Apple PowerBook G4 1500
Review
A business laptop, released in 2003, but that had only some of the typical business laptop features. It had a very pleasant chassis and reasonable CPU and GPU performance. The choice of DDR RAM was very good, ensuring a solid increase in capabilities and performance, but providing just a single memory socket did not offer good prospects for upgrades. The graphics chipset was a major improvement from the previous PowerBook Titanium models, but the CPU still was slow, most likely due to the market segmentation chosen by Apple. The lack of USB 2.0 ports feels like an major shortcoming when this laptop was launched in 2003 and especially so when it was considered for business use. The 12 inch laptops require a proprietary, hard to find, adapter to plug an external VGA or DVI display, which is unfortunate while 15 and 17 inch PowerBook laptops use the standard DVI-I port.
The laptop ran cool enough but this was not due to the special design of the laptop but the low consumption of the CPU, especially when comparing it with the energy consumption of the later PowerPC G4. The power saving settings in Mac OSX are not suitable. Using the automatic setting does not provide well balanced performance as it is offers an intermediate performance between low and high settings, closer to the lower setting. When turning on the high setting, the swiftness of the operating system and applications is much improved, but so is the heat release and power use. With no reasonable performance in automatic mode, this Apple laptop cannot feel anything else but slow.
The LCD TFT screen build quality was very good, using a modern technology that offers relatively good contrast and response times. High resolution screens are pointless with the typical OSX environment of the time. Expectations should be according to the laptop's timeline with added odd failures on some models such as fluorescent lamps that absorb mercury and run pink for a few moments on startup. The graphics chipset is good, even if Apple laptops at that time were rarely used in demanding games and typical applications of that time which included light browsing, office use and photo editing worked acceptably. However, the PowerBook G4 was present in a decade when use scenarios shifted slowly towards video editing and more demanding applications, requiring larger screens and better performance.
The keyboard is comfortable to type on, the painted keycaps being more durable than you may expect on other laptops. The keyboard is not as easy to clean as on older Ibook models but it can be vacuumed. The wireless performance is slightly improved compared with previous Ibook and PowerBook laptops but still far from later 802.11n standards. On the other side, the included Ethernet port offers very good performance and reliability, being a good networking choice. The laptop also included, by default, modem connections for phone lines, which was, still, not supplied on all laptops released by other manufacturers in the same time frame.
The inclusion of a DVD drive is a welcoming feature as the Apple operating system was notoriously bad in terms of size, requiring careful use of multiple CDs if a DVD drive and disks were not available. On the other side, the lack of DVD writing capability is still unpleasant on a laptop designated to pro or business users as well as the slow Firewire port which hints at some video editing capability. The rechargeable battery can be easily removed or replaced but the timekeeping battery is placed inside the rechargeable battery pack that is almost surely not working after so many years. Luckily, however, Apple systems are very good at keeping good BIOS settings without any battery.
The chassis was slim, light, comfortable due to rounded corners and a serious improvement in durability over previous generation Powerbook Titanium laptops. The laptop's metal case is highly durable, but must be very carefully disassembled, when required. This is somewhat annoying. Unfortunately, parts of the chassis are especially vulnerable to rough handling and the aluminum frame is not supported by a rigid underframe, meaning that bends and dents are quite common. The lid closing latch is very well designed and durable. The display hinges are very well engineered even if they may not look to be anything special. The integrated speakers are average, having decent performance.
The standard HDDs are slightly slow for Mac OSX, but the supplied drive is spacious. Replacing the hard-drive is difficult but the system accepts most late Pentium III era drives for a real speed boost. Software support is very good as the system can run the Classic environment, which allows working with older MacOS applications and experiencing the system.