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Apple PowerBook 12.1" Notebook PowerPC G4 1.50 GHz

Reviews for Apple PowerBook 12.1" Notebook PowerPC G4 1.50 GHz

1024 x 768 XGA Display - 512 MB RAM - 80 GB HDD - DVD-Writer - nVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 Graphics Card - Bluetooth - Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger - MPN: M9691LLA

$1,220.00 Shop Now
|6 reviews
  • 5
  By member: jonmr - Feb 27, 2006

Best laptop ever!

Strengths: Great for a wireless digital life on the go!

Weakness: delicit screen but all woth it

I love my Powerbook it's fantstic and the hub of my digital life. I can store and edit my digital pictures sinc my PDA and enjoy wireless internet. Fits my life and anywhere my life may take me. best laptop ever!

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  • 5
  By member: briancar - Mar 23, 2005

Apple PowerBook 12.1" Notebook PowerPC G4 1.50 GHz

Strengths: Gorgeous. Lightweight. DVD-burner.

Weakness: Optical drive is sometimes noisy. USB ports too close together.

Purchased Mar. 13, 2005 at local Apple store.

I am dual-booting OS X and Debian GNU/Linux on this gorgeous and lightweight laptop. I liked the Educational Discount Apple offers and I paid for the 3-year AppleCare warranty. I've seen Apple's warranty repair in action and it is MUCH faster than the no-name place I got my last laptop from. I carry my laptop every single day and so it suffers from wear and tear. I need a warranty that will nonetheless make this a useful machine for several years.

This laptop has also finally allowed me to put my iPod to better use. Even though Apple keeps downgrading the end-user experience with their so-called "updates" to iTunes, it is still one slick piece of software.

Past Powerbooks put off too much heat, but I've used this one with it resting on my legs for lengthy sessions and it's warm, but not uncomfortable at all. The fan is also quiet and rarely comes on.

I use a USB-key at the same time as other USB devices sometimes and because the USB ports are right next to each other (and because the key is wide) I have to use a USB extender to use both at once. If the ports were a little more spread out or if there were one USB port on each side it would be better. I also wish the return/enter key were wider but I'll probably get used to this.

Highly recommended overall.

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  • 4
  By member: paazel - Dec 10, 2005

powerbook 12

Strengths: great design aesthetics. great os (realy great os). it works! nice sharp screen. overall size: not too big, not too small.

Weakness: kinda pricey for being at the end of life (intel based powerbooks should arrive in a month). touchpad! the one button thing is so frustrating.

i purchased this machine through macmall.com, great pricing, & very fast delivery.

i should note that i upgraded the ram from the base 512mb by replacing the 256mb module with a 1GB module (for a total of 1.25GB). i'm not sure if this has affected the performance greatly or not. i find the machine to be very responsive without slowdowns. it was very easy and was able to do it by removing a few screws.

some things that i'm pleased with: i have very minimal networking experience & was able to get this machine on to my wireless network very easily with some sort of light WPA encryption. i have a dell 1600n network printer, that has no mac drivers, however bonjour suggested using a xerox 1600n postscript driver & am able to print wirelessly as well (i didn't expect for it to work at all, so you can imagine my excitement). i also very much like that the machine goes to sleep & wakes up with no problems.

alas no machine is perfect... the optical drive is quite noisy. the one button touchpad infuriates me. this machine has no PCMCIA slots; bluetooth is a very nice touch on this machine, however i feel that firewire 800 would be much more useful. the usb ports are stacked together. it would be better if they were spread out (with a machine so well designed, i can't believe they missed this).

i bought this powerbook to use with serato scratch live. i was hesitant at first as i've never spent any real time with a mac. i was relieved within an hour of getting the machine. the os is far superior to windows xp, and took little time getting used to. most of the things i do on my windows desktop i find i can do here. i enjoy using this machine very much. i would reccomend this to anyone buying a laptop. unless you need a windows based laptop for specific programs/tasks that are unavailible/can't be done on a mac, i suggest taking a look at the powerbook.

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  • 5
  By member: bluejeff - Nov 29, 2005

The best computer ever!!

Strengths: 1. Faster than PC 2. Look better than PC 3. Original 4. It's UNIX-based and it's solid 5. Easy to use 6. Mac OSX Tiger is the best OS at this moment

Weakness: 1. Firewire 800 will be better 2. Please make super drive standard 3. 512MB built-in ram is too little 4. I wish applecare is cheaper

This is the first mac that I ever bought and so far I love it!! I am a computer science student and programming is something that I do a lot. With this powerbook, I can do everything that I wanted in its unix-based system (freebsd). It's simply great!!

As for the daily uses, the powerbook handles all the work that windows can. Word? no problem, Excel? got it, Powerpoint? sure, Watching DVDs or Playing Musics? you are in the right place. Apple computers simply just does everything right and in style. The backlite apple logo is a great way to show off in the library. Many people turned their heads just for that.

I will give this powerbook a 6 stars if I could, it is an amazing laptop.

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  • 3
  By member: ipd40 - Dec 10, 2006

12.1" powerbook ma9691ll/a

Strengths: beutiful design, great user interface

Weakness: heavier than comparable x86 laptops

I have had this laptop for about a year and I was very pleased with the user interface of os X. I have been using only linux and u**x for the last 8 years and it was quite disappointing to not discover many of the system tools that I'm used to. Even more annoying was the fact the inconsitency with /etc. It does exist for many applications, however it is completely ingnored.

UI is about the only thing that is right in OS X. Parallelization in the system is essentially nonexistent. I cannot even start to describe how annoyed I am by the spinning "beach ball" - OS X seems to constantly want to check that every single thing is fully accessible and if it's not it panics until it's happy again.

Productivitywise this laptop sucks.I was expecting a lot more from a G4 processor, something liks risc performance. Not the case - simple BLAS3 runs
5x slower than on x86 architecture with the same clock speed.

Furthermore 512MB is absolutely inadequate for the memory hog OS X and its applications.

Finally the laptop is quite heavy compared to the IBM's X-series for example.

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  • 5
  By member: k_khosravi - Feb 20, 2006

Apple G4 1.5 GHz 12.1

Strengths: Powerfull, lightweight,bright screen, and good HD space

Weakness: Non

Is very solid, very nice, and comfortable, lightweight and flexible, bright screen and fast.
To be honest, I had different laptops and got tired of getting all pop-ups and viruses, even though I tried all kind of pop up blockers and else, and decided to try an apple, although apple still has lack of business software available but I should have peace of mind that I am not getting any or less junk staff in my laptop, that is very important for me, that is because I decided to go with Apple and i reccomended to everybody.

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