The laptop that made Apple switch to aluminum

Apple's Titanium PowerBook G4 from 2001 was a much different laptop than the one it replaced. But despite it being a good value, it had a big problem that ultimately resulted in its demise.

Sources:
PC Magazine, February 2000
Macworld Magazine, May 2001
PC Magazine, July 2002
Macworld, February 2003

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[Sir_Johnny_Bananas]

"one flawed, yet compelling package" is what I want on my tombstone.

[TheducksOrg]

I met my wife because of one.. we were both in a student common room, and she'd never seen one before and asked me what it was. 18 years laters, we're still together :)

[echovd]

We had thin bezels even during those days? Man we were spoiled

[spunkmire]

I was in a programming contest in high school and everyone had to bring their rigs. A team showed up with 5 matching titanium’s, everyone had the jealz

[MaxOakland]

The bezels on the Titanium are still amazing to this day

I miss upgradable RAM and hard drives. That’s a serious flaw in Apple’s computers these days

[ChrisKoehn]

The Titanium Powerbook and the G4 Cube were my dream computers back then!

[bradleymarcum]

The G4 design was ahead of its time as far as aesthetics IMO. Very reminiscent of modern laptops.

[magazine]

A design which really was something different compared to the competition. The design still stands today imo.

[ConsoleHandheldGamer]

Do not cover breathing hole. Just good advice in general.

[damiensees]

I had this Laptop when I attended art school and I loved it at the time. I was a big fan of classics and not too happy when I switched to OSX. I hated the UFO power cable that came with it. All our classmates had to replace theirs within a year as the cord would break from wrapping it around the disk. The positive thing about the power supply being clear was you could see the sparks when it went bad, which was kinda neat. Also our school was idiots and advised us to keep the computers plugged in at all times so we all killed our batteries pretty quickly as well. I think I got about 5 years out of it until the hinges couldn't hold up the screen anymore. I took apart the laptop and it fell apart. Several structural pieces were snapped in multiple places. I drove a few hours to my closest Apple store so I could order new hinges and other replacement parts if possible. The employees laughed at me and called my laptop a dinosaur and said I should just buy a new one. My first child was just born a few months prior and I was flat broke so I was extremely peeved at the idiots acting like I could just spend several thousand dollars on a new laptop like money was nothing. Since I was forced to buy a new laptop I figured I'd rather buy something other than Apple since their employees acted like snobbish A holes.

[junrosamura]

One of my favorite laptops ever. Brought this to Iraq years ago and it held up well with the sand storms. Even fell out a moving humvee onto the street and barely took any damage. I got featured in an issue of Mac World regarding this mighty laptop.

[MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive]

I remember upon the switch to aluminum, a lot of snobs were mad that it switched to a cheaper weaker metal. Aluminum is a better thermal conductor meaning it dissipates heat better than the previous titanium laptop which trapped warmth and became a hot skillet. It can also easily be anodized to give color that doesn’t flake, chip, or wear as easily as paint.

[JannisAdmek]

Man, I wish today's laptops had hot-swappable batteries, that's so neat.

[MansBestFriend_]

That quick release system for the keyboard is so cool

[_PGleo]

One of these was my first computer I could call my own. After years of just using the family iMac, my dad passed his 400MHz G4 down to me when he upgraded to a 2008 MacBook Pro. Flawed as these things are, I still love them. Great video!

[TravisBHartwell]

I very distinctly remember when these were released. I was in college and had one of the G3 Pismos that I ran Linux on. It was an awesome machine. I had bought it just as it was being discontinued (and thus at a discount). However, one of my classmates got his campus research job to get him one of the new Titanium machines. It looked so sleek and thin next to my Pismo.

[neeha]

Man, Apple was very generous in terms of ports availability and expansion capabilities back in those days...

[Thebrainymonkey]

It was my first Apple laptop, I was used to using the desktops. It was fantastic. It was maxed out with 1ghz processor and 1Gb of RAM. It was their first drive with a writable DVD drive. I lent it to my sister when I'd upgraded, and it then fell apart and started giving her electric shocks.

[MichaelWasowicz]

The way you narrate the video reminds me of the show How its Made . Always super relaxing to watch your videos

[travis]

I'm salivating over all those ports. So... many.... so... useful...