Home > Consumer Reviews > Apple PowerBook Laptop 12" M9184LL/A (1.33-GHz PowerPC G4, 256 MB RAM, 60 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive)

After waiting for a third revision of the 12 inch PowerBook, I decided to get one. I decided on the 12 inch because of the very portable size and the lower price. In addition to the standard features I opted for 256 MB of RAM (for a total of 512 MB) and the larger, faster hard drive (80GB @ 5400 rpm). I just couldn't imagine 256 MB of RAM being adequate for my needs, and everyone says the 5400 rpm HD is so much faster than 4200 rpm, so that and an addional 20 GB of space made it a no brainer. Anyway, this is my first Mac. I'm in art school and that's all we use there, and it's all the industry uses, not to mention that Apple gave me an enormous credit line when all I wanted to do was buy an iPod.

This is a great machine. Everything about it is so elegant. A friend of mine has a Gateway laptop, and I find it offensive by comparison. Not only is it big and ugly and plastic with ports on every side of it, but it has horrible ergonomics (a weird keyboard with narrower keys that are not the standard size and a horrible set of mouse buttons) and a typical but still cheesy optical drive that you have to slide out and then snap the disc onto the spindle. I guess what this says is that I've become a Mac snob, but the PowerBook is just so beautiful and so much more thoughtfully designed, all the ports are on the left side, and there are no legacy ports that no uses anymore any way, and on the right is the snappy slot-loading SuperDrive, for which I can not even describe the satisfaction you get when you put in a disc and it sucks it out of your fingers, giving a soft mechanical sound afterward as it mounts it. Also great is the latch, it's magnetic so that the clasp only manifests when it's near the other half of the laptop when you go to close it, when you open it, it retracts back into its slot, so there is no little metal thing sticking out the top of the display. I have had no problems with it, and I'd also like to note that I have no problem with the keys dirtying or scuffing the display, when the PowerBook is closed there is no contact between the two, it looks like Apple increased the amount of space between the two, because I know in the past a lot of people have complained about this happening. None of this is to mention the Mac OS, but this isn't a review of that, although I will say that while both Mac OS and Windows have their strengths and weaknesses, the Mac OS does have a curious way of some how making you feel more engaged with whatever it is you are doing, and just feels and looks a lot nicer to boot.

There are a few things I don't like about the PowerBook. One is the speakers, although that is minor. They sound as good as you can expect them too, but the volume doesn't go as loud as you would expect. Second is that this thing can get very hot. If you just have it on your lap for awhile expect it to get uncomfortably warm eventually. If the PowerBook is very well ventilated I noticed heat doesn't become a problem, but if you are hanging out in bed or on the couch without some sort of table or something, and it's actually on the bed or even your lap, it can get pretty hot. I never really use this thing at a desk, because I can't stand sitting at one and that's why I wanted a notebook to begin with. I guess there isn't much Apple can do about it, maybe use faster fans or something, but as they are the fans are pretty quiet, where as, to bring up the Gateway, the fans on that thing are really intrusively loud, although it does stay a lot cooler.

Everything else is great. I love that it is cased in aluminum. It feels and looks great, and when you tell people it's aluminum they are always impressed. The battery lasts a good while and, if you flip the PowerBook over there is a little button you can press that will cause a row of LCDs next to it to light up and reveal the remaining charge. These lights also blink to indicate the charge status while the PowerBook is charging. There are great features to use when the 'Book is closed and you don't want to open it and wake it just to check the battery status. Also nice is how the plug itself, where it plugs into the machine, has a led that glows orange if it is charging and green if the the battery is full.

Anyway, the keyboard has full sized keys, and after you get used to the inherently different dynamics of a laptop keyboard, it feels very nice. Unfortunately there is no option for the backlit keyboard like there is on the larger models. The trackpad is a trackpad, it's certainly a lot better than my friend's horrible Gateway one, which is actually smaller than the PowerBook's but is paired to a 15 inch screen (figure that one out!). On the whole the computer is really quite fast and responsive and just a pleasure to use with ZERO frustrating wait time for something small and stupid to respond or occur, which is so nice because i have ZERO patience, and the included Airport Extreme card is nice and saved me the expense of buying one separately. The reception seems pretty good, I was sitting in a park across the street from a hotel and had two bars showing, and was able to surf comfortably for an hour before I decided to leave. I can't comment on the Bluetooth as I don't own any Bluetooth devices yet.

