"
Well, after visiting Creative Computers every 2-3 days for a while to no
avail I decided to try CompUSA in Fox Hills, Calif. (a bit further from
my house) to play with a Wall Street. The salesman didn't know what a
Wall Street was. I told him it was Apple's new line of PowerBooks. He
seemed surprised. The two 1400s they had on display were locked up so I
rebooted them. They each froze in the exact same position they had been
in, unable to complete a reboot. The older G3 PB offered anyone who knew
the password a chance to enter it. In an hour I spent there trying to
help a girl with a PB 540c who claimed to have bought it from the singer
Seal, not one salesman set foot in the Apple store within a store. The
G3 desktops were in better shape, but people had no one to help them or
answer questions. They had some software but I couldn't even find a copy
of RAM or Speed Doubler for the girl.
So I went even further from my house to Fry's Redondo Beach. Eureka!
There were two 233 MHz models. A 12.1" and a 13.3" No one disturbed me
as I tested the 13" for 40 minutes.
First of all, it's HUMUNGOUS. Disturbingly large for someone who opted
for a Duo after having a PB 100 and a PB 180c because I was tired of
schlepping all the weight around. Secondly, the screen is beautiful.
Spacious and bright. I think it's brighter than any other PB screen I've
seen. I've always noticed that at this Fry's (and many other computer
stores) the abundance of fluorescent lights make the notebook computer
screens look worse than in any other conditions except direct sunlight.
Well it didn't phase this beast at all. In fact I turned the brightness
down to less than half. There was no contrast button on the active.
There was on the passive. Whatever extra it costs to get an active is
well worth it in my opinion. There was marked submarining of the cursor
on the passive and the viewing angle was only good directly in front of
it and less than a head to each side of center. The active has a much
wider viewing angle but not all the way to the edge of the screen. One
or one and 1/2 heads off of center.
The resolution was fixed on either machine. 600 x 800 on the 12". 1,024
x 768 on the 13". I was concerned that type would be too small for
comfortable reading on the 13". I like to set a large font in
SimpleText, ClarisWorks and browsers when I read from the screen.
Paltino 18. (For printing I use Geneva 12) My Duo 2300c and PowerWave
(with 15" monitor) are set at 640 x 480 and I'm very comfortable reading
off their screens. Well, at the store, after setting the fonts on
SimpleText and IE 4 to Palatino 18 , I found them to be a little smaller
than what I'm used to but very acceptable. Not tiny print. When I use
the keyboard on a notebook, my face is closer to the screen than when I
use my big monitor at home, so this makes up for some of the lost size.
But for my personal taste, the icons in the finder and the icons and
fonts in the menu bar are too small. I didn't try adjusting the fonts in
the finder, but usually when I try this they get too coarse. And the
icons in the menu bar and the folder and trash icons can't be enlarged
to satisfy me. It would, I think, take concentration not to occasionally
miss your target when moving things. But the comfortable reading size is
a more important issue and I'm glad that's not a problem as that could
cost Apple a sale from me.
The keyboard: The letter keys are huge. Bigger than the ones on the
small Apple keyboard that came with my Quadra 605 (or did I buy it
separately?) So that will take some getting used to. I hunt and peck but
I have developed some muscle memory about where keys should be and on
the Wall Street I occasionally hit the key next to the one I was seeking
because they are so large. Also, when I get a good thought going, I
really start pounding the keys rhythmically. The keys on the Wall Street
seemed to have a shorter distance to travel before hitting bottom and
while they seemed able to tolerate my pounding, they seem like they are
more set up for a softer, touch typist. I suppose I could adjust to
hitting the keys a little less hard.
If you've got a huge screen that displays millions of colors, you want
to look at some graphics. Unfortunately, the pickings were very scarce
on this box. The Cancun sunset that was selected as the desktop picture
looked magnificent. I did a search for .jpg files. A brightly colored
baboon's nose showed off the screen well but it was small. I did a
search for .mov files and came up with the QTVR Japanese Garden that's
part of the Intro to Mac OS (or whatever it's called) that you view from
within a browser.
