12" PowerBook G4

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PowerBook

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PowerBook G4

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Tech Specs

12″ PowerBook G4 (Early 2003)

LEM Staff - 2003.01.07

Just two months after Apple boosted the 15.2″ PowerBook to 1 GHz, they surprised a lot of people by rolling out both the largest and the smallest PowerBooks ever, including the first 12″ PowerBook G4.

The 12″ PowerBook G4 is the first PowerBook in years without a PC Card slot. It’s also the only current model without DVI support and an official memory ceiling of 640 MB. It supports 10 and 100 Mbps ethernet, but not gigabit ethernet. In some respects, it’s more like an aluminum-clad 12″ iBook upgraded with a G4 than a low-end PowerBook.

New features include built-in Bluetooth and support for “five times faster” 802.11g AirPort Extreme. It is the first Apple portable to ship with Nvidia GeForce 4 420 Go graphics as well as DDR SDRAM. Unlike the similar 12″ iBook, the 12″ PowerBook G4 supports monitor spanning.

At 867 MHz, this just meets the minimum installation requirements for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

The 12″ PowerBook G4 had the third-smallest footprint of any Apple notebook to date at 93.74 square inches, beat out by the PowerBook 2400c (89.25 square inches) and barely edged out by the PowerBook 100 (93.50 square inches). It had the lowest total volume of any Mac ‘Book until the MacBook Air was introduced in 2008.

Closed Lid Mode

All PowerBook G4s support “lid closed” (or clamshell) mode, which leaves the built-in display off and dedicates all video RAM to an external display.

To used closed lid mode, your ‘Book must be plugged into the AC adapter and connected to an external display and a USB or Bluetooth mouse and keyboard (you might also want to consider external speakers). Power up your ‘Book until the desktop appears on the external display and then close the lid. Your ‘Book will go to sleep, but you can wake it by moving the mouse or using the keyboard. The built-in display will remain off, and the external monitor will become your only display. Since all video RAM is now dedicated to the external monitor, you may have more colors available at higher resolutions.

The PowerBook G4 is designed to run safely in closed lid mode, but if yours runs hot (perhaps due to overclocking or high ambient temperatures), you may want to open the lid when in closed lid mode: The screen will remain off and the computer will more easily vent heat from the CPU.

To resume use of the internal display, you need to disconnect the external display, put the computer to sleep, and then open the lid. This will wake up your ‘Book and restore use of the built-in display.

What You Need to Know

  • This PowerBook G4 12″ has the ATA/100 standard, so it is not limited to the 128GB drive limitation of earlier models.
  • The bootable drive size limit for this model is 2.19 TB, via the Apple Partition Map. This ‘Book can read and write (but cannot boot) from any size GUID partition table drive.
  • Note that some vendors are substituting PC2700 RAM for PC2100 modules. You can’t use both types of RAM in the same machine, and since onboard RAM is PC2100, you cannot use PC2700 in this ‘Book.
  • This ‘Book uses a 133 MHz bus instead of a 167 MHz System Bus Speed.

Details

  • Announced January 7th, 2003
  • Apple model number: A1010 (EMC 1931)
  • Model ID: PowerBook6,1
    • Order Number: M8760LL/A
    • Reduced to $1599 on June 2nd, 2003
  • Nickname: “Little AlBook”
  • Discontinued on September 16th, 2003

How it stacks up in Geekbench

  • Version 2.4.3: 441 (12″ 867 MHz) / 576 (17″ 1 Ghz) / 918 (’03 1.6 SP G5)

Unsupported Mac OS 9/ Mac OS X

  • Although it is not officially supported, the 12″ PowerBook G4 1 Ghz can run Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard using a MacRumors community developed build. It is currently still in development based off the Darwin 10.8.0 kernel compiled from source. See LEM Article.
  • It is also possible to install Mac OS 9 “unofficially” using the “Mac OS 9 Lives!” disk image.

Core System

This PowerBook G4 shipped with a PowerPC G4 Motorola 7445 or 7455 180nm CPU. System Bus is 133 MHz, and the CPU is soldiered (not on any card or socket).

  • ($1799): 867 Mhz, 1 Processor, 1 Core, 1 Thread, 1 Core Per-CPU
    18.8W TDP, 64KB L1, 256KB L2, No L3 backside cache, 33M Transistors
    CPU Instructions: Altivec Velocity Engine, VMX, VMX128, AND, XOR, OR
    .
  • ROM: 1 MB NewWorld ROM, other instructions loaded into RAM.

Video

Mac includes DVI-to-VGA adapter, and an S-Video to Composite adapter in box.

  • ($1799): GeForce4 420 Go, 32 MB DDR SDRAM @~3.2 GB/s, Celcius, 64-Bit Bus
    • 29 Million Transistors, 150 nm process size, AGP 4x @ 1066 MB/s, TSMC
    • 200 MHz GPU clock, 200 MHz Memory clock (400 Mb/s effective), ~7-15W TDP
    • 2 Pixel Shaders, 4 TMUs, 2 ROPs, DX7, OpenGL 1.5, Pixel 1.1 Vertex 1.1
      .
  • Built-In 12″ Active Matrix, XGA TFT (Thin Film Transistor), CCFL-Backlit LCD Display with a native resolution at 1024 x 768.
    • “Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display at 24-Bit, millions of colors and a Dual/Mirror display setup with a maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200″

Memory

  • 256 MB 266 MHz PC-2100 DDR SDRAM ~2.11 GB/s
    • Configurable to 640 MB through Apple, unofficially can use 1152 MB through the use of a single 1 GB stick.

Drives

  • 40 GB 4200 rpm ATA/100 IDE (ATA-6)
  • 8X Combo Drive (Write: CD-R 24x, CD-RW 10x)
    • (Read: DVD 8x, CD-ROM 24x)

Expansion/Misc

  • 2x USB 1.1 ports
  • 1x FW 400 port
  • 1x Mini VGA port
  • 100 Mb/s Ethernet (RJ-45 style connector)
  • 56k v.92 Modem (RJ-11 style connector)
    • Optional WiFi: IEEE 802.11g AirPort Extreme (Wifi 3, 54 Mb/s)
  • Fiber Optic LED-Backlit keyboard with Ambient Light Sensor
  • Bluetooth 1.1
  • Singular Internal Microphone
  • Stereo Speakers
  • 3.5 mm Headphone Jack
  • 3.5 mm Microphone Jack
  • Kensington Security Lock
  • Apple barrel jack style power plug

Battery

  • 47 Watt-Hour Lithium-Ion Battery
    • Estimated by Apple to last 5 hours under “normal conditions”

Included In Box

  • 867 MHz 12″ PowerBook G4
  • “Square” style 45 Watt Power Brick
  • Power Brick extension cord
  • Power Brick 2-Prong wall socket adapter
  • “Designed by Apple in California” sheet
  • Mini VGA to S-Video/Composite, and VGA adapters
  • May include Modem Cable (RJ-11 style connector)
  • 17″ PowerBook G4 software restore CDs (Mac OS X Jaguar 10.2.3)
  • Documentation includes quite a few things:
    • A User’s guide, Apple stickers, Warranty Information, AppleCare, Software License Agreement, Mac OS X Jaguar Documentation, Coupons, Product Registration info, Information Transfer Guide, and a Bluetooth Guide.

Physical

  • Size:H/W/D 1.18 x 10.9 x 8.6 in/3.0 x 27.7 x 21.9 cm
  • Weight: 4.6 lb./2.1 kg

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