On the two-year birthday of the high-end Titanium PowerBook, Apple Computer on Tuesday upped the ante by introducing a model with a massive 17-inch display.

"We believe someday notebooks are even going to outsell desktops," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said during his keynote speech at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. He predicted the sales ratio will climb to at least 50 percent in a few years.

"We want to replace even more desktops with notebooks," he said.

To achieve that goal, the company created a PowerBook that is 2.5cm thick, slightly thinner than its predecessor. It weighs 3.08kg, compared with 2.45kg pounds for the 15-inch PowerBook. It's made from high-grade aluminum.

New features include built-in Bluetooth (a short-haul wireless technology), FireWire 2 and AirPort wireless networking. The long-anticipated FireWire 2 has a throughput of 800mbps (megabits per second), about twice as fast as the previous version.

The 17-inch PowerBook, with a 1GHz PowerPC G4 processor, 512MB of RAM, a 60GB hard drive and a DVD recording drive, is priced at AU$6,995 and ships next month.

Apple also introduced a 12-inch PowerBook. "We decided to apply this technology to something a little smaller," Jobs said.

The smaller PowerBook costs AU$3,995 and includes an 867MHz G4 processor, a 40GB hard drive, Bluetooth and is 802.11g-ready. 802.11g is a wireless networking standard that boasts faster speeds and better security.

"This is the most affordable PowerBook ever, and we will be shipping them in about two weeks," Jobs said, touting the new 12-inch PowerBook as a portable digital media studio.

"This is clearly going to be the year of the notebook for Apple," he said.

The 12-inch PowerBook appears to be the new entertainment portable product that sources close to the company said would be unveiled at the show.

"It's a personal digital media station," said Michael Gartenberg, a Jupiter Research analyst. "The 12-inch (model) is going to fly off the shelves."

Apple also introduced a new version of its AirPort wireless base station, which supports 802.11g and can transfer data at 54mbps. The most common wireless technology, 802.11b, operates at around 11mbps.

New AirPort features include support for 50 users, bridging between base stations, and USB (universal serial bus) printer sharing. The new base station sells for AU$499.