Powerbook Duo

all time worst apple products : Powerbook Duo

(votes: -51)

Its very hard to pinpoint exactly what was wrong with the Powerbook Duo - as an idea it was fairly sound, but the problem was that as a product line it was a second rate computer with a first rate cable management system.

These days a raised plinth serves for what the duo dock was trying to achieve, and in many ways the idea of attaching a laptop to a bigger screen is increasingly becoming the de facto standard.

View the entire chart: all time worst apple products

19 Responses to “Powerbook Duo”

Ben Says:
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Bit harsh, surely. This is pretty much the setup I have now. Only less good, obviously.
Juan Says:
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:31 pm
I think the main problem, was that it was 2 pcs in one, it had an additional hard drive on the dock besides the one in the PB. If it were only a dock like the Sony for Viao or Dell has it would have been a very simple and elegant solution but at the end it was over engineered. Other than that it worked fine, even for today that would be dream, I used to have a dock at the office, one at home and as a plus a travel PB (the size was very portable). Nifty shame they drop it.
Amanda Says:
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:22 pm
All my teachers in high school in the mid-90s had these. I thought it was a nifty idea, but I never actually used one. We just had the normal towers/CPU boxes in the computer labs we got to play in.
Ian Says:
October 22nd, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I still have my DUO230 and it still operates!

I personally found this to be one of the better and niftier ideas Apple had as I went through college… The idea was sublime — I really didnt need a second hard drive, a math coprocessor or video RAM when traveling, nor did I care too much about a floppy drive — all that was inside the dock at home.

The dock links with an automated latch pull system, with a direct motherboard connectivity to the additional VRAM, coprocessor, etc. on the motherboard inside the dock.

I think I ultimately upgraded this to a Mac IIsi and a Powerbook 165c — BOTH which I am surprised to NOT see on your list… egads; what duds….
Tom Says:
October 22nd, 2007 at 3:30 pm
ohhhh… I managed a newsroom of these, and they were pretty cool. If you had employees that needed to work away from their desks, no other solution approached it at the time. And the Duos themselves were nicely light and thin for the time. A big innovation was the lack of a floppy drive, which saved a giant amount of space.

The *problem* we had with the Duos was on the other end of the phone line — the lack of good dialup solutions. But the Duos themselves were nice.
John Galt Says:
October 22nd, 2007 at 4:04 pm
See, you’re not actually telling us anything bad here. In fact, none of your descriptions of any of these so-called all-time worst Macs tells us what exactly makes them one of the all-time worst. The above description of the PB duo actually makes it sound pretty nice. Are you sure you meant “all time worst?”
Dan Palka Says:
October 22nd, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Another great computer in this nonsense list of “worsts” - I have five of these and they’re just about my top favorite systems of all time.
alexalex Says:
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:15 am
this is a travesty. the duo was perhaps one of apples best designs, not worst. This was a groundbreaking sub-notebook that didnt just slide into a dock. The dockk was motorized and sucked the computer in, it had an additional FPU (floating point unit) processor that aided in speeding up the copmuters operations, it had a floppy drive witch was removed from the laptop to reduce weight. This computer offered the best of both worlds, it was light and powerful and damn sexy for the time.
David Says:
October 27th, 2007 at 10:53 am
The idea was nifty, the computer easily portable.

Nobody has mentioned the PowerPC upgrade that Apple promised for the Duo 210 and Duo 230. Apple eventually released it — and priced it high to limit the uptake.

Apple released six revisions of the Duo keyboard, each one improving on the last, but all of them requiring weekly cleanings. The cleanings required removal of the keyboard, prying the multiple layers of plastic backing apart, and cleaning the contacts. I tired of spending 15 minutes fixing the primary user interface of a computer that cost me more than 1000 mid-1990s US Dollars. I replaced the keyboard twice before giving up on the computer.

