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Macintosh
PowerBook 2400
Code-named 'Comet' and ntroduced in 1997 as a replacement for the PowerBook Duo 2300c, the PowerBook 2400 was available only in the Japanese and US markets. The 2400 went further than any Duo in terms of power, features and built-in connectivity. In a number of respects, the 2400 is a scaled-down PowerBook 3400. It features the same PCI-based architecture and was also available with a 180MHz or 240MHz 603ev CPU. Looking at the bench tests - and more importantly in real-world use - you will find little, if any, speed difference between the 2400 and the 3400.
The 2400 was built by IBM Japan under contract from Apple (and, from memory, manufactured by a Taiwanese electronics firm specialising in relatively small-run projects which need to reach market rapidly). As such, the 2400 differs slightly from other PowerBooks in that it uses minor innovations such as inverted-T-shaped arrow keys (a feature not introduced until the Main Street/Wall Street G# PBs). More importantly, the 2400 is not a Duo: it does not slot into Duo Docks and it does provide a full set of ports like any other full-sized PowerBooks. Let's check out the specs:
2400 Cardbus USB update (April 2001):
The PowerBook 2400, 3400 and G3
Kanga use the same CardBus-compliant controller. MCE
offer a $99 CardBus conversion service, which modifies your slots so
they will accept and work with 32-bit cards such as USB and FireWire
cards, as well as various SCSI and video out cards. Rob Frohne has a
page here
which talks about various USB peripheral capabilities with his
3400. He found an ADS USB
card worked. I've had several reports that the MacAlly
USB card works just fine without the MCE modification in the Kanga,
3400 and 2400.
Note, however, if you want to use FireWire cards, you'll have to get
the MCE upgrade. Some (all?) FireWire cards will not physically fit
within the confines of the original 2400/3400/Kanga PC card cage.
PCI based
architecture
Two PC card slots; accepts 2 Type
II or 1 Type III card [NOTE: The 240MHz model has Card-Bus
compliant slots; the 180MHz model does not]
Battery: LiION
64-bit data path
System bus speed: 40MHz
L2 cache: 256K
Ports: SCSI, serial, ADB, video,
sound in/out
Networking: Supports LocalTalk,
IRTalk and IrDA through infrared support
16-bit (CD quality)
sound
Tappable trackpad
Supported OS: 7.6.1; 8.0; 8.1;
8.5; 8.5.1; 8.6; 9.0
Now there're a few caveats associated with the 2400. First, as it was a Japan-and-US-only model, Apple only warrants the product within these countries. Apple does not offer a global warranty for these products when they are purchased, say, in Japan, and used, for instance, in the Central African Republic. Congratulations. You've just become an exporter. To make sure about this, I called Apple Australia with this question and asked them about warranty or AppleCare for a 2400. No, they said. If you buy one and bring it back here we can't service it. We don't have the parts or the service personnel to do it.
Fair enough.
So be aware of this. I've only encountered one 2400 in Australia, so over here they're rare beasts indeed. However, in the US and Japan, a reasonable number have bgeun to trickle onto the 2nd-hand market.
What the 2400 offers
While a 603ev doesn't hold a candle to a G3 processor, a 180MHz 603 (or the rarer 240MHz model), with its PCI architecture and full 64-bit bus [unlike earlier PowerPC PBs like the 5300 and 1400, the PCI bus is 64 bits wide, not 32 bits. Think of it like 4 lanes of traffic merging into two when you have a 32 bit bus; data can't flow through as quickly and it creates a performance bottleneck. The 5300/1400 had this problem: the bus couldn't get data flowing as fast as the processor could], is no slouch.
Indeed, as far as the Japanese market is concerned, the 2400 has not been bettered by more recent PowerBooks. There's a very strong used market in 2400s, so values tend to be higher there than in the US where I have seen the odd 2400 for sale for below $US1,000.
The 2400 has keys about 89% the size of the standard PB full-sized keyboard. If you have large fingers (like me), can't type (like me) and are a clumsy oaf (guess who), you might find a 2400 slightly more difficult to use. But people with smaller hands or women with smaller fingers will probably find the 2400 perfect. The advice? Try a 2400 keyboard before buying one. But if you have no trouble with a Duo keyboard, you should adjust quickly to a 2400. Moreover, the 2400 has the inverted-T arrows keys which the Mac community seemed to scream out for. Personally, I couldn't give a rat's, but some people seem to hate the tradtional in-line PowerBook arrow key layout. I switch between an Apple Extended Keyboard II to a PowerBook 5300 all the time and I never notice the difference. Caveat: Most Japanese 2400s - and all the 2400/240s - come with a Japanese keyboard. While it's possible for a touch-typist to use this, you can easily just swap over the keyboard. An Apple retailer in the US should have an English (US) keyboard.
