Compiled by Charles Moore
and edited by
Dan Knight
- 2003.06.06
Except as noted, prices are in US dollars.
Apple Chops PowerBook Prices
The big news this week in the Apple portable orbit was some
significant price cuts on new machines, which will of course filter
down in the form of corresponding price drops on used units.
In the US, only the 12" LittleAl 'Book and 15" TiBook prices
were reduced, but Canadians, who have complained that Apple's
computer pricing has been slow to adjust to the roughly 12 percent
rise in the value of the Loonie versus the US dollar since the
first of the year, got a more comprehensive round of price cuts,
including the 17" PowerBook and the iBook line as well as the 12"
and 15" PowerBooks.
Prices of its 12" and 15" PowerBook G4 models dropped by up to
US$300. The 12" PowerBook G4 is now available at $1,599, a
reduction of $200, and the base 15" Titanium PowerBook is now
available at $1,999 - a drop of $300. iBook prices have not been
changed, but PowerBook prices and configurations are now as
follows:
- PowerBook 12" Combo: $1,599
- PowerBook 12" SuperDrive: $1,799
- PowerBook G4 Titanium 867 MHz: $1,999
- PowerBook G4 Titanium 1 GHz: $2,599
- PowerBook G4 1 GHz 17": $3,299
In the Great White North, the Apple Canada Store now offers the
BigAl PowerBook 17" for $4,699, down from $5,299, but still higher
than in the US at the current exchange of $1.00 US = $1.37 Canadian
(1 CAD = 0.73 USD), even though the U.S. price on this model
(US$3,299) has not been cut.
Other Canadian Apple portable prices (in Canadian dollars):
- iBook 12" CD-ROM: $1,429
- iBook 12" Combo: $1,849
- iBook 14" Combo: $2,149
- PowerBook 12" Combo: $2,249
- PowerBook 12" SuperDrive: $2,549
- PowerBook 15 Combo: $2,849
- PowerBook 15 SuperDrive: $3,699
Apple Ninth in Laptop Sales Globally
Cnet's John G. Spooner reported
this week that:
"Hewlett-Packard was king of the hill in notebook PC shipments
during the first quarter...
"Meanwhile, Apple Computer ranked ninth, with 298,000 units
shipped. Apple was behind eighth-ranked Acer's 428,000 units, but
Apple shipped more than twice as many units as tenth-placed
Gateway, which mustered only 111,000 units during the quarter."
How to Identify Different PowerBook G4
Models
Apple has posted a new
Knowledge Base article explaining how to distinguish the
various PowerBook G4 computers from one another.
DiskGO! USB Watch Flash Drive
Peripheral Enhancements
Corporation has announced that it has partnered with PC
Connection, Inc. to launch 
the
new EDGE DiskGO! USB Watch Flash Drive. This latest offering from
Peripheral's DiskGO! line of USB products will be sold exclusively
through PC
Connection over the next thirty days.
The DiskGO! Watch is available in 128 MB and 256 MB capacities
and serves as a fully functional watch with an integrated USB 1.1
Flash Drive. The DiskGO! Watch plugs directly into virtually any
computer's USB port and is plug-and-play compatible with all
popular operating systems. The DiskGO! Watch immediately appears as
a hard drive on the user's desktop, allowing easy transfer and
storage of pictures, MP3s, slide presentations, spreadsheets and
other data. The Watch's USB 1.1 drive writes at 1 MB per
second and reads at 4.2 MB per second. Secure Password Protection
software is built-in for added security.
"Gone are the days of users carrying a heavy laptop,
low-capacity floppy disks, or other cumbersome media from the
office to home, or from the office across the country simply to
transport important files. The DiskGO! Watch provides the ability
to take a PowerPoint file, for instance, to a meeting across the
country, while serving as an attractive wristwatch," said Brian
Sartorius, Vice President of Operations for Peripheral
Enhancements.
Kandi Stinson, VP Sales for the company, commented "We're
excited to be the first in the U.S. to offer this unique product to
the market and are pleased that PC Connection has partnered with us
for the launch. Our success with our existing DiskGO! USB Flash
drives prompted us to explore other form factor options and a
wristwatch was a unique and natural choice."
EDGE Memory DiskGO! USB Watch Flash Drives are exclusively
available for purchase at pcconnection.com and will be broadly
released to other Peripheral partners in early July.
IBM-Hitachi 2.5" 'Book Drives up to 80
GB
The Hitachi Travelstar 80GN is a 9.5 mm high, 4200 rpm, 2.5"
mobile hard disk drive. The Travelstar 80GN brings a 26th
generation addition to the long line of Travelstar family
drives.
