PowerBook Buyer's Guide

PowerBook 5300

by Steve Hildreth

The 5300-series were the first PowerPC PowerBooks. Introduced with much fanfare, they were the most anticipated 'Books since the 500-series. Unfortunately, moderate performance, bland styling, and quality-control problems quickly blemished their reputation, and sales of PowerBooks tanked for the first time ever. This was not to be remedied until the introduction of the greatly improved 1400-series. The grayscale 5300 was the cheapest of the 5300-series, and it was also the lightest at only 5.9 pounds. It is a good choice for the mobile warrior who doesn't mind working in grayscale and who really wants a lightweight full-featured PowerPC PowerBook at a relatively cheap price.

Rating

At the time: B

Ports
1 serial
ADB
audio in
audio out
video out
HDI-30 SCSI
IR
1 expansion bay
2 PC card slots

Display
Passive-matrix 16-level grayscale
9.5"
640x400 resolution

Weight
5.9 pounds

Apple's Specifications:

Logic Board Ports Power
Processor: 603e, 100 MHz
PMMU: integrated
FPU: integrated
Data Path: 64-bit, 33.3 MHz
L1 Cache: 32K
L2 Cache: none
2nd Processor: none
Slots: 2 Type II PC Card (1 Type III)
ADB: 1
Video: mini-15
Floppy: none
SCSI: HDI-30
Geoports: none
Ethernet: none
FireWire:
Mic Type: Line in
Other Ports: Printer, Speaker,
Max Watts: 45
Amps: 1.88
BTU per Hr: 153.9
Voltage: 100-240
Freq Range: 50-60 Hz
Battery Type: PB5300, NiMH
Soft Power: yes
Memory Video Memory
Logic Board: 8 MB
RAM Slots: 1, PB53xx
Min - Max RAM: 8 MB - 64 MB
Min RAM Speed: 70 ns
RAM Sizes: 8-56 MB
Install in Groups of: 1
Resolution Video Memory
built-in LCD screen
(built in)
512 x 384 n/a-bit
640 x 400 n/a-bit
640 x 480 4-bit
800 x 600 n/a-bit
832 x 624 n/a-bit
1024 x 768 n/a-bit
1152 x 870 n/a-bit
1280 x 1024 n/a-bit
Physical Software Storage
Introduced: 8/25/1995
Discontinued: n/a
Form Factor: PowerBook 5300
Gestalt ID: 128
Weight (lbs): 5.9
Dimensions (in): 2 H x 11.5 W x 8.5 D
Addressing Modes: 32-bit
Orig SSW: 7.5.2
Orig Enabler: PowerBook 5300 Enabler
ROM ID: $077D
ROM Ver: $27
ROM Size: 4MB
AppleTalk Ver: 58.1.6
Mac OS
Supported:
7.5.2
7.5.3
7.5.5
7.6
7.6.1
8.0
Floppy Size: 1.44MB
Floppy Inject: manual
Min. Int HD Size: 500MB
Int HD Interface: IDE
Orig CD Speed n/a
Int CD Support:



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