PowerBook Duo 270c

The Duo 270c put an active-matrix color screen into the subnotebook on October 21, 1993, which was the hard part. Fitting that panel into a chassis under five pounds and barely an inch thick was a genuine piece of engineering, and reviewers said so. The 68030 ran at 33MHz, System 7.1 ran on it, and the machine still slid into a Duo Dock and became a color desktop when you got back. That combination had no real competitor. Windows color subnotebooks were rare and compromised on either weight or screen, and nobody else offered the dock transformation at all. Designers, marketing people and executives who presented in color on the road bought them. The Duo compromises did not go anywhere. No floppy, almost no ports without the dock, a cramped keyboard, a small trackball, and a price in premium territory. Battery life suffered the way it did on every color portable that year. Against the 180c it gave comparable screen quality in a much smaller package while giving up processing speed to the 68040 machines arriving elsewhere. Collectors want this one, because an ultraportable with a good color screen in 1993 was a rare thing.