Apple already had two successful lines of PowerBooks behind it but the new 5XX series promised users far more power and new features that had never been seen on any portable (not just Apple machines). All four PowerBook 5XX machines were released simultaneously with a fifth machine (the 550c) being released later but only to the Japanese market.

The 5XX machines offered unrivalled power and they ignored the now ageing 68030 processor in favour of the 68LC040. This offered 68040 performance but with less power drain (it also of course omitted the FPU but users wouldn't feel too badly done by). The memory was pretty much inline with the rest of the PowerBook series (allowing up to 36Mb via the usual Pseudostatic RAM slot) and the screens on the 520 and 520c were very much run of the mill 640x480 passive matrix type.

Added processor power wasn't the only additional power on offer and the 5XX series offered dual battery slots allowing users to double the running time of their machine (provided that they paid for, and were prepared to carry the added weight of, a second battery). Elsewhere the machines boasted 16 bit stereo sound, built in Ethernet (via a single AAUI connection), stereo speakers (built into the lid), an internal expansion bay, a full sized keyboard and an auto-sleep mode. Even the trackerball that had been a permanent fixture on the PowerBook got an overhaul and instead users found a trackpad instead. Apple also left the way open for future upgrades which would allow the machine to run the new PowerPC processor.

The added features and extended battery life made the 5XX series a big hit and even the less powerful 520 and 520c (chugging along at 25MHz with its passive matrix display) turned users heads. Once again Mac users could hit the road with something powerful in their bags.

The PowerBook 100 series had been chunky and robust, and the Duo series had been slim and lighweight, so I was keen to get hold of an example of the 500 series. 500 series machines tend to go for a premium price here in the UK but after much waiting a machine did eventually come along that fell within the acceptable price range. Of course it wasn't going to come without problems at a measly £16 and the machine was sold without a hard disc. This wasn't going to be an issue as I'd recently bought an 800Mb drive for the PowerBook 5300 and, as that was being a right pain (as always), it made sense to use that and leave the 5300 without a drive at all (in fact in the case of the 5300 it makes sense to climb a very tall building and throw it off into oblivion).

For my money I'd ended up with a greyscale 520 and when it did arrive it came with a HDI-30 to SCSI cable, and a video out cable. I already had both of these things but they're nice freebies so they're always gratefully accepted. The machine itself was in very nice condition - yes it was in need of a good clean but all of the plastics were intact and there were no major scratches or chips. Hitting the power we got a bing and an attempt at a boot. The 'missing' hard drive started whirring but at this point we got no further. As well as whirring, the hard drive was also making a nice ticking noise and the hardware was obviously trying to interrogate the poor dead thing, it was trying so hard that it was failing to check the floppy drive. Out comes the power cable, off comes the keyboard (no need to take the whole case apart this time around) and out comes the 'missing' hard drive.

When booted now we went almost straight to the flashing disk and after rummaging about for a boot disk, we had a boot and (eventually) a desktop - you have to marvel at these things don't you? The 5300's hard drive got dusted down and we immediately hit problems. While the 5300 uses an IDE drive (like every other laptop, Apple and otherwise) (with the exception of the Mac Portables and the majority of the 1XX series) the 520 uses a SCSI drive. Now we're in trouble. SCSI drives have never been as readily available as IDE drives but getting hold of a 2.5" SCSI hard drive was going to be right royal pain. That fountain of rubbish that is eBay came back with a single item and, unless I opted to risk eBay Italy, this 'new' 120Mb drive was all that was on offer. What can you do? It was won and promptly paid for.

The drive turned up and, despite the claims of it being 'new', promptly booted all on its own. I haven't bought many brand new parts but I'm pretty sure that Apple don't ship things like hard drives with OS 7, ClarisWorks and FileMaker Pro pre-installed. So much for product descriptions on eBay. We were in business though and it was time to look at the machine as a whole.

The 520 is a speedy little machine, of that there's no question. It's expansion options are great (the second battery slot can be used for other things, most notably a PCMCIA adaptor), the built in Ethernet makes life a doddle compared to the 'speed' of LocalTalk, and it's a pleasure to use. On the downside, the cut price greyscale passive matrix display is hideous. 'Ghosting' is really bad and white streaks criss cross the screen (this isn't simply a broken display either - this is actually how these things are supposed to work). Perhaps the colour version is better but somehow I doubt it and, given the choice, I'd definitely go for the 540 with its active-matrix screen. That said in the performance stakes, the 520 is a great little piece of kit.