Apple Spruces Up PowerBook, iBook Lines

With the holiday season taking hold, Apple has issued long awaited updates to both its PowerBook and iBook notebook lines. The G4-equipped PowerBooks now top off at 1GHz and come with a slot-loading SuperDrive - Apple's trademark CD and DVD burner that previously shipped only with G4 desktop systems.

Apple also boosted the speed of its high-end iBook to 800MHz and dropped the price of the 700MHz model to a more affordable $999 USD.

All PowerBooks now ship with a new ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 graphics chipset, and the iBooks have received the PowerBook's former 7500 model. The 1GHz PowerBook ships with a 60GB hard drive and SuperDrive for $2,999. A 867 MHz model sans SuperDrive retails for $2,299.

"This is what our customers have been waiting for. The Titanium PowerBook G4 is the thinnest and lightest pro notebook in the industry," said Greg Joswiak, vice president of Hardware Product Marketing, in the announcement. "The new PowerBook packs a 15.2-inch screen, 1 GHz PowerPC G4 processor, CD and DVD burning SuperDrive and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics into a 1-inch thin, 5.4 pound Titanium package. No other pro notebook comes close to these features."

For those looking for a smaller expenditure, Apple's 800MHz iBook with 14.1-inch display and 256MB of RAM sells for $1,599. A 12.1-inch version is alternately available for $1,299. All of the new PowerBook and iBook models come with Mac OS X version 10.2 pre-installed.