When you think of high-performance notebook manufacturers, Apple is probably not the first name that springs to mind.

But since the launch of the first Powerbook G4 two years ago, the company has been justifiably proud of its portable offerings.

The Powerbook has now undergone its second revamp and, while it may look identical to its predecessors, there are a number of big changes that will make it especially attractive to Apple's core market of graphics professionals.

The first of these is the 1GHz PowerPC G4 processor, making this the fastest portable Mac ever.

Breaking the gigahertz barrier is a big step for Apple and its processor partner Motorola, which long ago gave up the fight against Intel and AMD on megahertz ratings alone.

Apple is keen to point out the sheer performance of the G4 chip in tasks such as photo retouching in Photoshop and video editing in Final Cut Pro.

We can verify that it blazes through such tasks, as well as simpler jobs such as booting up and opening a Word document.

However, as Sysmark doesn't run on Mac OS, we can only give you direct speed comparisons on office and image editing applications.

The Powerbook won't be as fast as high-end PC notebooks, but as a rough guide, a 1GHz G4 chip is approximately equivalent in performance terms to a Pentium 4 running at twice the speed.

The next big improvement is the addition of a modern and powerful graphics processor, in the form of ATI's Mobility Radeon 9000 with a massive 64MB of dedicated video memory. This means the Powerbook G4 would make an excellent portable gaming machine.

But the real significance of this is for the Powerbook's intended buyers, including video editors, graphic designers and 3D modellers, many of whom are Mac users already, and will relish having a notebook that can do everything their desktop Macs can.

But possibly the most important change to the Powerbook G4 is the addition of the Superdrive, a Pioneer-built optical drive that not only reads and writes CDs, but can burn and play back video DVDs, using the DVD-R format.

These drives have been in Apple's desktop machines for a couple of years, but the Powerbook is so thin that it only has room for a slot-loadingdrive, so building this was quite a feat.

IDVD is just part of a large suite of software preinstalled on the Powerbook's 60GB hard disk. This includes Imovie (for video editing), Itunes (for managing your MP3 library), Iphoto (for storing and editing digital images), Ichat (instant messaging) and a range of third-party packages.

All run on Mac OS X 10.2, codenamed Jaguar, and benefit from the fast processor and graphics card.

A number of the Powerbook G4's features are carried over from previous models. For example, the 15.2in TFT display has a widescreen aspect ratio, making it ideal for video editing and watching DVDs.

It has also been built with connectivity in mind, featuring a superfast Gigabit Ethernet networking port, 56K modem, built-in 802.11b wireless networking and a PC card slot.

But as you'd expect from Apple, all these features come at a price, which is a huge £2,449. This product will appeal to professional users who need a powerful, fully-featured machine, and they won't be disappointed.

Battery life is quoted at five hours, though we only managed about three hours of continuous use.

Using Mac OS X's Energy Saver can make a big difference, and turning down the screen brightness and disabling the wireless networking card can bring the figure closer to five hours.

DETAILSPrice: £2,449 (£2,084.25 ex VAT)
Contact: Apple 0800 039 1010
www.apple.com/uk

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