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howardholton · Aug 7, 2007, 01:41 AM

About two months ago I got rid of my MBP. I found the 15" screen and realized that I was not moving it with me, so I wanted something more portable and needed to run some windows only utilities. So the MBP went away and I dug out my TC1100 (PCMCIA was a requirement.)

A month went away and I realized that I needed to get a mac laptop again. The hardware quality is awesome and the OS cannot be beat. So I thought about what I wanted in a laptop and the primary need was lightweight, and I have never been an ibook fan, so I began a search for the 12" AlBook.

I found a 12" AlBook with 80GB, SuperDrive, 1.5Ghz, 2 batteries, AC Adaptor, VGA Dongle, 512MB Ram for $600 that included personal delivery from the hot Asian owner (thanks Craigslist.)

I upgraded to 1.25gb RAM and a 160gb HDD (a fun upgrade that allowed me to clean any dust or hair from the inside of the notebook.

When I compare the general speed of the notebook with my memory of the MBP (2.0Ghz, 2gb RAM) and with the reality of my MAC Mini Dual Core and I find that for general usage (Internet, Email and basic apps) the G4 is 15-20% faster (I will post exact numbers later) and I could not be happier.

I would love to see some opinions from other G4 owners, help me to believe that these machines are still alive and kicking on other desks and laptop bags, and that people are happy with them, not wishing for the intel world.

Now I will admit that as a network engineer in a WinTel world I will switch to the Intel Mac when there is a 12" MBP and my wife will get my G4 (which she has already attempted to steal, even had my friends GF trying to convince me to give it to her.)

I will continue to post about my love for the G4, mainly to keep it alive.

Let me know your opinion.

Thanks

feethea · Aug 7, 2007, 04:08 AM

I'm a noob Mac user, having bought a mint condition, boxed 12" Powerbook G4 two weeks ago as my first Mac (got the latest 15.4" MacBook Pro with the 2.4 Ghz chip last week too).

I upgraded the OS to Tiger on the G4. Very, very impressed with it. Bought it mainly for my photography and its inherent portability. No regrets whatsoever!

mfbernstein · Aug 7, 2007, 08:46 AM

Originally Posted by feethea

I upgraded the OS to Tiger on the G4. Very, very impressed with it. Bought it mainly for my photography and its inherent portability. No regrets whatsoever!

A nice machine, but if you expect to use it for substantial Aperture/Lightroom use, I think you'll find it comes up a bit short.

Zaurus · Aug 7, 2007, 11:12 AM

15-20% faster?
are you sure?

i sold my 12inch and bought a MBP 15" just for the reason of speed

tmpilling · Aug 7, 2007, 12:35 PM

My G4 PB is brilliant for my purpose and considering all my software is pre-intel versions I have no need to update it. Of course in the future I am looking forward to the dual core, but for now 1.67Ghz power PC chip is lightning. Would love to macs (hehe) out the RAM and HD though.

auxlepli · Aug 7, 2007, 01:27 PM

I love my PB G4! I bought mine two years ago and upgraded the RAM to 768MB. Not too fond of the older and bigger PowerBooks or the new MBP, just don't like the design. So I was thinking about buying a Mini or a MacBook as a secondary computer. I'll see what's announced today and maybe wait for Leopard.

Rumor · Aug 7, 2007, 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by feethea

I'm a noob Mac user, having bought a mint condition, boxed 12" Powerbook G4 two weeks ago as my first Mac (got the latest 15.4" MacBook Pro with the 2.4 Ghz chip last week too).

I upgraded the OS to Tiger on the G4. Very, very impressed with it. Bought it mainly for my photography and its inherent portability. No regrets whatsoever!

Originally Posted by mfbernstein

A nice machine, but if you expect to use it for substantial Aperture/Lightroom use, I think you'll find it comes up a bit short.

Since he has a MBP as well, he can transfer the photos to it for use in Lightroom/Aperture.

mfbernstein · Aug 7, 2007, 02:45 PM

Originally Posted by Zaurus

15-20% faster?
are you sure?

i sold my 12inch and bought a MBP 15" just for the reason of speed

Depends on what you're doing. With native apps that are CPU-bound and a reasonable amount of RAM, the MBP will run circles around the PB. On the other hand, if all your programs are running through Rosetta, are forced into virtual memory and spend most of their time on disk access, then the MBP probably won't be that much faster.

