[1] It featured a fast, sharp, and expensive monochrome active matrix LCD screen in a hinged design that covered the keyboard when the machine was not in use.

[3] The Macintosh Portable's pointer is a built-in trackball that can be removed and located on either side of the keyboard, and can also be replaced with a numeric keypad if a mouse is being used.

[5] Despite the dramatic improvement in terms of ergonomics offered by the responsiveness, sharpness, and uniformity of its active matrix panel, one of the primary drawbacks of the Portable was poor readability in low-light situations.

The backlight feature was a welcomed improvement, but it, and combined with a switch from an expensive SRAM (intended to maximize battery life and to provide an "instant on" low-power sleep mode) to a cheaper, more power-hungry pseudo-SRAM (which also reduced the total RAM expansion to 8 MB) reduced the battery life by about a half.

This is due to the relatively low power output of the included AC charger, 1.5A @ 7.5 V, which is insufficient to spin up the hard disk, which has an initial startup current draw requirement of 2-3 Amps.

Several popular unauthorized workarounds were devised to allow the Portable to boot without a battery pack installed, including using an AC power supply from the PowerBook 100 series, which provides higher output.

These problems, combined with supply issues of the newly developed active matrix screen, caused numerous delays in launching the computer.

[8] The Macintosh Portable itself also suggests a lengthy development time with a silkscreen date stamp of 1987 on the production keyboard PCB, indicating a close-to-final design was likely to have been determined by then.

[9] The press reaction was mixed, with many praising the clear LCD screen, but most shunning the computer due to its size, weight and high cost, with the Los Angeles Times stating "It’s too big, too heavy and too expensive."