I'm sitting on my Continental flight from John Wayne Airport to Newark. I should rephrase that. I'm sitting in coach on this Continental flight. The guy in front of me has his seat fully leaned back. I've got the computer centered on the tray table in front of me. There's barely enough room on either side of the computer to place a pen next to the computer. I can get the screen open 90 degrees perpendicular. It's almost as side as the head rest in front of me. The front of the computer extends about 3" beyond the front edge of the tray. There's about 4" of room on the tray beyond the back of the computer. The front barely touches my stomach. Someone with a bit more (or a lot more) girth in the mid-drift would not be able to have the screen open to a perpendicular position.
I've heard a number of people comment about the position of the keyboard on this 17" PowerBook. While visually it doesn't bother me, it does look like there's a lot of space in front of the keyboard. But sitting in an airline seat, this extra space is actually functional. Typing is actually somewhat comfortable. If the keyboard were any closer to the front of the computer, I'd have to be in kangaroo or teradactyl position in order work.
Perhaps the coolest feature is the automatic dimming of the screen and rear lighting of the letters on the keyboard. When I close the window shade and turn off the overhead light the computer transforms itself into night mode. Subtle but cool.
As for battery life, I've been working for under 45 minutes and the machine has been sleeping for a couple hours prior to that. The battery monitor currently indicates 2 hours and 4 minutes remaining. And I've got the energy savings set to maximum battery life. Needless to say, this isn't great. But powering a 17" LCD, back lighted keyboard, DVD player (not currently in use) Bluetooth and 802.11 wireless I'm not sure I should expect more. But I'd like more. Fortunately, I did purchase a second batter because making the cross country trip in this coach seat without a laptop power source, I'm going to need it.
7:46:29 PM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
Today I got a mailer (snail) from Quark with a $299 offer to upgrade Quark Xpress from version 4 to 5 ($399 to go from 3 to 5). And the buyer would then automatically qualify for a free upgrade to version 6. As you may not know, version 5 only runs on Mac OS 9. And while I won't rant about Quark's customer service history with me and my old agency, but to be blunt, it sucked. And my experience was not isolated.
I had to laugh when I got the mailer. I don't do much page layout myself, but if I do need to bang something out I'll use Adobe InDesign. It's native in OS X and it's simple, sleek and powerful.
The Quark mailer comes right on the heels of Quark's press announcement earlier this month that is actually had an OS X version of Quark in development. But with my experience on Quark and its update history I think waiting for Version 6 will make my waiting game for this PowerBook be a walk in the park. I have no hope or patience for anything Quark does. The press announcement was just a well choreographed effort to convince the league of users still hell bent on Quark but living in the past versions of 3.32 or 4.11 or something like that.
Check out John Grubel's excellent interpretation (rather, his translation) of Quark's press announcement. I don't think I've seen a better tongue in cheek stab at Quark's poor policies and its attitude toward customers in a long time. And Dean Allenchimes in with more about InDesign and why Quark still can pull off it's flippant attitude without customers running for the nearest exit.
For me. I'll use InDesign. Unfortunately my art directors and production team are afraid to loosen their grip on Quark.
4:45:54 PM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
Authoring my first post on the new PowerBook. This thing IS big. Huge lines at baggage check-in and even longer at security caused me to miss my early morning flight today. I'm about to board the only other available flight to New York. This means I miss Ken's bachelor party this evening, but I'll be there with bells on for his wedding in Connecticut on Saturday.
I've very curious how it will be sitting in coach on Continental Airlines with this mammoth lunch tray for a computer will be. I've got some work to do and I also brought a couple DVDs. The screen is awesome. I just am a bit fearful of the guy leaning his seatback into my new toy. Oh well. We'll see.
I'll have plenty of observations after a few more days of use.
4:45:13 PM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
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