Originally Posted by Rumor

Since he has a MBP as well, he can transfer the photos to it for use in Lightroom/Aperture.

True. But feethea said earlier that he got the PB for photography, among other things. I was pointing out its limitations in that department. The MBP is a fine machine for processing images. However, it does introduce the overhead of keeping two machines synchronized and so on.

SEkker · Aug 8, 2007, 01:34 AM

The PB12 is a great form factor. I'm not convinced the new macbooks are quite as good.

I think the last generation PB G4s were great machines - even the original, 1 GHz lapzilla now 4 years old is rock stable and runs great under 10.4.

I see a real difference in speed when using keynote on the MBP with large files (images, movies) - this machines runs circles around any powerbook.

It all depends on your needs - but a powerbook is still a great machine for many uses.

feethea · Aug 8, 2007, 03:29 AM

Rumor and mfbernstein,

Allow me to clarify re the 12" G4. I did indeed buy it re my photography but not to be used for heavy-duty image processing, despite upping its memory to the max.
No, I use it only for two aspects - showing images to (prospective) customers, and shooting 'tethered' with my DSLR. It's far easier to carry around than the 15.4" MBP.

jtrwallace · Aug 8, 2007, 03:31 AM

if you do a geekbench score on that computer im sure it will come out to be somewhere around 700 or 800 whereas my new MBP comes out to 3250... huge difference. encoding is enormously different

peeb · Aug 8, 2007, 05:06 AM

I love my 1.67 PB. I's definitely snappier in general office use than the MBs that I'm seeing. I think that's a Rossetta issue, mainly, but I'm in no hurry to replace it. The only thing that will make me make the move is when software starts becoming less available (ie the new iMovie)...

buddy1065 · Aug 8, 2007, 07:55 AM

Even after a clean install my 1.5 Ghz 17" boots and runs slower than my 2.4 Ghz MBP and I have no regrets; twice the frame rate in Oblivion and apps open faster. I would seriously be interested in a 12" aluminum if it had an Expresscard/PCMCIA slot at least but I don't think they do. I hope Apple has a small 12" or less offering soon. If not the Sony TZ will probably be my next baby lappy.

jjahshik32 · Aug 8, 2007, 02:22 PM

15-20% faster?!? I almost blew coffee out of my nose after reading that! There's no way its that much faster. Honestly I'm glad your happy about your purchase but no need to over exaggerate the goodness of the 12" form factor. Yea I've been lusting for an ultraportable from apple for the last 1-1.5 years. And after this tuesday and no subnotebook, I decided to order the sony vaio tz, yes it runs vista but I can live with that just use safari on vista or I might end up running linux on it. And the 2.7lbs lightweight and 11" of xblack screen with led backlight technology is oh so sweet =) And honestly if I bought a new laptop these days I wouldnt buy one without an led backlight either I currently own the 2.4ghz 15" macbook pro with led and its awesome and 3/5th the speed of my mac pro desktop, but then again you only paid $600 for your powerbook and that's a real good price. But I owned the powerbook 12" before and after using the mbp man the powerbook is dead slow. But I guess for your needs internet,downloading,word processing should be "good enough".

Dork. · Aug 8, 2007, 02:42 PM

I have a 12" PB, 1.5 GHz G4, which I plan on holding on to until Apple either offers a better video chipset in their MacBook line, or offers a 13" MBP.

I can believe the notion that the 12" felt "snappier" than earlier MBP's, especially for applications that are PPC native. But as more apps go Universal, and as Apple upgrades the MBP with faster processors while the PB line stands still, you'll find that peception of speed goes away. But hey, if it works for you, who cares? A 12" PB can be had for less than half the price of a MBP, how can you go wrong?

peeb · Aug 8, 2007, 02:45 PM

One issue is that I am comparing a PB with an MB, both driving an additional external monitor and running office 2004. It feels to me that the PB is faster.

fisherKing · Aug 8, 2007, 08:45 PM

i've posted here about this before (endlessly, in fact).

i really liked my 1.33g 12", but wanted something new (the 12" had some problems).

i looked at the mbps, and then found a dealer with new 1.5g 12" pbs.
i bought one, and couldn't be happier (unless of course, apple does a 12" mbp).

i love the form factor of this; size, weight. speed is fine. run it at home with a 20" widescreen, extended desktop mode; love that.

great mac, one of the best!

jjahshik32 · Aug 9, 2007, 08:23 PM

hmm.. I duno, I remember driving the powerbook 12" onto my nec lt240k projector and comparing it to the macbook pro 15" its a huge difference. The mbp seems to me much quicker and faster without having any hiccups where the 12" seemed laggy and had some of the time where loading even safari felt "less snappier with some hiccups." And its been over a year now and pretty much everything runs on universal maybe microsoft word is a different story but it still runs faster via rosetta on the mbp than on the ppc native on the 12" pb, I tested its speed once because I was curious. Just before I sold the powerbook upon receiving the mbp.

