A (1.25-GHz PowerPC G4, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD-R/CD-RW Drive)

My PowerBook has been accidentally dropped twice. The first time it fell from a table as my kids were watching a DVD movie from the laptop. The second time my carrying fell from a reception counter. The PowerBook is still running as if nothing had happened.

I have to add my comments as well after reading some of the support stories. I am a software developer that works with many macs, and can attest to the fact that when things do go wrong (which fortunately is not that often, I think the powerbook quality is excellent compared to any other computer on the market) but when they do go wrong, you will be almost guaranteed a hellish ordeal.

If you break the computer yourself, by far the most common thing I have seen, it won't matter if you have an applecare warranty, because accidents are not covered, only defects. In this case, you will find prices to be outrageous for parts, rendering the notebooks essentially unrepairable, ie. it will be cheaper to buy a new one, which, as you know, is not cheap.

I give this product 3 stars, because although it is like the ferrari of the computer world (both in price and quality), you don't have to take a ferrari back to italy for excellent service for a lot less than the original cost. A powerbook on the other hand, will be inescapably expensive no matter what if something goes wrong, both in time, frustration and money.

P.S. I had a similar applecare warranty experience as the person who wrote the previous review as well with one of the machines.

About a year ago, when researching the market for a computer system for my photography business, 9 out of 10 photography / graphics professionals highly recommended that I buy a Mac for my business. So I did. What a BIG mistake! I bought a G4 PowerBook, and since taking it out of the box, I have had nothing but problems. I am on my third disc drive, have a severe overheating problem (PowerBooks have a history of this, including melting keyboards), continuously have to deal with software issues, and now have a screen defect. And to make matters worse, Apple's customer service is, by far, the most appalling of its kind.(...)

Received the powerbook and discovered the famous OS X is a system designed for multiple users. This means when you turn it on it sets up your ISP the first thing so it can register your machine with Apple. It does not tell you that it has created a password for you as an administrator. Before you can do anything else on the PB the pop up window demands the password you didn't intentonally create or want at this stage. Looking at the little top secret dots I counted 7 which is the correct number for my last name. I entered my last name in 5 different ways and two languages with no luck. The help app called a "finder" told me how to change this elusive password by loading the included disc with lots of back up info and a copy of the OS. Are you ready for this? Before I could use the disc I had to type in the elusive password! A small glass of scotch and a call to tech support got the password changed. I then looked over the included software which contains a suite known as Quickbooks, new user edition. Needing to address an envelope I opened the word processor, set up the printer, cliked on print and received a window that says this edition doesn't support printing, but if you click on "Buy" the real edition (for $200+) will print just fine. This from a machine that costs around 3 grand!
I am an old dude. 65+. I've owned a lot of stuff. Apple has 3% of market share. They are not likely to increase that in my life time.