The innovative hard drive design combines AFC Media, Fluid
Dynamic Bearing (FDB) motor technology, Giant Magnetoresistive
(GMR) heads, Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML) digital
channel, head load/unload technology, Enhanced Adaptive Batter Life
Extender™ (ABLE) 3.0, and an ATA/100 interface. With this
design, the Travelstar 80GN provides exceptional quietness, storage
capacity, performance, power management and quality required by
today's demanding notebook systems.
The new Travelstar 80GN breaks current areal density records by
allowing up to 70 Gb per square inch to be written on each disk.
This was achieved by adding another coating of "Pixie Dust" - or an
additional ruthenium/magnetic layer to create a five-layer sandwich
called laminated - "Pixie Dust". These additional layers bring even
higher thermal stability to the media, allowing data recording at
ultrahigh densities while maintaining data-integrity.
As a result, the Hitachi Travelstar drives are suitable for
demanding, high capacity Internet, digital audio, video streaming,
and real-time multimedia applications - whether users are in the
office or on the road.
The Hitachi Travelstar 80GN hard drive uses proven storage
technologies such as TrueTrack Servo, Drive Fitness Test™
(DFT), Self-Monitoring Analysis, and Reporting Technology
(S.M.A.R.T.), as well as an adaptive control device that helps
maintain high performance and fast seek times at high environmental
temperatures.
The Travelstar 40GNX redefined state-of-the-art storage for
mobile computing. The reduced acoustics, high speeds, and
capacities of Hitachi Travelstar drives support superior digital
content creation capabilities, higher quality digital audio and
video, and significantly faster processing for data-intensive
multimedia and Internet applications.
IBM-Hitachi 2.5" PowerBook drive features:
- Capacities from 20 to 80 GB, 4200 rpm, ATA-6 hard disk drive
80GN offers high capacity and high performance in the industry with
an 80 GB, 9.5 mm hard drive.
- 80GN provides areal densities of up to 70 Gb/sq.inch, yielding
up to 40 GB of capacity per disk
- All models contain Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) motor technology
for industry-leading idle and operating acoustic performance
- Travelstar leverages latest laminated
Antiferromagnetically-coupled (AFC) media, also known as "pixie
dust"
- Travelstar provides operational shock rating of up to 200 Gs (2
ms)
IBM-Hitachi 2.5" 30 GB Drive 40GN 4200 RPM
- 30 GB IBM Travelstar 4200 rpm 9.5 mm UltraSlim. 1 yr IBM
Warranty. Fits in all G3 (Wallstreet, Lombard, and Pismo) and G4
PowerBooks, will also fit in all iBooks (white 2001 iBook2 and
colored iBooks).
IBM-Hitachi 2.5" 40 GB Drive 40GN 4200 RPM
- 40 GB IBM Travelstar 40GN 4200 rpm 2048K Buffer 9.5 mm
UltraSlim. 1 yr IBM Warranty. Fits in all G3 (Wallstreet, Lombard,
and Pismo) and G4 PowerBooks, will also fit in all iBooks (white
2001 iBook2 and colored iBooks).
IBM-Hitachi 2.5" 40 GB Drive 40GNX 5400 RPM
- 40 GB IBM Travelstar 40GNX 5400 rpm 8192 KB Buffer 9.5 mm Slim.
Model IC25N040-AT-CS-05-0, IBM part number 07N9482. Fits in all
iBooks, G3 (Wallstreet, Lombard, and Pismo) and G4 PowerBooks.
IBM-Hitachi 2.5" 60 GB Drive 80GN 4200 RPM
- 60 GB IBM Travelstar 80GN "Moraga" Series Drive, 2.5" platter,
4200 RPM, 9.5 mm high, 12 ms avg. seek time, ATA-6 drive. Model
Number: IC25N060ATMR04. Fits in all iBooks, G3 (Wallstreet,
Lombard, and Pismo) and G4 PowerBooks.
IBM-Hitachi 2.5" 80 GB Drive 80GN 4200 RPM
- 80 GB IBM Travelstar 80GN "Moraga" Series Drive, 2.5" platter,
4200 RPM, 9.5 mm high, 12 ms avg. seek time, ATA-6 drive. Model
Number: IC25N080ATMR04. Fits in all iBooks, G3 (Wallstreet,
Lombard, and Pismo) and G4 PowerBooks.
Hitachi Develops 7200 rpm Notebook Hard
Drive
The Register's Tony Smith reports:
"Hitachi has unveiled what it claims is the first 7200 rpm hard
drive designed for mobile systems, the Travelstar 7K60.
"To date, mobile-oriented drives have had to run at 5400 rpm,
says Hitachi, in order to maintain acceptable noise levels and
power consumption....
