Comments on: MacBook Air vs 12-inch PowerBook G4

By: omar nesbeth

omar nesbeth — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 21:59:31 +0000

Picked up a powerbook g4 1.5 12 inch for $25 all it needed was a hard drive. I couldn’t be happier. Great little machine. Its going nowhere!

By: macdaddy

macdaddy — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 01:23:20 +0000

i would love to see a 12 in macbook pro. lighter and smaller than the 13in maybe even smaller than 12 11in would be a challenge but i think there is a market for it. i mean if you look at the ipad it is pretty much along those lines just a screen without the keyboard.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:18:13 +0000

Great article and good comments. The PB 12″ is an excellent computer. Fast, for its time, small, nice looking… had everything anyone would ever want in an ultra-portable.

But you can’t be serious when you say that the PB 12″ is a better machine than the Air. Not now. While the optical drive and a few other features might make it a better fit for some people, in terms of processing power and features, the Air has it beat I would say.

I am typing a new 2.13 GHz MBA with a 128 SSD running SL. Backlit keyboard, amazing 13.3″ screen, super thin and light, built-in isight camera, Apple Remote infrared window, 1 USB 2.0, a DVI out and an audio out. Large, multi-touch trackpad (the PB 12″ trackpad is too small…). It does lack some IO but this thing is fast, very fast. And with the new Nvidia shared 256 MB graphics chip, there are no hick ups in OS X: it plays HD just fine.

1.6 pounds weight difference is HUGE. That makes a big difference when carrying it. If you want something ultra-portable, the MacBook Air is it. The PB 12″ is too slow and the screen too small for todays world of HD movies and multi-media rich Internet. The MBA is a home run. Really.

By: Devon

Devon — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:41:07 +0000

I had a 12″ powerbook g4 and loved it! Once the new aluminum macbooks came out, I sold it and upgraded….though I loved the unibody macbook, I have dreaded that decision ever since. The macbook was the best laptop I ever owned, and I babied it every day, but in the end it was just too big, and I never used the webcam. Though I loved the large trackpad w/multi-gesture among other features, I sold my macbook, and now I’m going back to the 12″ Powerbook. I love the portability, and the speed is perfect for me…I’m only using microsft office, iwork, ilife and Safari. It was the perfect laptop to carry on campus, and to take notes.

You’re probably thinking I”m crazy downgrading from a macbook to a four-year old powerbook…but hold on. My powerbook is strictly for portability around campus and at my local coffee shop. I’m also gonna wait unitil Spring to buy a new 24″ iMac. Word is that Apple will drop the price once again, while adding more features/specs. And they might update the three-year old aluminum look, though I wouldn’t be dissapointed if they didn’t because the aluminum iMacs are sexxy. :)

Anyway, I wont get rid of the 12″ Powerbook G4, until Apple releases a 12″ macbook pro….hopefully that will be soon.

By: Poster

Poster — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:40:27 +0000

Seriously people. I did web development on the last Powerbook 15″ … apache, mysql, aquadata suite, textmate, RoR. That’s all the programs I needed every day. It was too slow! Developing with that machine was possible, but it was achingly slow. A C H I N G L Y slow.

When I got my MacBook Pro 2,4 Ghz it was like changing to a Porsche 911. Much more productive now. However, since I carry my MacBook Pro every day everywhere, it’s too heavy. I’m thinking of switching to an MacBook Air.

By: Deborah

Deborah — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:01:37 +0000

I have a 5 yr old 12″ PB 1.33 GHz/1.25 RAM running Tiger. I love my PB, it has NEVER had a problem (knock, knock). I’m thinking of getting a 24″ iMac and then wiping the PB and upgrading it to Leapord. Then just use it for portability and put on it only what i need in terms of docs, music, photos, etc and sync other stuff via MoblieMe. Any thoughts? Can my PB handle Leopard well if the 150 GB hard drive is mostly empty?

By: Stacy

Stacy — Sat, 30 May 2009 21:33:21 +0000

I am writing this on my first and only mac the 12″ powerbook G4 (4+ years old.) I recently upgraded the guts to the fastest I could get and a new huge hard drive. It runs even better than before. The only thing is, now I am lusting after Aperture for picture editing and it doesn’t run on this machine (at least according to the specs. So I am considering getting a Macbook Air or even just a Macbook unibody just to edit photographs. Am I willing to sell my Powerbook, are you kidding? I am like that previous guy who said that you will have to pry it from my cold dead hands.

Apple, please make a 12″ MacPro I would pay whatever you asked!!

By: Clyde

Clyde — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:17:01 +0000

Was looking for a fairly cheap, sturdy Apple ultraportable and rediscovered the 12″ 1.5 after I sold my first one two or three years ago. Great condition, 80 gig hd, maxed out ram, almost pristine condition for $400.00.

While I had been using a lenovo ideapad hackbook for a home browsing/email/word processing computer, I found keyboard, battery life and jumping cursor issues too distracting. With the maximum ram (why, oh why didn’t apple let the machine accept 2 gigs? oh right, they wanted us to buy the 15″ to get that) and safari 4, the machine will hold against any of its modern siblings for basic tasks. (I’m not trying to use it for encoding video like I did five years ago.)

And the keyboard is luxurious. Overall the machine is a delight to use. I couldn’t be happier with it.

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 21:56:39 +0000

i have had a PB 12″ G4 now for 3+ years. I produce music, design websites, do graphic design, record live music, edit video and of course all the typical stuff too… it’s been in use almost NON-STOP since purchase. It fell off a piano and fell off of my car once (don’t ask)!…. I killed the keypad by spilling water on it…. but even now with and external keypad it still works good as new. Original battery too still lasts over three hours.

By: MacBook Air (Refurb) Falls to $999 | CentralGadget.com

MacBook Air (Refurb) Falls to $999 | CentralGadget.com — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 07:20:34 +0000

[...] selling older MacBook Air units. These are the refurbished stock with a PATA hard drive and the worse-than-three-year-old-12-inch-PowerBook-G4 graphics Intel GMA [...]