At the time the 190 was released, I had a PowerBook 520 (later upgraded to a PowerBook 540c). I was working with 190s and 5300s almost every day, but they seemed poorly constructed and "cheap" next to my 520.
The 190s leave a bad taste with those of us who worked with them at the time. The 190/5300 series were one of the first PowerBooks with which Apple outsouced manufacturing to a Taiwanese manufacturer (I believe it was Acer). They were one of the few 68k Macs that were so flawed that they were subject to a repair extension program to address serious manufacturing defects. The main problems I remember were that the power socket kept breaking off the logic board, the trackpads were flaky and the display housing was prone to breaking at the hinges. See this sample letter to owners: http://support.apple.com/kb/TA38474?viewlocale=en_US. Those of us working with the computers were the "meat in the sandwich" between customers with broken machines and Apple, who initially refused to admit that there was a problem (sound familiar?). Prior to the repair extension program, broken and faulty computers would come in for warranty repair, have the offending parts replaced with new parts with the same manufacturing / design flaws - and would be back with the same fault a month later. The other thing issue was that the 190 was originally intended to ship with a Lithium Ion battery. Unfortunately, there were some issues with Li-Ion battery packs catching on fire and - at least in Australia - the 190s only ever shipped with NiMH batteries.
Strangely, I have a working PowerBook 190cs (it was given to me) but have no love of it. When I see the 190, it reminds me that I should have kept my old PowerBook 540c.
The 190s leave a bad taste with those of us who worked with them at the time. The 190/5300 series were one of the first PowerBooks with which Apple outsouced manufacturing to a Taiwanese manufacturer (I believe it was Acer). They were one of the few 68k Macs that were so flawed that they were subject to a repair extension program to address serious manufacturing defects. The main problems I remember were that the power socket kept breaking off the logic board, the trackpads were flaky and the display housing was prone to breaking at the hinges. See this sample letter to owners: http://support.apple.com/kb/TA38474?viewlocale=en_US. Those of us working with the computers were the "meat in the sandwich" between customers with broken machines and Apple, who initially refused to admit that there was a problem (sound familiar?). Prior to the repair extension program, broken and faulty computers would come in for warranty repair, have the offending parts replaced with new parts with the same manufacturing / design flaws - and would be back with the same fault a month later. The other thing issue was that the 190 was originally intended to ship with a Lithium Ion battery. Unfortunately, there were some issues with Li-Ion battery packs catching on fire and - at least in Australia - the 190s only ever shipped with NiMH batteries.
Strangely, I have a working PowerBook 190cs (it was given to me) but have no love of it. When I see the 190, it reminds me that I should have kept my old PowerBook 540c.