Meet Max!
Written: Mar 10 '02 (Updated Mar 10 '02)
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Pros: Gee, it's an Apple
Cons: Help doesn't help me
The Bottom Line: What are you waiting for? You need this machine. But you can't have mine.
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| Darkmistress's Full Review: Apple iBook 12.1 in. (M8485LL/A) Mac Notebook |
I thought for my 200th review I should do something special. But I didn't. Here's to 200 more.
Not long after Max (my iBook) arrived Ruin13’s fiancée walked up to me and said "I hear you got a new iBook."
I replied. "Yes! He’s cute!"
I believe this just confirmed his opinion of me as a slightly off center weirdo. Eh. Truth hurts more if you don’t just accept it from the get go.
Max is cute. He’s all white and the little apple on his cover lights up when I have him on. Total strangers have cooed over him as if he were a particularly adorable baby and some of my friends are plotting getting one of their own.
~So what’s so great about Max?~
First of all, he’s a Mac. This translated into common tongue means that Max is super easy to run. Turn him on and he goes. Just like magic. I’m a junkie now. Sit me down in front of a PC and I’m apt to spent a lot of time cursing it when I can’t quit an application with a simple keystroke or navigate Excel with one finger.
Then there’s all the cool stuff Max came pre-loaded with. There’s the usual stuff, mail, Internet Explorer, Appleworks (a lesser word processing program with greater art capabilities than Word), Sherlock (which is a shortcut file finder), and Quicktime. Do PCs come with that stuff or do they figure they have you over a barrel after you spent less on the machine so they make you pay, what, $500 for Word? Thank you, sir, may I have another?
Max also came with (for free and nothing) iTunes, iMovie, and iPhoto. ITunes is probably the easiest MP3 dealie on the market. It took me about 20 minutes to master it because I assumed it was more difficult than it was. I haven’t played with iMovie yet and I haven’t even loaded iPhoto because I’m still too enchanted with iTunes to be bothered. I have absolute faith that once I start playing with those applications I will be entertained for months after a short introductory learning session. (Should you have a Mac and desire iTunes for yourself go to: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ . Should you not have a Mac and desire iTunes, um, I’m sorry.)
Max is packed with memory and charges up really fast. I’d tell you how much memory, but those numbers didn’t mean enough to me to stick in my mind. It’s probably enough for me to edit a 2 hour movie without having to delete my game. I did, however, run him down to nothing on his battery shortly after arrival and it took between 90 minutes and 2 hours to charge up.
And there’s one stupid Mac trick that makes me smile every time. When you click on a file to open it, it bounces while it’s opening. Yes, it’s stupid, but it never fails to bring a goofy grin to my face to see the iTunes icon bouncing up and down. And if you want to pretend don’t have the most fun as well as the best machine going, there’s a downlaod you can get to make it stop. You can also set the icons on the genius bar to magnify when you pass the cursor over them which is also a lot of fun, but gets in my way.
~The upgrades~
I didn’t order the stripped down iBook. Oh no, I needed, required, could not live without DVD playing capabilities. And I’m actually impressed. I was afraid it would look like a big screen projection TV. It doesn’t. The picture gets faded or darkened depending on how far off center you are, but the screen is only 9.75 inches wide, how far away did you think you were going to get? Three people could sit abreast and watch a movie without trouble.
I also got (but don’t tell my husband, it’s a surprise for his birthday) a CD burner. Yes, inside Max’s guts hides a CD burner. ITunes being the super simple process that it is, all you have to do to burn CDs is click a button. No, I’m serious. There’s a button on the screen that says Burn CD. Click it and wait a few minutes. I think it took 20 minutes or half an hour when I tried it.
~What’s not great about Max?~
Not much, but there are a few things. The speakers aren’t so great, but I didn’t expect much from a speaker the size of my thumb. The help section is nearly impossible for me to navigate. It sort of works like Ask Jeeves. You type in a question and it provides you with likely topics for your answer. I labor with the handicap of an English major so I know how to research and this kind of help just isn’t helpful for me. I’m also not crazy about the mouse pad thing. I’d be happier if they just took that out and put in hole for a removable mouse. Steve, if you’re paying attention, that’s the only thing I really want.
The only thing that truly bugs me is the color. (I’m such a girl that way.) I actually liked the colored clamshells. I’m sure Yoko Ono approves of the all white design, but I’m just worried about getting it smudged. I haven’t taken the plastic cover off the battery thing because I want to keep it from getting banged up. So I guess there’s another thing I really, really want. Color. Can you see Max with a nice sapphire blue case? He’d be really cute then.
I recommend Macs to everyone except game junkies. There isn’t much in the way of games and what there is comes out months after the PC version. I, however, find that to be a boon. If Max and the Blue Meanie could play lots and lots of wonderful games I would be forever playing games and never writing. The world would be poorer by 2 romance novels in the last 6 months alone. (Stop laughing, it is too a loss.)
Get an iBook and discover how accessible computers can be. I must be off. I’m either going to watch my DVD of Earthquake or I’m going to finish that CD I started to assemble the other day. Or maybe I should be writing. The world needs more quality romance novels.
PS – I feel I should share the origin of Max’s name The original Blue Max is from the Brian Daley Han Solo adventures. Blue Max was a smallish computer, carried around in the chest cavity of a robot named Bollux. I will not be carrying Max around in my chest. I’m already carrying some vital organs there.
PPS - Yyvonne, did I win? I haven't seen your review yet.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1650
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor: PowerPC G3
Processor speed: Don't Know
Screen Size: 10
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
Darkmistress
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 - Top 1000 |
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Location: Concepcion, Chile
Reviews written: 484
Trusted by: 140 members
About Me:
I'm legit! Isn't my cover beee-you-tea-full!
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