Simon · Aug 10, 2007, 06:13 AM

When running Office it's no surprise that the 12" PB can hold up to the MB. Rosetta emulation easily gobbles up the extra CPU power of the MB. Of course eventually even MS will manage to get a UB version of Office out the door (although you do have to winder what the heck they've been doing all this time - even the slackers at Adobe beat them to the punch!). At that point there will be no comparison anymore.

And of course already today in any UB app the MB will completely slaughter the 12" PB. I own both and I easily verified the performance difference with several UBs. That said, web and e-mail require only little performance. If that and Office is all you do, I can really imagine a 12" PB still suits you well.

JoshuaZ · Aug 12, 2007, 01:37 AM

I'm still running my life off my trusty 1.33 G4 12in Powerbook. Its a good computer, though I did just upgrade to a new Macbook Pro. I feel the slow down when dealing with my 14,000 photo library and Final Cut Express. Though I am quite pleased with the resale values I see on ebay for 12ins. I could use the cash.

Warhaven · Aug 13, 2007, 03:48 PM

You all seem to be having great experiences with your latptops, which is awesome. My experience has been less than favorable -- my 15" PowerBook has been a complete lemon, to be exact. First, the screen died, but fortunately it was under warranty at the time. Unfortunately, shortly after the warranty ended, the combo drive died. Then the HDD died. Then I lost half my RAM as the lower ram slot decided to stop working. And two power adapters died. The cord on the first one started giving off a bunch of sparks and melted it self, so I got a new one. The new one would give me the green/orange light, but never actually charge the battery (no "charging" icon on the menu bar of the OS). This third one seems to be finally working -- though, I expect it to die by the end of the year with type of garbage I've been getting.

Oh, and of course Apple won't fix the lower ram slot issue under their extended program because I purchased it in October instead of January. What a crock.

Waragainstsleep · Aug 13, 2007, 06:06 PM

I tried to fix one with a RAM slot issue that wasn't covered by REP. Apple sent me another board for it which also had a failed RAM slot. I went mental at them and they covered it. You need to do some extra shouting. And tell them every other problem you had too.

Back to the whole PowerBook/iBook/MacBook/MacBook Pro comparison discussion.
I get all sorts of perspectives on this debate, but most of them are plain stupid, or at least they are not governed by any kind of logic or rationality.
I would estimate that probably half the people on this forum who own or want MacBook Pros do not need them over the MacBook. The difference is slightly more pronounced with the new SR MBPS, but the previous generations have come down to this: Unless you are a media professional (without access to a desktop), or are simply willing to pay through the nose for a few extra features, the MacBook is more than enough. This came up against all sorts of arguments from all sorts of people:
Screen too small - For the price difference you can get an external display;
GPU is not as good - Are you a gamer? If not, shut up unless you want to use Motion or Maya;
MBP faster - You won't notice;
Express card slot - Even now there isn't that much you can do with it, a few months ago it was all but useless;

People's obsession with the 12" PB has always intrigued me. I had one customer who was forced to replace his with a MacBook, and he was just determined to hate it from the start.

What amuses me is the choices made by IT Pros. Intel Macs are their ultimate machines, but they almost always go for the MBP. Which is odd because it doesn't run Diskwarrior any quicker, or ping hosts any quicker. We don't really need a 15" screen over 13", the glossy/matte argument is largely irrelevant. Like so many others they just like the kudos of owning the 'Pro' machine.
I understand it of course. I am used to having a 15" PB for my IT work. And I do take it home to watch movies on. But when I consider an upgrade, I really cannot justify the cost of the MBP.

mfbernstein · Aug 13, 2007, 06:17 PM

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep

What amuses me is the choices made by IT Pros. Intel Macs are their ultimate machines, but they almost always go for the MBP. Which is odd because it doesn't run Diskwarrior any quicker, or ping hosts any quicker. We don't really need a 15" screen over 13", the glossy/matte argument is largely irrelevant. Like so many others they just like the kudos of owning the 'Pro' machine.
I understand it of course. I am used to having a 15" PB for my IT work. And I do take it home to watch movies on. But when I consider an upgrade, I really cannot justify the cost of the MBP.

