Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Miscellaneous Ramblings

Pismo & Thin PowerBooks

Charles Moore - 22 Dec. 1999 - Tip Jar

Dan Knight has already weighed in on this issue with The Next PowerBooks. I guess great minds think alike. I enjoyed reading Dan's article, and I agree with most of what he said, finding his speculation about a possible thin and compact "MyBook" Apple portable (personally, I prefer the name "eBook" - for "executive" book) especially interesting.

The "thin" laptop category is still a gaping hole in Apple's portable lineup, bleeding sales to the PC side where there is a delicious selection of light and thin portable units. As I've remarked before, the fact that they all arrive running Windows is a bit like meeting a beautiful woman, only to have her reveal a row of rotted teeth when she smiles, but the ascendancy of more user-friendly Linux variants on the PC side, such as CorelLINUX, raises the temptation quotient a few notches.

Dell Latitude LS My traditional favorite in this category has long been Sony's light and lovely VAIO, but the new Latitude LS just released by Dell looks like a pretty nice piece too.

The Latitude LS ultralight portable packing a 400 MHz Intel Pentium III processor and equipped with a 12.1" active matrix screen, (same size as the one on this PowerBook I'm typing on), all somehow jammed into a thin 3.5 lb package (a bit more than half the weight of the Lombard PowerBook G3).

Latitude LS comes with 64MB or 128MB SDRAM memory User-removable 4.8GB1 or 6.4GB internal hard drives, a floppy drive (natch!) in an external media bay, and an optional LS-120 Drive, 24X/10X variable CD-ROM Drive, or 6X DVD Module with MPEG-2, in external media bays respectively.

The Latitude LS weighs 3.5 lbs. and measures 1.0"(h) x 10.7"(w) x 8.66"(d).

The slightly larger Dell Latitude CS is available with a Pentium III 500MHz processor, 12GB Hard Drive (18GB in external media bay), and a 13.3" XGA color TFT active matrix display ( I hope it's better than the 13.3" unit used in some ot the Series I WallStreets) at 4.3 lbs. (vs. Lombard's 5.8 lbs.) and measures 1.1"(h) x 12.05"(w) x 9.7"(d).

These PC notebooks are the form factor Apple need's to shoot for with its hoped for thin PowerBook. Reportedly, Pismo will shed about a pound of weight and a quarter inch of thickness compared with Lombard, but that still makes it apound or so heavier and still thicker than the larger Dell Latitude unit.

Pismo (don't bet against it being officially called PowerBook G3) will almost certainly be introduced at Macworld Expo 2000 in San Francisco in early January. There are reports of Lombards being discounted to $2,995, much as the prices dropped significantly on Wall Streets a month or so before Lombard debuted.

As Dan pointed out in his column, Pismo will likely be largely an upgrade and bugfix of the current Lombard PowerBook G3 bronze keyboard model, with a faster 100 MHz internal bus, a speed bump of its G3 processor (but no G4), and probably more RAM and bigger hard drives, as well as having FireWire ports superseding the time-honored PowerBook HDI-30 SCSI port, and internal AirPort support.

Engineering-wise, O'Grady's PowerPage says that Pismo will have a magnesium (or possibly titanium) sub-frame in order to maintain stiffness and rigidity while the PowerBook loses that quarter inch of thickness and a pound of weight.

HP OmniBook 900 Apple is not only getting size competition from the PC side, but Hewlett-Packard's new OmniBook 900, a four pound powerhouse that features Intel's fastest laptop CPUs: Mobile Pentium III 500-or 450-MHz or the Pentium II 400- or 366-MHz processor is thought to be about as fast as the current Lombard or even a bit faster.

Other OmniBook 900 features include a 13.3-inch 1024 x 768 XGA TFT display with 16 million colors-or 12.1-inch SVGA TFT display with 16 million colors, and a 256-bit, graphics controller with AGP, SXGA-out, MPEG-2 and dual display capability.

And while the OmniBook 900 with a 500 MHz Pentium III is estimated to more or less match the current Lombard 400's real-world performance, reportedly, 600 MHz Pentium laptops are on the way as early as January.

