1993: PowerBook vs. ThinkPad

Two laptops compared: The Mac has been ahead in the laptop market for longer than you may think.

I decided to compare two laptops, both from 1993 - one Mac and one PC. The Mac is a PowerBook 180c, and the PC is an IBM ThinkPad 360c.

The Mac features a 33 MHz 68030 processor; the PC features a 33 MHz Intel 80486SX processor (SX means that it does not have an FPU, the PB 180c has a 68882 FPU). The Mac is running System 7.1. The IBM is running Microsoft Windows 3.1 and IBM PC-DOS version 6.3

The IBM features a nice, sensitive, responsive keyboard that is very comfortable to type on. The Mac features a slightly softer feel keyboard, which makes typing slower.

The IBM has one of those little red joystick pointing devices below the G and H keys. The Mac has a much superior trackball, which has convenient buttons above and below the ball. Too bad both buttons do the same thing.

The Mac comes with a 9" active matrix colour screen, and the PC uses an 8.4".

The PowerBook uses one easily replaceable battery, which slides out of the right side. The ThinkPad's battery is under the keyboard, along with the removable hard drive and floppy drive - something the Mac does not have.

The ThinkPad has 2 PCMCIA card slots, which can be used for a modem or ethernet card. The Mac has no PCMCIA slots, but does have a built in 33.6 modem (there were various speeds you could buy for it; this 33.6 modem was a third party model, the standard was 14.4 or 28.8), and you can use a SCSI-to-ethernet adapter to connect it to an ethernet network.

As for memory, both the PC and the Mac came with 4 MB of RAM. The PowerBook has been upgraded to the maximum amount, 14 MB. The IBM still has the original 4 MB, which must be upgraded with a special IBM memory card.

What about future upgrades? Well, the Mac has pretty much reached the limit of upgrading, 14 MB of RAM is the most it can handle. However the hard drive can be replaced with a larger one. Most 180c's came with 80 or 160 MB hard drives, however larger drives aren't cheap.

The PC can be easily upgraded with a replacement hard drive (the old one simply lifts out and the new one fits right in), RAM can be installed using an IBM RAM card, and additional capabilities can be added using PCMCIA cards. The Mac does not have PCMCIA slots, and the hard drive is rather difficult to replace.

However, the 33 MHz 68030 PowerBook feels faster than the 33 MHz '486 IBM ThinkPad. The 180c is also much more useful because System 7.1 is capable of running most software that the last OS that can run on the PB 180c, Mac OS 7.6.1, is capable of.

Windows 3.1 doesn't run much beyond old versions of Internet Explorer, Word 6, and a few old games. If you want to upgrade to Windows 95, you will need to buy more RAM (at least 8 MB, and more is better), and I will mention that Win95 doesn't run that well on a 33 MHz '486 unless you have at least 20 MB of RAM.

The Mac has built in sound. Sound was optional on the ThinkPad, and even if you had a sound card installed, there was no built in speaker through which to play the sound - you had to plug in external speakers or use headphones.

On the plus side, the ThinkPad is dockable, which means that you can hook it up to a docking station with a larger monitor, CD-ROM drive, second hard drive, and "real" keyboard and mouse.

The ThinkPad also has a better case than the Mac. There are fewer parts to break off, the port door actually stays closed, and the lid is not as easy to accidentally open - you must release two latches, one on either side of the lid. There is only one on the Mac.

The Mac comes out on top for pointing device, built in features (modem, SCSI), speed, and greater usefulness in everyday tasks (Internet, email, word processing). So that gives the Mac 4 points. The IBM scores points in expandability, having a better keyboard, and having a better case design. That gives it 3 points.

Why would you want to compare an old Mac laptop to an old PC laptop? Well, it simply shows that the Mac has been ahead with laptops not just since the G3 (if you remember the steamroller ads), but even back in 1993!