So why the 2400?
Like other 2400 owners I've talked to, I'm really not in the 2400's target audience -- mobile professionals on the go. I use a PowerBook at home, in the office, and at a college where I teach, but it's always at a desk, or maybe on the sofa at home, and I hardly ever stray from AC power for more than 20 or 30 minutes at a time. I'm more interested in "flexibility" than mobility. My previous PowerBook was a 5300cs, I use a 3400 at work from time to time, and I never saw much appeal in the Duo's or other sub notebooks. So why the 2400? Plain and simple, I just fell in love with its style and design. Arguably, the 3400 would have been a better machine for me, but like the 5300, it has all the ergonomics of a brick, and didn't represent the leap in industrial design I wanted in a new PowerBook. The 2400 looks great, feels great, and it's truly a pleasure to touch and hold. Put this together with the same basic guts as the 3400, and you have instant appeal. I was more than happy with the 10.4 " screen of the 5300, and had gotten accustomed to using a portable CD-ROM when I needed the capability. In that light, the 2400 was the perfect choice -- great design, great looks, great performance, and all the capabilities of my 5300 plus many more. The fact that it's light and "mobile" is just a bonus (which I admit, I'm starting to appreciate).
Design and Ergonomics
At first glance, the 2400 reminds me a lot of the eMate -- smooth curvy lines and a light, rugged feel, though it's not as aggressively styled as that swoopy PDA. Nonetheless, it's easily the best looking PowerBook since the 500 series, and puts PC notebooks to shame. As I popped the latch and opened the screen for the first time, I was amazed at it's thin profile and rigidity -- two things that don't usually go together. The hinges are super smooth and solid, with none of the springy feel of the 3400 or the gritty feel of the 5300. The screen latch itself is a bit of a novelty -- it's made of translucent plastic, and has the sleep LED built in. The main base is very solid, and is free of the creaks that plague the 5300 and 3400 chassis. My only complaint centers on the back door that hides all the ports and connectors (except for the power and ADB jacks). The door feels a little too flimsy for my taste, and is kind of hard to open because the screen overhangs the back of the base.
As far as the keyboard goes, it's small (about 87% of normal size) but I have had absolutely no problems using it, and I've got pretty big paws (I'm an advanced "hunt and peck" typist, who occasionally touch-types). Compared to the flat feeling keys of the 5300, 1400, and 3400, the 2400's keyboard is an absolute joy to use -- it's very responsive and extremely smooth, and has a very pleasing and rewarding feel. It's also very quiet. After a day on the 2400, my 5300's keyboard sounds like a diesel engine . . . . grinding coffee . . . . in a popcorn factory. The wrist rests are as good as those on any of the other PowerBooks, and the keyboard is raised up a bit for more comfortable typing (similar to the 500 series). The trackpad works great, and the tap capability is a perfect companion to Mac OS 8's sticky menus. The placement of the canoe shaped trackpad button takes a little getting used to, but the button itself has a nice tactile feel.
Performance
In terms of performance, the 2400 has scored up there with the likes of it's 3400/180 and 3400/200 siblings (see MacBench scores at MacUser), which is not surprising -- it shares the same 40MHz PCI bus and basic architecture as the 3400 series, and uses the same 180 MHz PowerPC 603ev CPU and 256K L2 cache as the 3400/180. Putting the numbers aside, however, let me just say that the 2400 is wicked fast. It makes my old 5300 feel like molasses, and I'm hard pressed to tell it apart from the 3400/240 I use at work. It's not just the CPU at work here though -- the 2400 comes with a fast 1.3GB hard drive which makes everyday tasks fly as well. Checking e-mail and surfing the web, for example, are noticeably faster on the 2400 with the same Global Village PowerPort Platinum Pro PC card modem I used in my 5300. Clearly, that PCI architecture has unclogged the pipes, and it is a welcome boost for 5300, 1400, or 500 series users.
Screen
In three words, the PowerBook 2400's active matrix screen is sharp, crisp, and bright. With 1 MB of onboard VRAM and hardware video acceleration, it's also fast, even when displaying thousands of colors. Apple has packed the 800x600 resolution into a 10.4" screen, and the result is just amazing. If you do the math, you'll find out that the screen works out to have 96 dpi -- way denser than the Mac's standard 72 dpi. Of course, putting 800x600 on a 10.4" screen means that everything is about 20% smaller than what I was used to on the 5300cs, and about 15% smaller than what 3400 users are accustomed to. Fonts smaller than 10 point begin to delve into eye-chart territory, but I don't think this will be an issue for most people. I'm pleased with the sizing -- it gives the desktop much more real estate, and gives a lot of viewable area in applications. My 2400 screen came with two dead pixels -- one unnoticeable gray one in the lower left corner, and one more obnoxious cyan one in the center of the screen. Still, having only two dead pixels is pretty good for an active matrix screen of this resolution, and I can live with it.
Networking
Though the 33.6 modem side of the Global Village PowerPort Platinum Pro PC card has worked flawlessly, I've had a tough time getting the ethernet portion of their card working with the 2400. Ethernet alternately dropped in and out, causing Netscape to cough, E-Mailer to barf, and NCSA Telnet to sneeze (other 2400 users reported similar stories). AppleTalk was much the same -- chooser showed all the zones and Macs at work (some 2000 of them) for a while, then it would lose everything. This was usually followed by very odd behavior, such as a hang on shutdown. Fortunately, GV's tech support has been great, and they're working on a revised ethernet driver that should be released soon. In the meantime, ethernet PC cards from Dayna and Farallon reportedly work fine with the 2400.