Some PowerBook fans are reportedly disgruntled at the prospect of losing the SCSI port with Pismo, and there is continued grousing about the absence of Type 3 CardBus PC Card support since WallStreet. Of special concern is the loss of SCSI Disk Mode. Apple apparently thinks Ethernet file transfer is a viable alternative, but for a lot of users it is not.

My son, for instance, often uses his Wall Street PowerBook as an external hard drive when troubleshooting and repairing customer machines. My own LC 520 desktop machine is not equipped with ethernet, but can exchange files with my PowerBooks via SCSI disk Mode. These are just a couple of real world examples.

Yes, FireWire is the future, but the problem is that it is still the future rather than a mainstream alternative now. I can live without floppies. Not so sure about living without SCSI - yet.

However, I'm not looking for SCSI on Pismo. It will be a nice machine anyway - fast and powerful, and the easiest to lug G3 'Book yet. I just wish they would name it something other than "PowerBook G3."

Charles Moore has been a freelance journalist since 1987 and began writing for Mac websites in May 1998. His The Road Warrior column is a regular feature on MacOpinion, and he is a news editor and columnist at Applelinks.com. If you find his articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Miscellaneous Ramblings

CardBus WiFi, the Shiira Browser, Ridding the Web of Flash, and Macs vs. PCs, 03.18. Mac longevity, Shiira speed, ambidextrous Mac and Windows use, and how Flash benefits Apple.
How Ad Blocking Hurts Your Favorite Websites, 03.18. Ad income keeps the Web free. Blocking online ads hurts your favorite websites.
WPA for Original AirPort, Stainless Browser, Multiple Input Bug Persists in Snow Leopard, and More, 03.11. Also kudos for Shiira, G3 vs. G4 upgrade for Pismo PowerBook, and 17" PowerBook still suffices.
Shiira Browser Is Lightning Fast, 03.08. "...I'm finding myself not in any hurry to stop using Shiira 2.3 and go back to Safari 4 as my WebKit browser pick."
More in the Miscellaneous Ramblings index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: Lisa, Jan. 1983 - The ancestor of the Macintosh had a mouse, a graphical interface, and a $10,000 price tag.
Group of the Day: Unsupported OS X is for those using OS X on unsupported hardware.
March 22 in LEM history: 00: Macs and digital video - 01: My Performa - Fun at CompUSA75 Mac Advantages - 02: Don't try this at home - History of portable computing - 04: Prolong battery life - 05: Symantec's ravings spread FUD about OS X security - 06: Picking a Power Mac G4 - France and the end of DRM
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best 13" MacBook & MacBook Pro Deals, 03.22. Used 1.83 GHz, $570; 2.0, $599; 2.4 GHz, $889; refurb 2.26, $849; new, $900 after rebate; Pro, $1,119 a/r, 2.53, $1,399 a/r.
Best Power Mac G5 Deals, 03.22. 1.8 GHz single, $399; dual, $445; 2.0, $609; 2.5, $724; 2.7, $799; 2.3 GHz dual-core, $669; 2.5 GHz Quad, $799.
Best AirPort Deals, 03.22. Refurb AirPort Express, $79; new, $95; refurb dual-band AirPort Extreme Hub, $129; new simultaneous dual-band, $168.
Best Intel iMac Deals, 03.17. Used 17" from $600; 20" from $750; 24" from $825; refurb 21.5" nVidia, $999; new, $1,099; refurb Radeon, $1,299; new, $1,399; refurb 27" 3.06, $1,499; more.
Best G5 iMac Deals, 03.17. 17" 2.0 GHz, $380; 1.9 GHz iSight, $479 shipped; 20" 1.8 GHz, $509 shipped; 2.1 GHz iSight, $549 shipped.
Best Time Capsule Deals, 03.17. Close-out 500 GB, $140; new 1 TB, $279; used 2 TB simultaneous dual-band, $400; new, $455. Shipping included.
Best iPad Deals, 03.16. 16 GB iPad, $499; 32 GB, $599; 64 GB, $699; 16 GB with 3G, $629; 32 GB 3G, $729; 64 GB 3G, $829. Free ground shipping.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Miscellaneous Ramblings ©1999-2010 by Charles W. Moore. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2010 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.