Need is hardly the question. After all, most of us could probably make do with a PC, albeit somewhat less happily. Still, for a lot of people, I think the discussion comes down to fit and finish (incidentally, the same reason why people love the 12" PB but affection for the 12" iBook is considerably less) and not just on aesthetic level. As somebody who gets headaches from the glossy screen, I assure you that that argument is not irrelevant to everyone. Ditto for people who type a lot and have problems with the MB keyboard. It's hardly a universal issue, but it does exist.

PaperNotes · Aug 14, 2007, 09:11 AM

If you have gotten a second hand 12" make sure to check if the battery needs to be changed as part of the battery recall program.

mkral · Aug 15, 2007, 11:19 PM

The 12" PB Rocks. My second favorite laptop of all time (Behind the PB 2400)

I'm pretty sure that the MB & MBP's will be faster, but none of them is as portable as the 12". It's small, lightweight, and does everything I need. Of course, I can't wait for a 12" MB or MBP & will buy one once they appear, but for now, the smaller size & portability of the 12" trumps any speed increase I can get out of a newer mac, at least for what I use my computer for.

osiris24x · Aug 16, 2007, 02:22 AM

Strange "upgrade", but so long as it meets your needs, that's what matters!

Altair · Aug 16, 2007, 04:10 AM

Originally Posted by jjahshik32

15-20% faster?!? I almost blew coffee out of my nose after reading that! There's no way its that much faster. Honestly I'm glad your happy about your purchase but no need to over exaggerate the goodness of the 12" form factor. Yea I've been lusting for an ultraportable from apple for the last 1-1.5 years. And after this tuesday and no subnotebook, I decided to order the sony vaio tz, yes it runs vista but I can live with that just use safari on vista or I might end up running linux on it. And the 2.7lbs lightweight and 11" of xblack screen with led backlight technology is oh so sweet =) And honestly if I bought a new laptop these days I wouldnt buy one without an led backlight either I currently own the 2.4ghz 15" macbook pro with led and its awesome and 3/5th the speed of my mac pro desktop, but then again you only paid $600 for your powerbook and that's a real good price. But I owned the powerbook 12" before and after using the mbp man the powerbook is dead slow. But I guess for your needs internet,downloading,word processing should be "good enough".

I've been eyeing the Sony vaio tz to possibly replace my now 4.5 year old 12" powerbook. Tell me how it is once you get it.

Howardholton, I know how you feel. I don't want a 15" powerbook that I just would end up never taking anywhere. Right now I still take my powerbook with me to work every day and it got me through 3 years of college. I've been waiting for about a year or so now for Apple to introduce a 12" or smaller laptop and they just haven't made one.

I have so far resisted the urge to settle for a macbook for many reasons but I might end up with one anyways just to stay with OSX.

jjahshik32 · Aug 16, 2007, 05:59 PM

I havnt received my tz yet as sony has a huge demand for them. It was just shipped 2 days ago but I will let you know how it ends up... I keep hearing about its led backlit lcd being just absolutely drop dead gorgeous~ Cant wait to check it out. Also anyone here have any experience with ems shipping? From japan to texas anyone with this experience? I hear alot of people say that it takes 3-5 days for shipping to arrive but hopefully its more like 3 days. Also does usps ship on saturday through ems? and sunday?

fisherKing · Aug 16, 2007, 07:40 PM

Originally Posted by mkral

The 12" PB Rocks. My second favorite laptop of all time (Behind the PB 2400)

the 2400c was UNBELIEVABLE in it's day, i loved that machine. great design, powerful (enough, for it's time), built like a tank too, great to carry around.
no one could believe it was my computer...

the 12" powerbook is great, just hard to believe apple hasn't given us a 12" mbp. have given up waiting, am getting a mini for my desk, and keeping the 12" for email, writing, travel...

driven · Aug 17, 2007, 04:43 AM

I love my PB 15" as well. HOWEVER: I'll eventually end up getting an MBP. I work in a Windows world and I need a machine that can run Windows. (VMware Fusion will be terrific.)

Right now my main job takes place on a Dell Lattitude D810. This machine is HUGE and HEAVY. Worse, when I want to bring my PB with me then I have to haul two laptops through airport security. NOT ideal. If I finally get an MBP then I can retire the Dell. (Even though the office pays for the Dell and I'll have to buy the Mac myself.)

