Apple has confirmed across-the-range upgrades to its PowerBook and iBook laptop lines, as anticipated this morning.
As expected, the PowerBooks get faster G4-class processors, taking the range to 1.5GHz, and sport quicker (4x) DVD-R drives, too. In an unforeseen move, Apple will bundle its 802.11g Wi-Fi card to all PowerBook G4s, rather than just the top 15in and 17in models.
Those two machines feature the 1.5GHz CPU, along with ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics chips backed by 64MB of dedicated SDRAM. BTO buyers can up the graphics memory to 128MB. The ATI chip is also included in the lower-end 15in PowerBook, which now contains a 1.33GHz processor, up from 1.25GHz.
The two 12in models now sport a 1.33MHz G4 and a 64MB Nvidia GeForce FX Go 5200 graphics chip. They also gets 333MHz main memory, up from 266MHz, suggesting a faster, 167MHz system bus into the bargain. Apple upped the hard drive to a 60GB model while it was at it.