The feel of the keyboard was the worst I have used in thirty years of computer use. This is especially galling, considering the quality of the keyboards in Toshiba’s early laptops and the quality of keyboards of ThinkPads.

My experience with this computer made me abandon Macs for ten years. Though I have returned to using a Mac desktop, I don’t trust Apple to make a durable laptop.
Gene Says:
October 27th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
I was shocked to see this on the list. My Duo was one of my favorite Mac models.

Stable and ultra-portable, I loved it!

Where’s the nightmarish PB 5300, the model that nearly destroyed Apple? Many a time I hotly indulged in a fantasy of lifting it above my head and smashing it into the ground with all my might, so I could bathe luxuriously in a shower of filthy, scumbag computer components now rendered mercifully inert.
Peter Says:
November 4th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
The PowerBook Duo series was top-notch! I had a Duo 230 and 280c and both were rock solid Macs. The Duo 280c was very fast with its 33 MHz 68LC040 and offered 40 MB of RAM. I never owned the DuoDock, but it was a excellent system expanding the laptop with an additional hard drive, floppy drive, and enhanced video support for large displays. It was hardly a second-rate computer as you claim.
Joe Says:
November 7th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
After reading all the machines you chose for this list, you really seem to have failed to do your research thoroughly enough. There was absolutely nothing wrong with any of the Powerbook Duo models. Being able to turn your laptop into a desktop and back again was brilliant back when these machines were first released. How many ‘desktop replacement’ laptops have been on the market since then? The Powerbook Duo was there before any of them. The model you should have put in this spot on the list is the Powerbook 150. It’s lack of expansion ports and the worst possible LCD screen on the market make the 150 far more deserving than any Duo to be on a worst list.
Ned Ludd Says:
April 18th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
What? The Duo series was absolute genius! About the only complaint I’d consider valid is the keyboard problem. I carted my 230 around with me for years… ideal size/weight for portability. The dock was a fantastic idea. I wish Apple would bring back this concept.
Blake Says:
May 17th, 2008 at 11:47 am
I must say that I had the Duo 2300 and it was a GREAT machine!!! I had the dock and the MINI dock. Sure, these parts were expensive as all hell back then but I must say that it was the coolest Mac I ever owned.

I got the Dock and spanked an internal HD in the bay and more than doubled my HD space.
David B. Says:
May 27th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Oh, no way - I’m shocked to see the Duo on THIS list - I don’t think y’all have a clue! The Duo and it’s dock were the only products on the market that worked, again, and again, and again without repeatedly breaking the docking mechanisms (Compaq, Toshiba…). It was absolutely brilliant engineering and functional design. I had my 2300 for 12 years.
kevin Says:
August 16th, 2008 at 5:41 am
Liked this one, it made the laptop truly light and portable when Windows laptops were cumbersome and ungainly.
Mark C Says:
October 7th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
You’ve gotta be kidding - this machine was just about the sexiest laptop ever made! Bear in mind this was 1992, and the small size (about the same H-W-D as a 12″ iBook) was absolutely groundbreaking. Ideas years ahead of their time included the motorised dock, the FPU, the weight-saving lack of floppy disk and a decent processor. This is the first Mac I owned - I had to take out a £1000 bank loan to buy one, and severely stretched my finances to pay it back in my first year out of college. It was a decent machine too - the same specs as a IIci, which only a short while earlier had been a banging machine that only corporates could afford. I still have my PB Duo 210, and it still works. The only thing wrong with it is a long-dead battery.
JEF Says:
October 9th, 2008 at 6:41 am
What are you guys smoking? This was, and remains, the single best laptop concept ever. So much so that my entire family had duos, all the way up to when apple killed the line.

If they launched another today, I’d be first in line…
Michael Says:
August 21st, 2009 at 7:56 am
I lived for a year on a 2300c and a Duo Dock, Mini Dock, and a few other 3rd party docks. The computer was fast, the Duo Dock well executed. This is still my favorite Mac and I wish I had it running Mac OS X.

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