The 2400 also inherited the PB5300ce's 10.4" active matrix colour 800x600 display. Excellent screen. It's not the 14.1 on Wallstreet or Lombard, or even the 12.1" iBook screen, but it's big enough and 800x600 is plenty of real estate (same as the iBookas a matter of fact). But note that the resolution is fixed; you can't go to 640x480 like the iBook. This bears considering where a person with some sight impairment is concerned.
What the 2400 does offer - uniquely among the non-Duo PowerBooks - is unrivalled compactness and light weight. Yes, only 4.4 pounds. Compare that with 7.1lbs for the PowerBook 1400 and 6.7lbs for the iBook. That's a fair difference.
The 2400 also has no internal floppy - the first signal in Steve's era as iCEO that floppies were on the way out at the new Apple (although the 2400 did pre-date Steve's return to Cupertino). Used 2400s should come with a floppy drive (it was standard with the 2400, unlike the Duos where it was an optional extra). However, you may not need it. Unlike the Duo, which needs a Dock or Mini-Dock or at least a floppy adapter for greater functionality and connectivity, the 2400 connects to LocalTalk networks, IRTalks to a Fallaron Airdock (for desktop Macs or PowerBooks without built-infrared) or another IRTalk PowerBook, or attaches to an external SCSI device (hard disk, Jaz, Zip, Orb, Syquest) right out of the box. Good, hey? With a PCMCIA ethernet card (10baseT or 100baseT for example), the 2400 connects directly to an ethernet network or network printer.
The 2400 also provides an internal mini-PCI slot (similar to the 3400's; I'm not aware of the published specifications of this slot so I cannot state categorically whether it's identical, but suspect it is), which comes standard with a 8-bit video card (256 colours on external displays up to 20"). This card can be swapped out for an internal ethernet card, but these are fairly rare. If it is the same as the 3400's PCI slot - I'm conjecturing here - it should be possible to swap in the 3400's modem card. But as there are many cheap 56K PC card modems out there, it's not worth even trying to swap in a 33.6 modem from a 3400. You might even try out Xircom's combo modem/ethernet card. These cards work out of the box and the 28.8 ones are pretty decent too. The current 56K ones are fairly expensive (as you'd expect for a combo card) but they're worth thinking about if you need that dual connectivity in one convenient card. Of course, these cards work with a PCMCIA-equipped PowerBooks and the generic PC card driver shipped with every Mac OS version since 7.5.2 works with most brand-name modems (for historians amongst you, you had to download the PC card drivers for the PowerBook 500 when you upgraded it with that rare-as-hen's-teeth PC card expansion bay device. But the PC card driver didn't come with OS 7.1 or 7.5).
The 2400 of course runs everything at a pretty decent pace. Office 98, AppleWorks 5.0, Photoshop, Quark, Pagemaker etc. all run PowerPC native. The 256K L2 cache ensures that older software, like Word 5.1, run snappily (but that's no excuse for not running SpeedDoubler). All 68K software naturally runs in emulation and SpeedDoubler's emulator still far exceeds Apple's.
The 16MB RAM that comes standard with the 2400 is not enough for today's applications. I suspect few 2400s have not been upgraded to at least 32MB. If your budget can stand it, go for 48MB and, if possible, max it out at 80MB. You can take that to 160 or 240MB with RAMDoubler (a far better solution than Virtual Memory). But with 80MB, OS 8.1 and RAMDoubler off, you can still run, say, Netscape Communicator 4.6, Word 98 and Excel 98 and still have some memory left over.
Upgrades
Now here's where it gets interesting. Both Newer Technology and Vimage make G3 cards for the 2400. Newer's is 320MHz and Vimage's is 340MHz. For a while there, Vimage's 340MHz-equipped 2400 was the fastest Macintosh on planet Earth. It still gives a 333MHz or 400MHz Lombard a good run for its money. But as of August 1999, G3 card availability was growing scarce (for 1400 PowerBooks too) and Newer were doing a survey to see whether there was sufficient demand to warrant a further production run). The 2400 cards are rarer as the 1400 was manufactured in much larger numbers than the 2400.
By the way, the 2400 should be able to run OS X in an unsupported sort of way. I've been reading some developers' notes on OS X and they've successfully installed it on a 3400/180 and various G3-upgraded machines. While the requirement is notionally a factory-fitted G3, OS X looks like it'll work on both 2400/180s and G3 2400s. One report I read suggested that OS X needed a PCI Mac of at least 180MHz. The 2400 fits the bill and it ran quite well on a 3400/180 apparently. So if you need a modern PB that can be upgraded and run the latest OS, the 2400 might just be for you.
Summary
The 2400s are light, compact,
full-featured notebooks of high build quality with excellent screens
and very good connectivity. Their prices are highly competitive (and
are like to fall a great deal in the wake of the iBook release) and
they suit the user who wants the power of a 3400, but doesn't want
its bulk or need a 12.1" screen. On the negative side, it may be that
parts availability for this rarer Apple bird might be an issue in the
longer term. But given Apple's traditionally excellent long-term
parts backup, the 2400 represents outstandingly good value (if you
can persuade someone to part with one).
