Steve Jobs announced the next professional PowerBook Wednesday in his keynote address at MacWorld Expo Japan in Tokyo. The new PowerBook sports the same great industrial design as its predecessor, with a big speed bump and the introduction of firewire.
The three new configurations clock in at 400 and 500 MHz, each with 1MB of L2 Backside cache. Sorry, Folks. No G4 yet. The 400 ships with a 6 GIG hard drive and 64MB of SDRAM. The 500 gets a 12 or 18 GIG hard drive with 128MB of SDRAM! All are capable of handling up to 512 MB of RAM and all will sport 8MB of VRAM.
Dual Firewire ports replace the SCSI port on the back panel.
Apple’s suggested retail price stays the same. US$2,499 for the 400mhz model and US$3,499 for the 500mhz 12 GIG model. The 500mhz 18 GIG model retails for US$3,997 and comes with two batteries and two power adapters.
The introduction of this new pro PowerBook means every computer Apple ships is ready for wireless connectivity, something no other computer maker in the world can boast. Get that man another airplane!
