Power Book G4
Apple's Answer To The Windows Laptop

Apple recently launched its equivalent of the Windows laptop at The Macworld Expo held at San Francisco - the Power Book G-4. The sleek machine is one inch thick and weighs 5.3 pounds. The solid Titanium case gives it an impressive rigidity in spite of its thickness. This Power Book is 13.4 by 9.5 inches making it more elongated in shape than other laptops. This in turn gives way to a larger screen- 15.2 inches diagonally. The machine is sure to capture many hearts with its optimum combination of price, movie screen proportions and text legibility.

The screen can display in two side by side windows, a vast spreadsheet and a Photoshop image with all its tools. It has accommodated all the laptop features conceived so far: a 56 K modem, a fast Ethernet, a 2 USB ports, a PC card slot, stereo speakers, a headphone jack, an infrared lens for transferring files by air and an S video jack that sends screen pictures to a TV or VCR. While the $2600 model comes with a 400 MHz processor, 128 megabytes of memory and a 10 gigabyte hard drive, the $3500 model gives a 500 MHz chip and twice the memory and storage capacity.

This new Power Book seems to stave off any unfavourable comparisons with other laptops like the IBM Thinkpad T Series or the Sony Vaio Z505, the latest Windows model. There are only a few shortcomings if any. The machine does not give any scope for slide-in circuitry such as extra batteries or Zip drives. So also it does not offer prospective buyers any choice of colour. With its given size and shape most laptop carrying cases are not likely to accommodate the machine.

However the sleek looks, vast screen and impressive battery life as well as the desktop style keyboard are sure to steal a few hearts as it reaches the market in a few weeks from now.