Amaya Toman When the word "Apple laptop" comes to mind, many people may think of MacBooks first. But the history of Apple laptops is a bit longer. In today's part of our series called From the history of Apple, we remember the arrival of the PowerBook 3400.
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Apple released its PowerBook 3400 on February 17, 1997. At that time, the computer market was dominated by desktop computers and laptops were not yet widespread. When Apple introduced its PowerBook 3400, it boasted, among other things, that it was allegedly the fastest laptop in the world. The PowerBook 3400 came into the world at a time when this product line was facing numerous difficulties and had quite strong competition. The newest member of the PowerBook family at the time was equipped with a PowerPC 603e processor, capable of reaching speeds of up to 240 MHz - quite a decent performance at the time.
In addition to speed and performance, Apple also touted the excellent media playback capabilities of its new PowerBook. The company boasted that this new product has enough power that users can use it to watch QuickTime movies in full-screen view without problems, as well as to browse the Internet. The PowerBook 3400 also boasted generous customizability—for example, users could swap out the standard CD-ROM drive for another without even having to shut down or put the computer to sleep. The PowerBook 3400 was also Apple's first computer with PCI architecture and EDO memory. "The new Apple PowerBook 3400 isn't just the world's fastest laptop—it just might be the best," proclaimed Apple at the time without an iota of false modesty.
The base price of the PowerBook 3400 was approximately 95 thousand crowns. It was a really good machine for the time, but unfortunately it was not a commercial success and Apple discontinued it in November 1997. Many experts look back on the PowerBook 3400, along with a handful of other products that met a similar fate, as transitional pieces that helped Apple to clarify with Jobs, in which direction he will go next.
