12 Inch Powerbook at Applestore

[MrClieNR]

I just picked up the above mentioned.   I've had plenty of notebook PC's, including the Vaio 505g, but this one is very cool! 

[pipedaddy]

Got mine yesterday. Oooooo. Unfortunately, no AirPort Extreme cards in stock yet, so I have to plug in the ethernet cable to go online. Much smaller and lighter than my Vaio FXA-32.

[elo]

Hey, guys, I've been thinking about getting one of these as well. The specs sound like *exactly* what I've been wanting and the price is certainly right. (too bad, though, that it doesn't have the light-up keyboard like its 17" cousin.)

Anyway, I'm hoping you can clear up my one concern: I've heard that the palm rests can get fairly hot during use. I don't care about bottom heat (as I would put it on a table anyway), but want the top to be at least fairly cool to the touch. Any observations?

Thanks, elo

[pipedaddy]

I've given mine a fair amount of use, transferring documents and pictures from my Vaio laptop, the last couple of days.  The AlBook, as we've dubbed it, gets warm, but not uncomfortably so.

Agreed, the lightup keyboard would have been nice.  No complaints, though; amazing to get so much (and a full-sized keyboard) in such a small package.

[MrClieNR]

I agree- The palmrests do get rather warm. I also haven't been able to get the Airport XTreme card- I'm looking forward to that particular add-on. The only gripe I have is with the touchpad, and it is the same gripe I have with all laptops that use them- It's OK for occassional but it can become frustratingly quirky. Fortunately, I have wireless Logitech Trackball that works perfectly with the Powerbook.

Have you tried using iSync to synchronize your Clie? It seemed like I was meant to have this laptop because the day after I got it Apple released the Palm conduit :) I had some problems with certain fields duplicating themselves after the first sync, e-mail addresses or phone numbers appearing twice and such, but I corrected the errors in Addressbook and now I have everything synced between my Powerbook, .Mac account, T68i, and NR-70.

BTW- A cool add on for OSX is DeskEffects- It lets you use a screensaver as a wallpaper by adding a preference pane.

[pipedaddy]

Thanks for the tip on DeskEffects. I've been using Windows since I got my first PC in '87, and I have to get up to speed on the tweaks and add-ons for OS X. My wife has been a Mac addict since the days of the IIe, I think, and OS X finally won me over.

I've been using iSync for about a week between our eMac and the AlBook. No real problems yet, other than the duplication thing. That was pretty minor. I haven't tried uploading to our .Mac account yet, though.

Now I have to find a buyer for my Vaio laptop.