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Contributed by: Greg Koenig

Most of the PB is a frame, made of injection molded carbon fiber with exterior surfaces painted in the shiny silver color. The molding process is interesting as it uses a polymer based resin (i.e. A high quality injection molding plastic) with short strands of carbon used to help give strength to it. It is not the sexy lay up carbon work that most people think about with airplanes, F1 cars or golf clubs, but it does the job.

Internally, this frame is painted with an RF shielding paint, similar to the gold/copper colored stuff on the inside of the Pismo. Scraping a bit of this off however, reveals black carbon under it.

The "99.3% pure" titanium Apple talks about is the real thing, but it is really just 7 pieces of stamped sheet metal. The parts made of Ti are: The bezel around the keyboard, the bezel around the screen, the screen back panel (with the Apple logo on it), the bottom plate, the connection port door, a single piece glued to the battery and the button to open the screen.

All of these frames have bare titanium on the inside, and have painted exterior surfaces. I haven't had the courage yet to take a scraper to these painted surfaces to see if they are a clear coating or actual paint. This is a really good thing they did, as bare titanium scratches very easily and oil from the hand leaves massive finger prints (just take out the battery and touch the titanium under it.)

This bottom panel is very interesting in that it has another carbon composite frame inside, which acts as both an RF shield and serves as the "hooks" which connect it to the main frame itself.

I guess the most distressing thing about all this is that Apple didn't need to use Titanium, as a matter of fact, it really doesn't make much sense in this application. Since Ti doesn't act as a structural part in any way, the strength/weight ratio is rather bad. Aluminum is actually a lighter material, and they could have gotten a much better surface finish without resorting to clear coating or painting (they could have anodized the aluminum, so it would not scratch, my Ti Book already has scratches on the painted Ti surfaces). I am betting that someone probably pointed out that aluminum really is a more practical, durable and less expensive option then Ti, but Steve probably just wanted to use the word "Titanium," and I can't really blame them.

They did use some aluminum though. My favorite part of the whole thing is the machined aluminum power button. I looks like the part was originally cased out of aluminum with the "Power On" logo, and then finished on a lathe. You can see the lathe marks on the outside, which is really very cool, but the inside of the "power on" logo has casting marks. They then use a diamond polish to get the multi colored luster.

The perforated PC card slot is also painted aluminum, however there is a shiny piece of plastic behind it, sealing the interior from dust, which is a really good idea. The PC card push button appears to be a hallow blow casting of aluminum, which explains the plastic cap on the end.

All in all, this is a very durable piece of ID work, that I would argue is probably the same cost, if not even a bit less, then the plastics used in the previous PowerBooks. Plastic injection moulds are very complicated pieces of engineering, and this design keeps them to an absolute minimum. Sheet metal stampings are, by contrast, extremely simple, and one machine can stamp out hundreds an hour. The final assembly appears to be much less complex then the previous PowerBooks, I am actually going to fully disassemble mine as soon as the channels get more of them in stock (if I can't get it back together, I will use the guts in the back of an enclosure I am designing for a Cinema display, to create the ultimate "all in one" G4, out of machined Titanium of course).

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