The SuperDrive seems fast, although I haven't really burned much with it yet, mostly CD-RW back ups and a small backup to a DVD which didn't take as long as I thought it might if that counts for anything. I copied a couple music CDs and that went extremely quickly.

As for the screen, well, particularly if you put it side by side with the larger models it will seem small. But once I started using it, within 10 minutes I adapted completely to the size and it seems perfect now. Although I am an art student and do use a lot of graphic applications, the screen is adequate for me. Sometimes a higher resolution would be nice (it goes to 1024x768 max) but all that is really required is a little extra scrolling and zooming in and out in things like Photoshop than I am used to, and I have met people with 17 inchers who can't stand the size and weight when it comes time to take it with them somewhere, and I never have that problem because it's so small it fits in every bag perfectly and is very easy on the shoulders to carry. As for color and contrast they are of course great, it can wash out in the outdoors depending on the intensity of the sunlight, but any sort of color LCD will have that problem. If you are using it in even moderate shade you should be able to so comfortably, but If it's bright, direct sunlight though, forget it.

All in all I highly recommend this machine, it's such a joy in every way.

Ten years ago I had a Mac. Then I went to law school and discovered that I lived in a world dominated by Bill Gates's Microsoft. So I became a PC user. I spent this year in Iraq and I had a Compaq laptop with me that served me well. Then I saw the specs on the 12 inch G4 PowerBook with superdrive. It is all that people say and more. The keyboard is roomy and comfortable (hard to believe given the small size) and the iLife bundled software enabled me to take my hundreds of digital photos and MPEG clips and create a movie after just a few hours of work.

And for those who complain about the heat produced by the PowerBook, not true. The laptop, like all computers, gets a little warm, but at worse the heat is slightly uncomfortable.

The WiFi ability has me cruising the net wirelessly and easily. Simply put, this PowerBook has re-inventing computers for me.

As a lawyer and a soldier I primarily use MS Office. I bought Office for Mac and the stuff I produce at work runs seamlessly on my PowerBook, and the stuff I produce on my PowerBook runs seamlessly on my PC at work.

I flew from Kuwait to Germany to Newark this past week and the light weight of the PowerBook made it an instant hit with me.

This thing ranks up there with sliced bread and the TV remote control.

A little more room on the hard drive is all I would ask for, but, with my SuperDrive, I can save large files quickly.

As a freshman-to-be in college, I needed a new, lighter laptop, and this being my first Apple, I was a bit hesitant but dying for a change from the boring Windows XP systems I have been using. I love everything about this unit, from the style to the size to the DVD burner to Apple's iLife (GarageBand+loops is great); I have never used a browser faster than Safari, and I love using Apple's Mail program configured to AOL IMAP. The DVD burner works flawlessly (if you want to copy movies, I recommend purchasing DVD2ONE, which copies a full commercial DVD w/ features to one single DVD-R...the program is a bit expensive at 39 euros, but it is worth it...it works perfectly with U.S.-encoded NTSC DVDs). iMovie and iDVD are perfect for my needs, and Final Cut Express (student pricing: $150) is perfect for the high-powered video I need. Office 2004 for the Mac is a great bundle and truthfully better than its Windows counterpart. Battery life is impressive at about 4 hours; in fact I got through 2 hours and 55 minutes of a 3 hour movie before the battery died (screen at 50% brightness). Internal wireless is the best performance I have used (in the past I have owned a HP Pavilion zt3010us as well as a Compaq TC1000 Tablet). Performance is great unless you are looking to run extremely intense programs/games (go for an Apple G5 Desktop then...). Games run well, however...I only have tried two: X-Plane (the excellent flight simulator...beats Microsoft's easily), and SimCity 4...both run flawlessly without any changes in rendering (X-Plane slows down when scenery gets extremely complex).

