One of Apple Computer's key new products - the low cost consumer PowerBook, or P1 - could be shelved because of serious design problems.

Sources say top Apple executives met last week to vote on the fate of the notebook PC: whether it should be delayed, or scrapped altogether.

The P1 is widely expected to be to the laptop what the iMac was to the desktop - cute and friendly on the outside and powerful on the inside. It is expected to sport a colored plastic case similar to the iMac and have a 300MHz or 333Mhz G3 processor inside.

But sources say engineers recently discovered a problem with the P1's ASICs that will prevent it from being introduced at the upcoming summer MacWorld Expo in New York.

The full story is posted at www.zdnn.com .