Macintosh
PowerBook Titanium

The G4 Titanium PowerBook ushered in a new look for Apple's laptop computers. It also sported a huge for it's time 15" LCD screen with a maximum resolution of 1152x768 in millions of colours. The original configuration came with either a 400mhz or 500mhz G4 cpu. The Titanium in the photographs is my second generation 550mhz which I purchased used.

Unlike the original Titaniums my 550 supports Quartz Extreme through it's ATI Rage M6 video card with 16 MB of VRAM.

Like the G3 PowerBooks the Ti is easy to add memory to. Just release the two clips on the keyboard and flip it down to expose the stacked memory slots. you can add up to 1GB of PC100 or PC133 3.3 volt SO-Dimms. One thing I notice is that the tabs holding the top slot can be damaged if you aren't careful when removing the bottom SO-Dimm.

Like the Pismo the Ti accepts an AirPort card. Range is pretty good because it also has a built in antenna.

The first thing you noticed about the Titanium was that it was made of metal which gives it a nice solid feel. The downside, metal dents. Mine has it's fair share of dents which don't affect performance in the least, just makes her look well loved. Access to the internal parts is by removing 8 torx head screws and then removing the bottom plate.

Once the bottom cover is removed you have very easy access to the hard drive, and optical drive. To remove the hard drive remove the two torx screws accessible from the empty battery compartment. You should then be able to lift up the drive from that side and pull it out keeping in mind that there are two screws on the opposite side that also slip into the rubber O rings as found on the accessible side.

The Ti uses a slot loading DVD/CDRW drive. You can upgrade to a DVD burning drive although these aren't as inexpensive or common as the tray loading drives you can add to a G3 such as the Pismo.

Under the optical drive is the pram battery.

Also like the Pismo the Ti has a single PCMCIA card slot on it's side. I use an assortment of cards including Adaptec's USB 2 card which works very well.

Under the rear cover were an assortment of ports, firewire, ethernet, two USB 1 ports, video connector (my 550 came with a DVI adaptor), Video out port, modem and IR port.

One downside with the metal finish other than denting is the way the finish becomes corroded from the oils/sweats from your hands. Though this doesn't seem to affect the structure of the laptop it does detract from the appearance. Otherwise a terrific design and a great laptop that is currently my primary laptop.

Comments? Feel free to e-mail me at kevino@newsroom.net.