Speed: The 233 is a pretty snappy, though not blazing machine. It seemed
to load Web pages from the hard drive (I had no access to the net) quite
fast, which of course is a measure of drawing to the screen. I had no
huge movies to test it with. I of course compared it to my Duo with a
100 MHz 603/no cache which it creamed of course. They're not in the same
league at all. And I compared it to my 200 MHz 604e/57 MHz bus on the
PowerWave. The PowerWave, I would say, feels a little faster. That makes
sense if you compare the @445 MacBench CPU score of the Wall Street to
the 557 MacBench CPU that my 'Wave gets. But for what I do, I don't miss
having a G3 in the 'Wave. The fact that the 233 Wall Street is close
means it's pretty fast. (Especially for the price.) I suspect that the
250 MHz Wall Street, which MacBenches 881, and the 292's 1,031 score
would be *very* impressive. Can't wait to try them.
Heat: The bottom of the 13" was quite hot, though not to an alarming
degree. The bottom of the 12" was cooler, but I had not been using it so
that might be why.
The clicker below the trackpad was not as pleasing to me as the one on
my Duo or the one on my PB 180c. But *far* better than the one on the PB
2400 which I don't like at all.
Aesthetics: I have been really excited about the Wall Street since I
first started seeing pictures of them a few months ago. A few weeks ago
I downloaded some Super Hi Rez pictures of every angle from Apple's
PowerBook Gallery. Almost daily I have opened these pictures in
Photoshop and drooled over them. From the photos, the top cover and the
palmrest put me in mind of leather. The sides and back, with their
glistening black material, their ominously glowing infrared eyes, and
their shark like vents, put me in mind of Steath Bombers. Well, I found
the real thing a little disappointing in comparison. The cover on top is
not even grey rubber for a good grip as I had supposed. It's fairly
slippery plastic. And it had some greasy fingerprints on it. The
palmrests and everything else were just black plastic. Not unlike that
used in the PB 2400. I have to give credit to the photographers hired by
Apple. Somehow, they lit these babies to bring out a texture in the
plastic that I didn't see in real life.
But it is a gorgeous shape. No question about it.
Summary: I think I would still like one for the awesome screen, the
speed, and the full set of features. (The infrared will be a great way
to transfer files. The millions of colors, the hot swap-able devices,
the easily upgradeable RAM and hard drive and the function keys are
great, as is the long battery life [if not exaggerated] ) But it is a
too large and heavy for my taste. And, like a photoshoot in Penthouse or
Playboy, the flaws are artfully hidden and the models are shown only in
the best light.
That said, the flaws are few, the plusses are many, and especially when
the price drops a bit, these puppies will be a *big* part of putting
Apple in a much better financial position. Hey, it doesn't take a rocket
scientist to figure that out. It'd be a good time to buy Apple stock.
Take Care,
Steve"
"
I got to play with a new Powerbook G3(250
13").Apple Aust has not launched it here yet but the service centre had
an evaluation unit for them to get familiar with and the Techie was kind
enough to let me into the inner sanctum to have a play. In one word,
wow. Since I suspect you may be a lover of the portable powerhouse I'll
give you my impression.
The screen was crisp, sharp and had fantastic colour saturation. There
were no artifacts or ghosting. When we played a Quicktime clip on full
screen it played fast and there were hardly any jerks in playback,
Fantastic.
The keyboard was crisp and sharp in feel. Unlike the original G3 there
was no sponginess or flex. All the keys were well layed out and the
inverted Y arrow keys were a well addedfeature. Only complaint is that
the inverted T keys and the return keys were significantly smaller and
would take getting used to.
Dimensions wise it is a really slim machine. Kinda like the duo but it
had a rather large footprint. If you are used to the smaller footprint
of earlier PBs this will take some getting used to especially in terms
of hand positioning. The internal battery was also very slim. About 1/3
that of the original G3. The power adaptor... about 1/3 that of the
original as well.
The machine was able to run with both media bays used by the floppy and
CD. Apparently they are hot swapable and bay independent.
In the original G3 my biggest complaint was that the rear door that
covered the connections used to either fall off or break at the
slightest bit of preassure applied. In the new one, it is spring
loaded. To break it would be impossible in normal usage.
I terms of looks, move over Cindy Crawford. There is not an unsightly
line in the whole thing (although I actually prefer the rainbow apple
logo to the clear one). It flares slightly at the palm rests ala the
1400 and the closing latch is a lift up one so no chance of breaking it
as well. In terms of speed. Very snappy. Apps opened quick and video
was also fast. One of the guys tried Quake on it and I must say I was
impressed.
Keep in mind this is only the 250 Mhz one. Imagine what the 292 would
be like. Maybe I should sell my 9600 and present G3.......
Best regards,
Adrian Miranda
"