Anyway: If I didn't need Windows apps, then YES, the G4 is ideal.

mmurray · Aug 17, 2007, 06:48 AM

I'm also a keen ex PB 12 owner. I recently got my old one out and used it for a few weeks as my black MacBook was in being repaired for cracks in the case -- not a problem with the 12" aluminium case. It was fun to be using it again but it was noticeably slower for most things. I also noticed the inferior WiFi range you get from having the metal case. On the other hand the 12" fits better on the cafe table and in the bicycle pannier!

Fingers crossed Apple will come back to this form factor -- hope this patent is a clue

MacNN | Apple patents retractable notebook ports

Michael

auxlepli · Aug 17, 2007, 11:53 AM

Hmmm that's odd you have a problem with range. Is it noticibly different than your MacBook? My Airport Express is at one end of the house, but yet I still get four bars at the other end, and four bars in the basement too.

fisherKing · Aug 17, 2007, 02:08 PM

Originally Posted by auxlepli

Hmmm that's odd you have a problem with range. Is it noticibly different than your MacBook? My Airport Express is at one end of the house, but yet I still get four bars at the other end, and four bars in the basement too.

my 12" pb will see 4 networks, where my friend's macbook will see 9...!
def not the best airport range on the 12".

plus, the screen is it's weakness; the 15" alubooks had better, brighter screens.

but i LOVE carrying this thing around...

osiris24x · Aug 17, 2007, 08:28 PM

Originally Posted by howardholton

When I compare the general speed of the notebook with my memory of the MBP (2.0Ghz, 2gb RAM) and with the reality of my MAC Mini Dual Core and I find that for general usage (Internet, Email and basic apps) the G4 is 15-20% faster (I will post exact numbers later) and I could not be happier.

I really can't blame jjahshik32 for almost blowing coffee out his nose, as 15-20% faster is a bit silly. In reality they're anywhere from 100% to 500% slower than even the slowest Intel Core Duo, even in non-native application tests. The Core 2 Duo's numbers are even higher than these.

That said, I still think the 12" Powerbook is an awesome machine.

JoshuaZ · Aug 17, 2007, 09:48 PM

Originally Posted by fisherKing

my 12" pb will see 4 networks, where my friend's macbook will see 9...!
def not the best airport range on the 12".

plus, the screen is it's weakness; the 15" alubooks had better, brighter screens.

but i LOVE carrying this thing around...

I noticed the same thing at my office. My 12in wouldn't see some networks, while my coworkers Macbook would be able to connect to them. (Though my new Macbook Pro can kind of see these networks yet can't connect to them.)

Since I've been moving data around for a day or two, I've been looking at both screens side by side. The Macbook Pro's screen is quite brighter then the 12in's ever was. I was always disappointed with its screen brightness level.

The size of the 12in is quite nice. I always got compliments about how small it was. I never minded the screen size when traveling, but at home I've almost always had a second display.

My 1.33 G4 always was snappy. Its only recently with my 14,000 photos and some video work that it showed its age. Though now the new iMovie needs a G5 or Intel to run. Even having several taps open taxed the system. Sadness.

For the most part I loved my 12in powerbook. The only reason I switched to a Macbook Pro was for speed (and because I actually have the cash for a change). If there had been a 13in Macbook Pro would I have gone for it? Probably. Heck, I was really tempted just to go for a Macbook just because it reminded me of my old 12in in many ways.

So yeah. The 12in was and still is a good computer. I never got why people knocked it. I still love my little comp and feel bad about selling it. Though I feel good about the money.

giggs11 · Aug 18, 2007, 01:03 AM

Had my 12" 1.33 GHz PB for a little over three years now, and the hard drive just died (luckily I got all my stuff of of it in time). Just went in for a new 15" MBP 2.4 GHz, glossy screen, which should arrive in a week or so.

Even though I love the form factor of my 12", ultimately it came down to the screen being too small for my primary machine and just not stacking up in terms of quality when compared to the newer laptops. Not to mention the processor and graphics card not being able to handle a lot of the newer stuff, especially anything HD. I've been thinking about getting a new one for several months now, but the hard drive failure put me over the top.