Stability
Coming off a 5300 that has been rock solid since 7.5.5, stability was a primary concern of mine, especially since the 3400's I've used have had their share of quirks and oddities. Outside of the networking problems noted above, I'm happy to report that the 2400 is very dependable, and I've only had one or two legitimate crashes in 3 weeks of use. I've got it loaded up with Microsoft Office, Canvas 3.5, Canvas 5, Mathematica 3.0, Netscape Navigator 4.0, E-Mailer 2.0, and the usual assortment of graphics and internet helpers and utilities, and have noted no problems other than an odd font conflict between E-Mailer and Mathematica's math fonts. Games like Descent and Rebel Assault II run smoothly, and often troublesome Java code development tools run without incident.
Peripherals
I've used a whole bunch of peripherals with the 2400, and have nothing but success to report. On the SCSI side, I've tried a Zip drive, a Nomai 540 cartridge drive, and a portable Panasonic 8x CD-ROM drive. Everything worked great, even when I had them all hooked up at the same time (finally, a PowerBook with SCSI termination power!). One note here, however -- the back of the 2400 gets kind of cramped when you're hooking up a lot of stuff, and most HDI-30 to DB-25 SCSI adapters (like the APS SCSI-Doc) are just too bulky to fit, or won't make a positive connection. I ordered a 2 foot HDI-30 to DB-25 cable, and it works fine other than the fact that the dongle connector for the GV PC card butts up against it when both are connected.
At work, I have hooked the 2400 up to a 20" Sony 20seII monitor, a 17" NEC XV17+ monitor, and an LCD projection system. Like the 3400, the 2400 does not support multiple monitors, though it does offer a "SimulScan" mode between the 800x600 LCD display and a like resolution external monitor. At my desk, the 2400 drove the 17" monitor at 800x600 with thousands of colors (16-bit), and the 20" monitor at a 1024x768 with 256 colors (8-bit). In both cases, video was fast. Hooked up to the 800x600 LCD projector, the SimulScan mode worked as advertised, allowing me to use the PowerBook screen while driving the projector. Like the 3400, the 2400 is absolutely great for giving multimedia presentations -- with a stereo sound system and projector hooked up, you practically have your own movie theater.
I've used several different printers (a StyleWriter 1200, an HP LaserJet 5MP, and assorted Apple LaserWriters) with the 2400, and printing was fast and uneventful. In addition, I've hooked up an Apple extended keyboard, a mouse, and a Gravis GamePad, and everything worked well. The 2400's included hot-connectable floppy drive has also been a solid performer.
Battery
Though I hardly ever go on battery power for more than 30 minutes or so, I used the battery for 2 hours straight the other day with absolutely no attempt at power conservation (it still had juice after 2 hours, but I was getting tired!). That seems good to me, and indicates that power-conserving experts can probably manage to eke 3 "realistic" hours out of their 2400's battery.
RAM
The RAM install process for the 2400 has been covered elsewhere in detail, so I won't drive down that road. Suffice it to say that it's not a casual project, though most people will be able to do it just fine. The key is to be careful and patient, and take the time to give everything a lookover while taking the 2400 apart -- it helps with the reassembly. Really, the hardest part was peeling off the little sticky screw covers on the top bezel without damage (I found that a sewing needle worked great here). For those that have mangled theirs, replacement sticky covers for IBM thinkpads seem to be the same, though they cost about $5 which seems like a lot for two little black dots.
I got a 64MB module from Newer to bring the total RAM up to 80MB. With a 9600k RAM disk and a 2560 disk cache setting, this still gives me plenty of room to work without turning virtual memory on (though VM seems to be quite acceptable on the 2400). My Newer module had some rough tabs on the edge of the card (where they break it off in manufacturing) that needed to be trimmed for the card to fit the 2400's SO-DIMM slot correctly. Once I took care of that, however, the card popped in snugly.
Accessories
A lot of people seem interested in what kind of bag to get for the 2400. I'm using the same Targus leather notebook case I used for my 5300, and it works great. Because of the 2400's petite size, I'm able to turn it 90 degrees in the main compartment, leaving plenty of room for the floppy drive, drive cable, and some CD's on the other side of the divider. It's a nice snug fit, and the bag is padded well. The large external pocket has plenty of room for the power adapter, misc. cables, and my portable CD-ROM drive should I choose to bring it along. There are also two zippered folder pockets on the bottom of the bag, one of which is deep enough to handle cables and other thin items (Zip disks, CD's, or . . . . folders!). Though the leather notebook case costs about $99, a similar nylon version (the Targus NotePac), goes for a very reasonable $35, minus the zippered folder pockets.
Bottom Line
The 2400c is the nicest PowerBook I've seen since the 500 series, and with the same guts as the snappy 3400, it's also one of the fastest. Its full complement of ports makes it as versatile as any other Mac, and it's light weight and trim size makes it as "mobile" as the Duo line. If you're in the market for a new PowerBook and don't need the bigger screen or internal CD-ROM capability of the 3400, the 2400 is highly recommended. Just be warned, however: this sweet little PowerBook has the ability to cast a love spell on it's user!
Craig A. Hunter
c.a.hunter@larc.nasa.govSeptember 1997
Created with BBEdit on a PowerBook 2400c
Original source can be found on The PowerBook Source