"The 7K60 spins 33 per cent faster than a 5400 rpm drive, which
contributes to a 15 per cent improvement in data transfer rates and
a 20 per cent lower rotational latency, i.e. the time it takes to
get the data required in position under the read-write head."
Pixel Tester 2.4 Detects Dead Pixels On LCD
Displays
Pixel Tester helps you to detect any dead pixel on your
screens or LCD displays.
You want to check if your laptop Mac or your screens or LCD
displays have any dead pixels? You want to buy a secondhand laptop
Mac or LCD display but you want to check it first? You have
multiple screens connected on the same Mac and want to check all of
them without changing the connections? Then Pixel Tester is what
you need.
Features:
- You can test all possible and existing colors on your screen
simply by moving the mouse, which is funny, simple and fast.
- You can in particular test pure red, pure green and pure blue
by moving the mouse at the bottom of the screen, and pure white by
moving it at the top of the screen.
- You can test pure black at the end of the test.
- It uses several patterns to help you to detect dead pixels more
easily.
- It supports multiple monitors and asks you at launch which one
you want to test.
- It takes very little memory, CPU and disk space.
- It doesn't need any installation which makes it very easy to
use.
- It is available in English and in French.
- It is compatible with Extended Software Updater.
Read the whole documentation for more details...
New in this version:
- Minor bugs have been corrected.
- French localization has been released.
System requirements: Mac OS X 10.0 or higher
New Willow Mission Light 17" PowerBook Carry
Case
The Mission
Light 17" PowerBook case is a lightweight, economical
solution for safely transporting your PowerBook. The simple
effective design offers excellent protection for you PowerBook in a
clean, lightweight case.
Mission Light 17" PowerBook case features:
- Excellent protection for your 17" PowerBook afforded by 1.2 cm
(0.5") foam reinforced by corrugated plastic on the back, high
density polyethylene reinforcement on the handle side and 4 mm
(1/8") hardboard on the bottom.
- Clean, lightweight and flexible design.
- Great comfort insured by a heavy duty mountain bike grip and a
wide, contoured, thickly padded shoulder strap.
- Briefcase handle double rivet reinforced through the wrap
handle to insure the safety of your laptop.
- Convenient DVD, CD-ROM & cable pockets located in the
laptop section for easy access plus extra room for manuals or other
letter sized paperwork on lower accessory level.
- Outer front organizer panel with pockets business cards, pens,
elasticized pocket for the Apple power supply plus room for the
power cord and an ethernet cable.
- Outside flat, outer pocket for airline tickets, thin paperwork,
etc.
- Flat external rear pocket especially handy for maps, magazines
or newspapers.
- A velcroed elastic strap to lock down 17" PowerBook and 1.2 cm
( 0.5") of paperwork for further protection.
- Handy mesh pocket in the lid for safe and convenient storage of
cables or other thin items.
- Luggage feet riveted through the hardboard bottom of the case
which actually keep it up and off the ground when you want to set
the case down whilst entering and leaving your vehicle.
- Lifetime guarantee against defects in materials or
craftsmanship.
Available Colors: black, charcoal, navy, taupe, burgundy
Pricing: $125 Cdn./$85 U.S.
RacerX PowerBook Sleeve Cases
When you just need your PowerBook and a few accessories, throw
the Racer-X on your shoulder and head out. 
This tough compact case with a plush interior and a
mountain bike grip protects your laptop from life's hard
knocks.
Available in three sizes to custom fit your Apple PowerBook:
- 12" RacerX dimensions: 12" x 10" x 4.5"
- 15" RacerX dimensions: 14.5" x 11" x 4"
- 17" RacerX dimensions: 16.5" x 11.6" x 4.5"
Features:
- Two zippered, interior compartments
- Protects the laptop with layers of neoprene, foam, and
corrugated plastic
- Pockets for storing accessories
- Exterior pocket for magazines and papers.
- Military grade, ballistic nylon and trimmed with Indium
fabric
- mountain bike grip
- Suspension Shoulder Strap
Prices start at $129 from SFBags.com..
Bargain 'Books
There are two different versions of WallStreet running at 233
MHz, the cacheless MainStreet
version and the later Series II
with a level 2 cache. It's not always possible to determine from
the vendor's listing which is being offered, so we've included
links within this paragraph to the two models. The same goes for
the PowerBook G4/667 (Gigabit
Ethernet/2001) and G4/667
(DVI).
- new 14" iBook 900,
256/40/Combo, Kensington Astro Pack Gray. $1,524
- refurb PowerBook G4/800,
512/40/Combo, InCase Large Laptop Sleeve, Nylon and Leather Screen
Protector with Small Dog logo, $2,009
For more deals on current or recently discontinued models, see
our Best PowerBook G4 Deals
and Best iBook Deals.
