The new 12in PowerBook G4 is a truly beautiful piece of equipment. It sports a superb screen, the best portable keyboard ever and a super-slick, slot-loading DVD/CD-RW combo drive. Add FireWire, Bluetooth, Ethernet, a couple of USB ports and the usual external sound and video ports and it seems like everything you could want is on offer at a sub- $4,000 price.
The question is: why would you buy it? If you want super-light and super-slim, then PCs do that better. If you want the Mac's multimedia capability, the bigger 17in version beats the pants off it. The 12in version has no built in Airport (Wi-Fi) connectivity, no PC card or other expansion slot, slower FireWire, no L3 cache, no digital video-out and, although beautifully compact, it is still well over an inch thick and heavier than 2kg.
It's not ultra-portable and neither is it a realistic video editing platform.
Leaving these questions aside, the 12in G4 performs well. Its brushed Aluminium casing gives a solid and reassuring feel, and the screen seems more rigid than the plastic iBook's version, auguring well for a long hard life out on the road.
The keyboard is a masterpiece, with superb feel, spacing and travel – easily the best in its class. One small user gripe was the time the DVD drive took to swallow and recognise any discs slotted in, but the good sound quality made up for that.
The bare machine we tested had no bundled software but came with the usual complement of services including FinderMail, iChat, Explorer, Sherlock, Address, iCal, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and the DVD player.
Apple's engineers have juggled battery life, heat and size and come up with a very good run-down time (about two to three hours) but in a casing that gets very hot on the knees after an hour or so.
In the end, this is one for the 'must-have-it' brigade. It's superbly executed, but still raises the question of why you'd actually want one.