Switch Side Story Pt 2

Written by Jason Cundall

June 9, 2004 | 01:00

Tags: #apple-store #gimp #imac #mac #network #osx #powerbook #powermac #printer #switch #windows

Companies: #apple

So – 3 hours and 1 patched up wife later, I got to act like a kid at Christmas.

After ripping off the plane Jane shipping carton, here’s what I was greeted with:

Switch Side Story Pt 2 Kid at Christmas
Lord Vader, your PowerBook has arrived...

Damn – even the box is as stylish as hell! Black – you couldn\'t get a more ‘Dark Side’ colour. You could even say it\'s (and I’m sure bit\'s own TV Star would agree) Vaderesque. Of course, it didn’t stop there – opening up the box revealed more ‘style’

Switch Side Story Pt 2 Kid at Christmas
Designed in California, eh? Bound to be bonkers then!

Below this lay all of the ancillary bits and pieces – the manual, the PSU, Software etc.

Switch Side Story Pt 2 Kid at Christmas
Gubbins galore

Did GOO stop to peruse these important operating instructions? Did he hell! This tray was whipped out almost immediately, to reveal the unsuspecting laptop nestled below

Switch Side Story Pt 2 Kid at Christmas
Snug as a PowerBook in a rug

Once taken out of it\'s form fitting foam sleeping bag, the beast finally see’s the light of day.

Switch Side Story Pt 2 Kid at Christmas
Sockets!

Here you can see (from left to right), The power / charging jack, the RJ11 for the internal modem, a USB 2.0 socket, line in and head phone jacks and the PCMCIA slot.

Switch Side Story Pt 2 Kid at Christmas
More sockets!!

On the opposite side of the power book you can see (again, left to right) the Kensington lock slot, another USB 2.0 socket, both firewire 400 and 800 sockets, Gigabit LAN port, s-video out and DVI out.

Switch Side Story Pt 2 Kid at Christmas
Even more soc.. Er sorry. No Sockets.

Not a lot to see up at the front – only the lid catch button, with it’s integral white LED ‘sleep’ indicator (This pulses when the machine is hibernating), and the slot for the ‘superdrive’ – another bit of AppleSpeak, which in this case means a combined 4x DVD-R and 24x CD burner.

Switch Side Story Pt 2 Kid at Christmas
Slick silver

Opening her up shows the track pad and keyboard, all in the same tasteful silvery grey hue as the case. The two grills either side of the keyboard house the speakers, onboard microphone and the light sensors that control the keyboard illumination and screen brightness. A third speaker lurks beneath the keyboard itself, to add a bit of bass welly.

Switch Side Story Pt 2 Kid at Christmas
Aha - Inlumino Malum, If I\'m not mistaken.

The Apple logo glows when the power’s on – neat! The logo is in actuality a window, which allows some of the screens backlight illumination to leak out.

Switch Side Story Pt 2 Kid at Christmas
We really want to see those fingers...

As mentioned previously, the keyboard is under lit. It glows when the ambient light in the room is low, to aid viewing the keys. At the same time, the backlight is adjusted on the screen to stop eyestrain. It\'s not as bright as shown in the pic, that\'s just an artifact of the long exposure needed to get a decent image. It\'s very subtle in real life.
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