Update: Apple's PowerBook 17 stretches 'laptop' moniker

Computerworld - Editor's note: For a brief look at how the PowerBook 17 has fared after a week's use, see the end of this review.

Firing up Apple's latest laptop machine, the new 17-in.-wide PowerBook G4, reminded me of the William Shatner commercial for Priceline.com, where he says something like: "It's gonna be big, really big."

It's big.

More than two months after Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the newest PowerBook G4 -- along with a companion 12-in. PowerBook G4 that's been on the market since late January (see story) -- Apple's top-of-the-line laptop is just now shipping (see story). A few hundred of the portable computers, which sport a 1-GHz Power PC processor, 60GB hard drive, 512MB of RAM, 802.11g wireless networking and a keyboard that lights up in the dark, are now in the hands of early-bird buyers.

I was one of those lucky few, having put my name on a waiting list at a nearby Apple Store back in January. So when an Apple Store employee called this week to tell me that my laptop had come in, I jumped at the chance to pick it up and take it for a test drive. I've also had time to use the smaller 12-inch PowerBook G4, which looks like a scaled-down version of its big brother but with a few critical differences. The little PowerBook has a slower processor, no Level 3-cache, a smaller hard drive and limited memory expansion. Unlike the larger 17-in. model, it comes with 256MB of RAM and tops out at just 640MB; the larger one maxes out at 1GB of memory. The big PowerBook also features what Apple calls Firewire 800 for high-speed data transfer. That's twice the speed of the FireWire standard used by the company in the past.

I bought the PowerBook 17, or PB 17, for myself, but I'm looking at it from the viewpoint of corporate use. In many ways, it's a whole lot of computer in a portable form. In fact, for many road warriors, it may be too much computer.

Let's start with fit, finish and design, something required of any review of an Apple product these days. The company prides itself on its design style, as well it should. Both new PowerBooks set a benchmark for how laptops should be put together. Although there were early scattered reports of problems with the PowerBook 12, including heat issues, sticking trackpad buttons and an uneven base, the one I've used has been flawless. In the short time I've had the PB 17, I can say the same thing about it.