I love a nice crisp high resolution screen. At
work, I use a 21" Sony Multiscan 500PS at 1280 x 960 pixels. At home, I
run a 19" Optiquest V95 at 1152 x 870 pixels.
I want a laptop computer that will show me at least as much as my
19" monitor - and ideally as much as my 21" screen.
The world is full of laptops like the iBook with 800 x 600 (SVGA in
Windowspeak) and the PowerBook G3 with 1024 x 768
(XGA in Windowspeak) displays. They're fine for most users, especially
those with a desktop computer to complement it.
But I want a PowerBook that can replace my
big SuperMac S900 and large 19"
monitor.
It doesn't have to offer killer speed. Compared with my 250 MHz G3
card, the current PowerBook G3/333 would be a nice step up in
performance.
It doesn't have to run for six hours on a set of batteries.
It doesn't need a positively huge hard drive. I only recently
outgrew my 2.1 GB hard drive, so anything 4 GB or larger would be
plenty for my purposes.
It doesn't have to be ultra-thin or ultra-light like some of the 1"
thin 4-5 pound Wintel laptops. Something in the 6-7 pound range would
be fine.
I don't need a DVD player in my PowerBook. I can watch DVDs on my
much larger television. In fact, it doesn't need an internal CD-ROM or
DVD drive for my purposes. An external drive would do the job on those
rare occasions when I would need it.
Any PowerBook allows memory upgrades, so base RAM isn't an issue.
I'd want to boost it to the 128-196 MB range right away, so I'd expect
to have to buy more memory.
So far, the PowerBook G3 or iBook would meet my needs.
But to replace my desktop, I need more screen real estate than any
current PowerBook (or most Wintel laptops) offers. I think the current
pixel champ is the 15" SXGA+ screen in the Dell Inspiron 7500 at
1500 x 1050 pixels. Nice, but I'd settle for the 15.4" 1280 x 1024 SXGA
screen - even if that does make the laptop's footprint a little bit
larger.
Give me that in a PowerBook with decent battery life and an AirPort
card, and I can surf the web, handle email, and do my web work
comfortably.
If it weren't a Windows machine and didn't weigh nearly 10 pounds,
the Dell Inspiron 7500 would be very tempting: 500 MHz Pentium III,
15.4" SXGA screen, 12 GB hard drive, 128 MB memory, and even an
optional AirPort compatible PC card - at virtually the same price as
the nine-month-old PowerBook G3/400.
The Inspiron is a Windows computer, so I'll pass.
But the 7500 clearly demonstrates that the computer I want can be
made today. And when Apple gets around to building it, I'll be at the
head of the line to buy one.
Update: The notebook I eventually ended up buying was the 400 MHz 15" Titanium
PowerBook G4, which Apple introduced in January 2001. The 1152 x 768
display was less than I asked for in the article, but it was enough.
The PowerBook G4 served as my main Mac for 2-1/2 years and as my field
computer for three more.
