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Dec 23 - Jan 6, 2001 |
G4 Titanium Powerbook
The future is Titanium
By Alessandro Cancian
Originally Published: 2001-08-26
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PowerBook G4 Titanium
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At times, returning a product turns out to be one of the most difficult accomplishments. This time, however, the problem wasn’t related to late couriers or other mishaps in transit, but only because the product really, really impressed me. Apple’s latest top-of-the-line laptop left its mark on me during the all-too-brief period of my test.
Some time ago, Apple Canada had finally managed to send me a unit for a test drive, despite the very high demand. The system was a 500mhz G4 processor with 256 MB of Ram, equipped with everything one could ask of a laptop, i.e. Airport Wireless card and DVD-ROM drive. But aside from technical characteristics, the entire system is a real piece of art.
Its design strikes the eye as soon as the machine comes out of its packing. Entirely built in titanium (hence the name of G4 Titanium), with a very sophisticated metallic look, the portable is just one inch thick and comes with an extra wide 15.2-inch TFT screen. The weight is also very good, in comparison with its predecessors: just 5.3 pounds. Sitting on my desk, this little gem made my two portables — a one-year-old Dell and a Powerbook G3 — look like museum specimens.
Maybe it was the futuristic design, the unusual metallic look, or that incredible screen able to perfectly reproduce DVDs; in any case, the G4 seemed to be years in advance. The default operating system is Mac OS 9.1, but the laptop comes with Mac OS X pre-installed. Although the new OS X is a pleasant experience, OS 9.1 remains the system of choice if one wants to exploit the machine’s potential in full, e. g. for DVD playback.
The PowerBook G4 ships with Apple’s easy to use video editing software, iMovie 2, and this, coupled with its FireWire (IEEE-1394) ports, turns it into a veritable portable video recording studio. There’s also a copy of Apple’s iTunes, where you can import music from CDs, play back MP3s, access internet radio stations within an abstract framework of visual effects portraying the various rhythms. What is missing is an office suite such as AppleWorks for writing documents or spreadsheets.
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