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And I found a bug too. I would call it a "stupid" bug, because it mostly looks and feels like a by-product of Quartz Extreme more than a "real" bug. So, when entering full screen to play the "Office Space" movie with the DVD Player, the movie would lose frames. On windowing mode, it plays perfectly. But on fullscreen mode it would lose its smoothness. It would require you to look hard to see the problem, but the problem is there. And then, I thought: "that can't be right. Even my slower Cube can play DVDs in fullscreen with absolutely no problem, so this has to be a bug". I opened the CPU utilization application which is just a small window "always on top", and I put it on top of the fullscreen DVD playback in order to observe the CPU utilization. CPU was only at 1/3, so the CPU was not the problem. BUT, for the time the little CPU window was on top of the DVD fullscreen playback, the movie would NOT lose frames! Take that little window away, and the movie would start become smoothless again! *Normally* you would expect the exact opposite to happen, because the CPU would need to calculate and render the parts of the window that are covered or not covered. In the case I experienced, it was the opposite. That really looks like a bug, and I hope that the DVD programmers over at Apple are reading this. Update: Others seem to have the same problem.

A gripe I have with the memory is that it comes with 128 MB built-in and 128 MB on the memory placeholder, by default. I don't get that. Why didn't they include that 256 MB as built-in so it could free up the memory placeholder for the user to add a 512 module and go up to 768 MB of max RAM? The way it is now, the max is at 640 MB and after you upgrade, you end up with an unused 128 MB DIMM that you can't use anywhere else! The price difference for Apple doing that would be really minimal, and the customers would be happier and this Powerbook would sound more powerful. If 640 MB is ok for you though, well, fair enough. But Mac OS X is a Unix, which means that it can utilize well any extra RAM, so as much RAM one can put in, the better. Personally, I want this machine maxed-out in RAM and I can't wait for my 512 MB DIMM to arrive.

Last point is the graphics performance. The machine includes a 32 MB GeForce4 MX 420. The 420 is the slow GeForce 4 model. And you can read here and here about what Carmack suggests about the GeForce 4 MX. Yes, for a laptop, this card is a _great_ solution, but this is a Powerbook we are talking about. And the 420 model is significantly slower than the 440 model found on the higher end laptops. That's bad of course if you want to play games, but if you are not interested in games, the included 420 model is good enough. Speaking for myself, I don't mind it having the 420 instead of the 440, but having the Radeon 9000 or the 440 could also be good.

Conclusion

The new 12" Powerbook is nothing more but an iBook on steroids with a G4 in it. This is exactly how I feel about it. It is crippled when compared to its big brother Powerbooks:

* Max of only 640 RAM while the limit could easily be 768 MB (the other Powerbooks max out at 1 GB). Plus, it could use PC2700 RAM instead of PC2100, but on the other hand it wouldn't make much of a difference cause of other front side bus issues (and it would be more expensive).
* Terrible LCD screen quality
* No L3 cache, while traditionally Powerbooks have 1 MB (which greatly improves overall speed)
* No gigabit ethernet (not that I care about this one much really)
* Slow-ish graphics card
If Apple was to take down their G3-based products and rename the 12" Powerbook as an iBook, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

So, this was a review negative you say? I say not necessarily. I am obliged to write about my experiences and any problems that I came across. It is an $1800+ purchase at the end of the day, it is not like buying chocolate from the store in the corner (except if you are Steve Jobs ;-).

If you want a cheaper Powerbook to boast to your friends, or you want a fast-ish Powerbook that is able to do its job fine and be small and really be portable, this is the Mac laptop you were looking for. And no matter what, don't buy an iBook, shave off the extra $500-600 and get this laptop instead. But don't except it to be as "wonderful" or as "glamorous" or as "full-featured" as the other Powerbooks. But it would be glamorous, and fast, and wonderful and full-featured compared to the iBooks. Yes, this is the cheapest Powerbook ever, but have you considered what was crippled in order to pay this "better" price? And speaking for myself, I don't like crippling my own eyes just to pay $300 less. I expect a certain (LCD) quality from a piece of hardware that bares the name "Powerbook".

This might even be a new strategy at Apple, to use cheaper parts or less features in order to compete with their PC competitors. I don't know. All I know is that I want a better LCD screen for the $2000 I paid Apple for, especially when older laptops were better in this regard. I see it as a backwards step, *or* as a way to blend between the two product ranges of the Powerbook and the iBook.

For many people this machine should be able to completely replace their desktops, however, if Apple was more careful and they included/fixed the issues we are mentioning in the "baaad" section, this could be THE laptop you were always dreaming of.

Don't misunderstand me though, I like the Powerbook. It is already a best-seller for Apple and I haven't make up my mind for purchasing it. I use it all the time and it is solid and it does what you expect and its keyboard is great. But it could [easily] be better for the $2,000 it cost us.

1. "Intro, The Good"
2. "The Bad"
3. "The Bad II, Conclusion"