(...). I run my system at 768MB and find performance to be perfect.

Some fun apps to install (search Google or versiontracker.com): iComic (downloads web-based comics to your computer, like FoxTrot, Garfield, Cathy, etc), WeatherPop (displays local weather in the top toolbar), Synergy (allows you to control iTunes from the toolbar, and shows album art for 4 seconds as a translucent pop-up), Watson (beefed up Sherlock program...basically a do-all web-interface for movie tickets, weather, recipes, eBay tracking, etc. without a web browser), DVD2One (www.dvd2one.com), VLC Media Player (plays any video file imagineable...free program), and Roxio Toast 6 (awesome CD/DVD Burner...costs $79).

All in all, I love this machine and give it a perfect 5 stars.

(...) I used to have an I-Mac That I had upgraded with Jaguar, It was so slow. My Parents bought me my powerbook with superdrive. Its so much faster than my imac, plus a DVD Burner, This is Definitley a Must buy. I haved used macs for a few years now and I am very impressed with the powerbook. The twelve inch is great if you like to travel and still keep up with buisness. The transition from PC to mac is really easy. Dont let the price get you down, It is totaly worth it.

-ryan

I was really in the market for a small lightwieght PC notebook. But as the only ones I could find below 2000$ did not match my basic needs (good grafics, linux compatible) and I could not afford the top of the line 3500$ notebooks. I decided to settle for a 12" powerbook.

Since I was visiting the US at the time of purchase I thought I would buy it from the Apple store and meet with my future companion first hand. At first I was rather mesmorised by how sexy it was... But I thought that was just puppylove and that it would wear off after a while. So I scrutinsed the screen, the ports, the graphics and the drives. As the only other candidate that still would stand a chance agianst the 12" PB specs was a slightly more expensive and physically larger Dell that I had never seen apart from a wonkey picture on thier website. I took the plunge.

I invested my meager student allowance into the beast.

At first I thought I would replace the OS with linux and that I would have alot of problems with a win2000 only GIS software that I have to use for school. But, now, 6 months down the line this amazing machine is still as sexy as ever. It runs my wonkey GIS software (requires almost 3 reboots during installation) through virtual PC much faster than my old PII400. And I have yet to get around to putting linux on it as OSX just keeps blowing my mind. Everytime I want to do something, someone has already thought of that and implemented it as default in the OS.

The only problem I have had is, after a month the computer failed to recognise the builtin bluetooth, even after re-installing OSX the problem persisted and none of the packaged diagnostic software could detect any probs. After a week without bluetooth I decided to go down to the local apple store and have them sort it out. But just as I picked up the PB of my desk my mobile connected to it. And as strange as it seems I have had no problems with bluetooth since, despite rigorouse testing.

Overall this laptop gives the impression of being EXTREMLY well built. And I have yet to encounter any other laptop of this build quality (having worked for advertising firms where a 7000$ was the standard for running powerpoint presentations, with the justification that -we have to show our power through our superior laptops), this is in fact quiete a acheivment for any laptop, especially a sub 2000$ one. The bluetooth failure had me worried for a while but the overall build of the laptop keeps screaming well built and as such I dont think about that problem anymore. I just keep throwing it into my bag, taking it with me to classes and seminars, guiding it throught the worst student town weather/storms without complaints.

And to all you peze lovers out there, my beast comes to life in under 2s. I just open the lid and it wakes up offering to perform the most complex mathamatical functions. I havent had a virus since I got it. And the battery last for 5 hours without any hickups. I dont think you can beat this with any PC. If you dont think any of this is REALLY important, as I did before i went mac. I mean its not REALLY that important... But to tell you the truth, it is... Just try it, and you will find you probably can not live without it.

To summerise my 12" PB has suprised my in ways i did not expect it to, and has by far surpassed my expectations so far. And although i, out of principle, never award anything the top mark, I am happy to award something that keeps surprising me a 5/5.