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We went out into the show floor and ran into a great Apple employee pretty high up in the engineering efforts for the PowerBook division. Here's all the info we were able to glean, answering some of your questions you had that were not answered in our Mercury Q&A posted earlier today.

Does the DVD pop out in any way?

Nope, the DVD is built into the unit. No third party opportunities there.

What G4 processor does it use? Same as the PowerMac G4s?

It uses the Motorola "Nitro 1.3," a scaled down version suited for mobile use.

What external resolutions is it capable of?

The ATI Rage 128 Mobility M3 processor has 8 MB of VRAM. It is capable of both mirroring and spanning on an external monitor. Futhermore, it dynamically allocates that 8 MB of RAM. For example, you can run 640x480 at 256 colors on the built in LCD and it doesn't take up half the 8 MB available. You can run all the way up to 1600x1200 on an external VGA monitor. (No ADC here, the wattage the ADC requires is more than the PowerBook's total power consumption when charging a battery and running the machine)

How big (tall) drives can it use?

The Mercury uses the same drive family as the Pismo unit. That is, the 10 GB unit is one platter at 8.7 mm, the 20 GB unit uses two platters, and the 30 GB unit available uses three platters right under 12.5 mm, the maximum drive height.

What's with the one FireWire port? Why'd they chop the second port out?

The engineer said it was a space issue: either one FireWire or one USB port had to go. They chose FW to get the ax

Can the lid be closed?

Yes, the "clamshell closed" configuration is possible with the Mercury.

What graphics card is it?

As said before, it 's the ATI Rage 128 Mobility M3 processor using 2x AGP. The identical processor used in Pismo.

Here are some other notes:

• The hard drive is centrally located under the trackpad to the right of the battery and to the left of the DVD ROM drive.
• The hard drive is held in place with torx 8 screws, so a user can replace the drive, but it's the hardest of the three installs (RAM, AirPort, drive)
• The AirPort card is under the PC Card cage, so you have to remove the entire bottom to install it.
• RAM is installable via the lift-the-keyboard method. There is no processor daughtercard, it's a single motherboard. The RAM chips are stacked one on top of the other and can use up to 1.5" chips, though the Apple-installed chip is 1.25 inches.
• The titanium is actually painted, because the bare titanium accumulated finger oils and other nasty stuff too easily. The frame around the titanium is carbon fiber (you really have to see the Mercury to understand what's what.
• The heat sink is actually tied into the titanium with a heat pipe (Pismo users can see their heat pipe in the left side of the under-keyboard area) allowing the entire case to act as a heatsink.
• As said above, it's a single motherboard, not a daughtercard design.
• The carbon fiber frame was impeding AirPort signals, so small holes in the right and left sides of the frame were formed, filled with plastic, allowing the signals to get in/out.
• The screen clutches (hinges) are tested 15,000 times to simulate a lifetime of use. The Mercury clutches passed this test.
• The power supply draws 28 watts instead of 24 and the connector end that plugs into the PowerBook is smaller. The rest of the yoyo power adapter design is the same.
• The microphone is in the rightside speaker grille, not in the screen bezel.
• All the screws drilled use lock-tite coatings so there are no loosening problems
• There are three uses of magnets in the Mercury: one in the latch to actually "grab" the hook as the top portion of the screen comes down to close. We've got a shot of this we'll post in the gallery later. Another use of magnets is in the keyboard to stiffen the key action. The third is a usual PowerBook use: to let the computer know when the screen is closed.
• The screens are OEMed from Samsung and LG.
• The battery is a little bit denser, so it 's a tiny bit smaller with the same watt-hours produced.
• The headphones were moved to the side for easier use, no fumbling around the back of the unit.

Back to the main page for more PowerBook news!