So, we had our serving of Apple porn yesterday with the updated Powerbooks… Some people were waiting for a G5, others for a dualcore 7448… but we got neither.
However, Apple did their homework, and this update clearly paves the way to even cooler stuff. Let me explain :

1. 512MB of RAM accross the line.
This is in direct reply to the complaints about the meagre amount of RAM in the Mac mini (and also to help people swallow the “no G5 yet” thing, granted.). I would expect Apple to boost the initial RAM offering in future updates of other products.

2. Scrolling touchpad.
This one is huge. To my knowledge, it is the first Apple product to come with scrolling capability by default. I wouldn’t expect them to start selling an updated mouse with a scrollwheel, but that means they acknowledge the usefulness of a multifonction tracking device, especially on a notebook where plugging a usb mouse is most of the times messy and kinda kills the whole “portable” idea.

3. Bluetooth 2.0
That’s pretty nice, since it’s almost impossible to find a usb Bluetooth 2.0 adapter right now. We all know how BT 1.0 is a battery sucker, so seeing Apple embrace version 2.0 so quickly is great. I really hope that BT device manufacturers will follow soon… the thought of having a headset that doesn’t need charging every 6 hours is exciting to say the least. (hint, hint, I hope these guys will update their super cool headsets)

4. 5400RPM hard drives
Ah. FINALLY. Though I would have liked to see Apple giving the option to put the Hitachi 7200RPM drive, it’s a welcomed improvement over the dog slow 4200RPM drives, and helps making the difference between the iBooks and the PowerBooks.

5. Sudden Motion Sensor
This one is clearly aimed at making the distinction between “pro” and “consumer”. Not much to say about it because I baby my TiBook to the extreme, but for roadwarriors and people working in difficult locations, (I’m thinking journalists and researchers) this is a great feature.

All in all, it might not be a killer update, but it proves to be quite solid. This is probably the last evolution of this species that we will see before then next big step, which makes those laptops a great buy : most, if not all the quirks of the earlier generations of AluBook have been ironed out, it’s packed with great stuff that we thought was Star Trek material even only a few months back, and the price is VERY decent for what those machines have to offer.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 1st, 2005 at 03:02 CET and is filed under Apple talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.