PowerBook G3
The PowerBook G3 is a series of laptop Macintosh personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1997 to 2001. It was the first laptop to use the PowerPC G3 (PPC740/750) series of microprocessors, and was marketed as the fastest laptop in the world for its entire production run. The PowerBook G3 was succeeded by the PowerBook G4.
A "Pismo" PowerBook | |
| Developer | Apple Computer |
|---|---|
| Product family | PowerBook |
| Type | Laptop |
| Generation | G3 |
| Release date | November 1997 |
| Introductory price | Kanga US$5,700 (equivalent to $10,391 in 2022) Wallstreet I US$2,299 (equivalent to $4,128 in 2022)-US$3,499 (equivalent to $6,282 in 2022) PQD US$2,799 (equivalent to $5,025 in 2022) Lombard US$2,499 (equivalent to $4,390 in 2022) Pismo US$2,499 (equivalent to $4,247 in 2022) |
| Discontinued | January 2001 |
| Operating system | Mac OS 9 & Mac OS X up to 10.4.11 |
| CPU | PowerPC G3, 233–500 MHz |
| Predecessor | PowerBook 1400c PowerBook 2400c PowerBook 3400c |
| Successor | PowerBook G4 |
The G3 was the first black Apple laptop, and was succeeded in this by the black MacBook in 2006. Previous PowerBooks were dark gray.
The Wallstreet, Lombard & Pismo models were hailed for their easy upgradability not only in accessible drives and memory but in their CPU daughtercards being separable from their logic boards. This led to the aftermarket (including Sonnet, Powerlogix, Wegener Media and more) to offer not only G3 CPU upgrades for these machines for each of the G3 series but in several cases, G4 upgrades that could make these machines as fast as (and in later cases, faster than) the contemporary 'G4 Titanium' PowerBooks offered by Apple at the time.