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From The Road Warrior Archive - Goldilocks, Aristotle, And The Three PowerBook Form Factors

No The Road Warrior Mailbag this week because there were no reader questions or comments. It's high summer, August is nearly half-over, and the outdoors beckons. I've been sneaking off to the beach myself.

In lieu of a Mailbag, here's another selection from The Road Warrior Archive, this on first published on March 28, 2000.

With the debut of the new aluminum & glass iMac last week, and the iPhone phenomenon, the main topic of discussion in this column still has topicl relevance seven+ years later. There is also some speculation about the then unreleased G4 PowerBook (Pismo was state of the art at the time) ans some ruminations on buying refurbished. The Apple Certified Refurbished experience has improved a lot since then, and these days I'm an unequivocal fan of buying refurbished.

CM

Goldilocks, Aristotle, And The Three PowerBook Form Factors

(Originally Published in The Road Warrior, March 28, 2000)

Actually there are only two PowerBook form factors these days, which is what I want to talk about in this column. Should Apple make a smaller (and maybe even a bigger) 'Book?

In the childrens' story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Goldilocks visits the bruin family's home while they are out and engages in a comparison selection process of determining sort of an Aristotelian "golden mean" in terms of chair size, porridge temperature, and so on.

Aristotle argued that the highest good must be rational action which is distinguished by avoidance of extremes and maintenance of balance, ergo: analytical constructs like:

too much - just enough (golden mean) - too little
cowardice - courage - rash/foolish
servility - friendliness - surlyness
miserliness - generosity - extravagance

Or, as Goldilocks observed, chairs and beds could be:
too big - just right - too small
and porridge could be:
too hot - just right - too cold

The golden mean paradigm works very well for many things, although concepts like justice, for instance, do not fit it well. An excess of justice is not possible, and advocating "moderation in all things" can be problematical if "all things" include qualities like honesty, kindness, and virtue.

Goldilocks was an Aristotelian, and so, apparently is Steve Jobs when it comes to portable computers, since Apple has settled on a sort of size and weight "golden mean" in the six to seven pound range -- not the biggest laptops on the market, and certainly not the smallest, but basically one size fits all. As with virtue and justice, I don't think Aristotle's golden mean applies very well as the last word in PowerBook form factors.

What sparked this philosophical reverie was an email from regular Road Warrior reader Luis Vincent, who recently sold his iBook and replaced it with an iMac and possibly a Palm III.

Luis notes that "The iMac's faster hard drive and higher screen resolution seems to outperform the iBook in PhotoShop work by a considerable margin. I very much like the iBook but for one thing: weight. This takes us to the hole in Apple production: the iPalm some of us want become reality

"I've been trying the Palm lately, and I like it even more with each use. You can download the complete works of H.G. Wells to read on the road -- my brother did it! -- and read/type your email when needed on the train, the bus or sitting on a rock at the top of the mountain. And the Graffiti works better than I thought, only slow in comparison with keyboards for touch typist. A bit disturbing is the poor support for USB Macs; more expensive than Wintels or legacy-serial-ports-Macs because you need to buy a separate interface."

The Palm is a great little number -- sort of like a Mac Plus running System 6 in a handheld form factor, and as Luis notes, rumors persist about a possible iPalm offering from Apple. Which would be great, but it would not plug the other hole that has been gaping in Apple's portable lineup since the PowerBook 2400c was discontinued -- a small, lightweight, but reasonably full-featured laptop for serious road warriors. The iBook, as Luis discovered, is simply too heavy and bulky for lugging around comfortably on a regular basis. It's even larger and heavier than its "big" brother, Pismo. Both if these computers are really more like portable desktop replacements than "notebook" analogs., while the Wintel world has a mouth-watering selection of sleek, ultrathin, PC subnotebooks that sell like crazy.

If course, the downside of these little beauties is the sobering reality of Windows inside, but with several of the Linux versions becoming more and more user-friendly, and new Linux software like Corel's WordPerfect 2000 Office suite available, the "slim" PC notebooks become more compelling, even for longtime Mac-heads.

At Apple's Stockholders' meeting in early 1999, Steve Jobs noted that: "We're always trying to build lighter laptops, but we're pulled in some different directions." Mr. Jobs allowed then that ultimately there might be three distinct laptop markets: one for a low-cost consumer model, one for professionals who want a full-featured model that can do everything; and one for "digital road warriors who just want something light so they can get e-mail in their hotel rooms."

Apple has two of those bases nicely covered, but the third is still wide open. Admittedly, if an "iPalm" is in the offing, it would technically meet Mr. Jobs' "something light so they can get e-mail in their hotel rooms," description, although I think that what a lot of potential PowerBook customers would prefer is an "eBook" ("executive PowerBook") more along the lines of the thin PC notebooks.

At the other end of the size and weight spectrum, last week reader Jason Cobb wrote:

"Regarding the thread about smaller laptops. I guess that's great for many people, but personally, I'd like to see a larger format laptop from Apple. I think a Cinema display would fold over a full size extended keyboard quite nicely. I really hate simple tiny keyboards, and I need all the screen real estate I can get for non-linear editing apps. Plus there would be more space for batteries, expansions, etc. Yes, it would be heavier and not as compact, but that's a trade off I could happily live with. And imagine how great DVD movies would look on a 16:9 aspect ratio display on your laptop!"

