To a crowd of happy Apple enthusiasts in Paris, Steve Jobs announced revisions to the PowerBook line of G4 portable Macintosh computers.

In addition, Apple has released a wireless keyboard and mouse using Bluetooth technology.

The key changes in the PowerBook line are centered around the popular 15" model, which has now become the equivalent of the 17" in most regards. The 17" and 12" models have gotten speed bumps (33% in the case of the 17" and 16% in the case of the 12") and have had video card and cache changes (512K of L2 instead of 1MB of L3), but are otherwise identical to their predecessors released this Spring.

The big news is, of course, the 15" PowerBook rev, which many people have been eagerly awaiting since this spring. I believe that those who have waited have been rewarded. Although I would not turn back from my 17" PowerBook right now, the 15" has every feature (albeit with a slightly lower clock speed at 1.25GHz to the 17"'s 1.33GHz) and comes in the 1.3lb lighter 15" configuration.

Another welcome addition is the USB 2.0 support, which is available on all of the PowerBooks.

Apple has announced availability for the 15" and 17" bumped models as of today (although the 15" are already looking like 3-5 day delivery) and I'm expecting to go pay homage at the Apple Store in Tysons some time today.

Oh, for those who keep track of such things, the "official" maximum RAM on the PowerBooks has been bumped to 1.25GB on the 12" and 2GB on the 15" and 17", although this was always the case in the technical specifications.