It's still a great little machine, and I could easily put a new hard drive in (which I'll probably do after paying off the MBP). It'd work perfectly for the standard web browsing, e-mail, iTunes, YouTube sort of stuff. In fact I've had a couple of friends ask about buying it... amazing that a three-year old laptop still has that kind of value.

mmurray · Aug 18, 2007, 02:16 AM

Originally Posted by giggs11

Even though I love the form factor of my 12", ultimately it came down to the screen being too small for my primary machine

The screens were never great even when the machines where new. I think they had an iBook screen as compared to the then 15" Powerbook screen. I used to get around that problem by having a keyboard, mouse and 23" display at work and just plugged it in when I got there. The 12" form factor fitted into the bike pannier so well :-)

Michael

giggs11 · Aug 18, 2007, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by mmurray

The screens were never great even when the machines where new. I think they had an iBook screen as compared to the then 15" Powerbook screen. I used to get around that problem by having a keyboard, mouse and 23" display at work and just plugged it in when I got there. The 12" form factor fitted into the bike pannier so well :-)

Michael

Yeah I had it hooked up to my 20" Samsung widescreen monitor for a while, but I ended up taking that to work and never got around to buying another one. Plus I just prefer to simplify with fewer wires, so I like to use the laptop's screen if possible.

But it was great to have when I travelled.

mkral · Aug 18, 2007, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by mmurray

The 12" form factor fitted into the bike pannier so well :-)

Michael

And in a backpack, on an airplane seat tray, at those small tables at cafes, etc. It was a great size. The screen never really bothered me. It wasn't the greatest, but I never really noticed until I hooked it up to an external monitor, when the differences became obvious.

dn15 · Aug 19, 2007, 03:21 AM

I currently own a MacBook (original Core Duo, 2GHz SuperDrive model) and absolutely love it. That said, my previous Mac was a PowerBook G4 12" 1.33GHz. While the MacBook is leaps and bounds faster on anything Universal, sometimes I really miss that 12" PowerBook and I preferred its physical construction and size. It was just so compact and beautiful. You can count me in the "I wish there were a 12-inch MacBook Pro" camp.

SierraDragon · Aug 19, 2007, 10:22 PM

I too wish for a 12-13" MBP or Macbook Thin for those folks with low end performance needs and desiring the cool small form factor. I will buy one for my boss as soon as it is available.

Personally, I am a graphics person. The small screen real estate, lowered performance and lesser pixel count of small laptops suck for professional images work, so I will stick to the larger MBPs. Currently I use a 17" C2D MBP that is a huge improvement over the 15" 1.67 GHz G4 PB it replaced; and the 15" PB was much more competent than the 12" models.

-Allen Wicks

mkral · Aug 19, 2007, 11:05 PM

Well, let's not hope for a low end performance 12". There's no real reason why the 12" should have dramatically lowered specs. Apple intentionally crippled the 12" PB, I'm hoping the same is not true of the (rumored) 12/13" MBP.

air · Aug 19, 2007, 11:43 PM

I love my 12" PowerBook 1.5 Ghz. However, next to the intel MacBooks/Pros, its starting to look a little long in the tooth..

I would pick up a BlackBook or a 13" MacBook Pro in a second. Please Apple.

Simon · Aug 20, 2007, 03:03 AM

Originally Posted by mkral

Well, let's not hope for a low end performance 12". There's no real reason why the 12" should have dramatically lowered specs. Apple intentionally crippled the 12" PB, I'm hoping the same is not true of the (rumored) 12/13" MBP.

Using an ULV C2D and a low-powered and/or underclocked GPU alone will reduce performance considerably compared to the current MBP. There is no way you will get a 12" MBP lite that performs similarly to the 15" MBP.

If you want something that is small, thin, and light (and not scorching hot or noisy as hell) you will have to put up with a certain performance penalty. My guess is that's precisely the reason Apple hasn't done the MBP lite yet. I'm pretty certain the market for a small and expensive yet not very powerful notebooks is a tad too small for Apple to go after (yet).

fisherKing · Aug 20, 2007, 09:12 AM

[QUOTE=Simon;If you want something that is small, thin, and light (and not scorching hot or noisy as hell) you will have to put up with a certain performance penalty. My guess is that's precisely the reason Apple hasn't done the MBP lite yet. I'm pretty certain the market for a small and expensive yet not very powerful notebooks is a tad too small for Apple to go after (yet).[/QUOTE]

and yet they DID do a 12" powerbook. i'm hoping the rumors are true about a 'subnotebook' coming. i know i'm ready for one!