New PowerBook Announced at Macworld Expo Tokyo

according to a third-party press release. This news was carried in the evening (ET) by several Mac web sites citing a VST press release. The MWET venue was first suggested by Macs Only! the day after Steve Jobs' MWE San Francisco keynote when he failed to announce a new PowerBook there. Our argument was that Japan is a huge and growing market for Apple and deserving of major product announcements. We also first pointed out subsequently that Seybold Boston was an unlikely venue since Apple was not an official participant and Steve Jobs was not among the keynoters.

According to Apple's press release, the new PowerBook has 400 and 500 MHz G3 CPUs at the same prices as the respective 333 and 400 MHz Lombard models--$2499 and $3499. The form factor remains cool, the same as the current Lombard but it has the UMA motherboard with 2 FireWire ports, a DVD-ROM/DVD-video drive, ATi Rage 128 Mobility graphics chip and AirPort built in. The minimum weight drops from 5.9 to 5.7 pounds with one battery and a blank for the other compartment. Battery life remains at 10 hours with 2 batteries. From the Apple Store images, it looks like the new PowerBook will come with the iBook AC adapter--I love mine. RAM and hard drive access is simple, under the keyboard. The new PowerBook drops a built in SCSI port but retains SCSI capability via third-party PCMCIA adapter cards. It maintains a 30 percent speed advantage over Pentium III laptops according to Apple.