“How large can you make a laptop’s screen without making the overall computer too unwieldy to be described as ‘mobile,'” asks Walt Mossberg for the Wall Street Journal. Mossberg continues, “Apple Computer, famous for its slick designs, thinks it knows the answer. It’s in my hands right now.”
“I am typing these words on Apple’s latest PowerBook, the first laptop with a huge, 17-inch, widescreen display. This rectangular, high-resolution screen is simply breathtaking — vivid, sharp and oh, so roomy. It’s big enough to comfortably display two Word documents, or two Web pages or e-mail messages, side by side. And DVDs look fabulous on it.”
“But the generous screen stretches the width of the laptop so far that the machine is a long, narrow rectangle. Even some of its fans have nicknamed it “the aircraft carrier.” It’s a little odd, but not really difficult, to carry or to use on your lap.”
After favorably comparing the 17-inch AlBook to Dell’s offerings, “even though the Dell has a significantly smaller screen, it looks like a whale next to the 17-inch PowerBook,” Mossberg wraps up with, “if you mainly use it as a desktop replacement, or at most tote it back and forth between home and office, the 17-inch PowerBook is a great choice and another design win for Apple.
Read Mossberg’s full review here.
Nice 17″, but mine has a dead pixel. Any others having this issue?
I had one stuck pixel the first time I turned it on. A couple of <very> light taps took care of it and I’ve seen no problems since.
I think that this was a fair and balanced review.