Apple PowerBook Laptop 15.2" M9969LL/A Review
Apple PowerBook Laptop 15.2" M9969LL/A Review from deepclue DC. Fantastic Machine, I am a convert. Last December I made the switch from a Dell X300 PC laptop to my first Apple computer, a Powerbook G4 12″. The one thing I knew I was giving up on was weight: The Powerbook 12″‘s weight is acceptable but not great. This was -the- deciding factor against a larger Powerbook.
Overall, I was super-happy with it, except that I had a couple of hardware problems: Within 60 days of my purchase my hard drive died and had to be replaced. Later on, I started to have system crashes intermittently when connecting the computer to an external DVI monitor while in sleep mode and then bringing it up from sleep. (I have yet to find a web thread addressing this issue, but I do know other people with this problem.)
The one thing that kept disappointing me was the screen. Even though I have 19″ flat panel displays both at home and at work, I do use the laptop standalone often, and 12″ just wasn’t cutting it for me. Another thing I regretted was not getting a SuperDrive, which would have allowed me to make family DVDs for example. Yet another thing was the fact that in low light conditions (e.g., in bed) I just couldn’t see the keyboard. Some Thinkpads have a very cool blue light coming out of the top of the display that illuminates the keyboard but the Powerbook 12″ didn’t have any such thing. Finally, I felt the disk was too slow to allow efficient use of FileVault (on-the-fly encryption/decryption of your files which I find extremely important to feel good about traveling everywhere with sensitive job information).
Then a grad student of mine showed me the 15″ he had just bought. As I lifted it, I was surprised that the extra 1lb was barely noticeable.
Shortly after, when Apple released the new wave of Powerbooks, I grabbed this baby. I did order a couple of upgrades: 1GB on a single DIMM (now I think two DIMMs would have worked just fine) and a 7200rpm disk to help with FileVault. I transferred all my data from the 12″ (this was a breeze by the way) and have been using it ever since (disclaimer: ever since = 1 week).
All I can say is that this is an awesome machine. The display is so bright, contrasty, colorful, wide! The keyboard is comfortable (softer keys, though, which I initially resented) and is automatically backlit when ambient light is poor. (The display’s brightness is adjusted as well.) The full-size DVI connector also gets rid of that ridiculous dongle I had to endure with the 12″ (a VGA monitor/projector still requires an adapter). I am also surprised at the duration of the battery for such a “powerhouse,” I suppose it has to do mainly with the fact that the processor is under 2GHz but I have no data to back this up. I am assuming my 7200rpm is eating up some battery time but it still is quite decent.
Overall, I highly recommend this computer.
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