In The Road Warrior Mailbag, I replied:

Larger form factor laptop? Fascinating idea. Sort of like a modernized Mac Portable. The caveat here would be the cost of a large screen LCD versus the limited market for such a machine.

"Perhaps more apropos would be a small desktop CPU unit in the tradition of the old LC III/LC 475/Quadra 605 coupled to a standard KB and an LCD monitor. The G4 tower is cool, but awfully bulky."

However, in thinking more about this interesting idea over the past week, it has occurred to me that a great, big PowerBook like that would actually be ideal for the sort of use I put my 'Books to for the most part -- if I could afford one. I really like small laptops, but in practical terms, I really don't lug mine around much, so a machine with a big screen and an extended keyboard would make sense.

When I ran this idea past my PowerBook guru son, Tristan, he noted that I had missed an important point in my reply to Jason Cobb -- that a smaller desktop CPU doesn't address the issue of self-contained portability. He thought that the gonzo PowerBook idea was great, and suggested that including a built-in graphics tablet (possibly integrated with the trackpad?) would also be a cool idea as well.

Now let's see; 22 inch cinema display, 105 key keyboard, graphics tablet, say -- a G4 750 MHz processor, some PCI slots, and a battery large enough to power all this stuff; I expect that we might be looking at the PowerBook 5300ce losing its status as the most expensive PowerBook ever. I'll bet they could sell enough of these to make it worth their while, though.

On the other hand, I imagine that Goldilocks and Aristotle might find such a machine falling outside the golden mean.

The PowerBook G4 Speculation Mill Cranks Up

Turning to other matters, the rumor mill is turning out some very early scuttlebutt about the next PowerBook, which I would be very surprised to see introduced before MacWorld San Francisco next January

In his ZDNet column last week, go2Mac.com's Jason O'Grady suggests that Pismo's successor may be named "Mercury," or "PowerBook 2000" and should -- yes folks -- be equipped with a G4 processor. The new 'Book may also feature an enhanced touchpad with pen-based input and mappable hot spots to trigger scripts or macros. Jason also speculates that the new PowerBook may also have a luminous keyboard similar to Timex's IndiGlo technology, which will sound like a gimmick only if you have never tried hunt and peck typing in the dark.

The G4 processor for portables will not be the same unit used in desktop machines, but rather something more analogous to the PPC 603e relative to the bigger, more powerful desktop-only 601 and 604 chips.

However, it's very early days yet as far the G4 Powerbook is concerned, and I expect that Pismo will be state of the art in PowerBooks for nine more months. I also think that a faster G3 chip might make better sense as the next PowerBook's processor rather than a G4, but what do I know?

Refurb Ruminations

From time to time in this column I have advocated refurbished higher-end PowerBooks as a value alternative to buying a new entry-level machine. I still think this makes sense, but a recent article by PowerBook Central's Stephen Hildreth, reviewing reader refurb-purchase experiences, indicates that if you're buying a refurb unit, even if it's an Apple-refurbished machine, it pays too be cautious.

Dispatches from the refurb. front include:

• A WallStreet G3 250 (13.3 inch model) with the four screws that hold the display assembly in place missing and six bad pixels that would randomly appear and vanish. There were also visible scratches on the case, and the ports "looked as though they had been previously abused by a busy multimedia agency. The screws were replaced by an authorized dealer, but the bad pixels, which were located in the center 50% of the screen, were said to be within spec. The customer eventually opted to return the PowerBook to the vendor for a refund, since there were no exchange units in stock, which the reader cites as the biggest problem with refurb units. "If there's something wrong with the computer that fate deals you, you're probably out of luck, depending on the [limited] supply and your merchant's return policy."

• Another PowerBook Central reader ordered a PowerBook G3 300/CD but received a 292. When he called the supplier to complain, they tried to tell him that the 292 was really a 300 . He eventually opted to keep 292, since 300s were out of stock, giving hope for gaming because the 292 cannot switch resolutions.

• A reader I ordered a refurbished G3 300, but when it arrived it read G3 266 on the bottom and had a couple scratches on the case. There was a 300 MHz processor and 8 gigabyte hard drive inside -- possibly a machine cobbled together from 300 guts and a 266 case. The customer returned the mongrel 'Book "with some difficulty."

• A supposedly Apple-refurbed PowerBook G3 300 DVD laptop arrived with the DVD PC card missing. The reseller said it was Apple's responsibility. Apple told the customer they had no record of the serial number of that computer, and had not refurbed this laptop, and there was no warranty on this machine. There were also dead pixels which could not be massaged out. The reseller then told him that the machine had been rebuilt FOR APPLE by Pinacor, and that he should call them. Pinacor informed them that they do not refurb for Apple, and that it is the reseller's obligation to call Pinacor, which does not deal with retail customers directly.

Things deteriorated into bad comedy from there. After two emails and three phone calls, a young reseller's rep called and assured him that the "missing product would be sent ASAP." When asked which product he was referring, the rep admitted he didn't know. Three days later, the rep told the customer he had given his resignation notice, and that he would call in a couple of days as a courtesy. He never called. The customer returned the PowerBook and ate the shipping and insurance cost.

I wouldn't let these bad experiences of others completely dissuade me from looking for refurbished PowerBook bargains, but I would suggest getting a clear undertaking from the reseller about return policies and warranties up front, and be prepared to walk away if you're not satisfied with what you hear. Caveat emptor.

CM