Warning: Could Give You An Ego
Written: Feb 06 '03 (Updated Feb 07 '03)
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Pros: Easy online purchase, immediate use, great picture
Cons: The cursor gets frantic every now and then. AppleWorks is a drag
The Bottom Line: Works like it looks: Hot! Money well spent and no time wasted.
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| kilgwen's Full Review: Apple iBook 12.1 in. (M8485LL/A) Mac Notebook |
I have always thought Macs to be computers with training wheels. And this is a good thing. It's not so much that I know nothing about computers, as it is I prefer not to think about now they work and why they don't.
PCs have not mastered the art of presentation. Like taking vitamins as a kid, for example. Because they were cute little bears and tasted like cherry (or at least something red and sweet) you gladly popped one or two, or three as the case may be. I hate the taste of medicine PCs leave in my mouth.
So I went to apple.com and in 5 minutes I bought my iBook. This was on Sunday. Fed Ex handed to me on Thursday.
The training wheels in the case of this laptop are apparent more in what this iBook doesn't have. It does not come in a huge box with a nest of cables, copious amounts of paperwork, or advertising. Instead it comes in a tidy cardboard briefcase with a backup software on CDs, powercord, extension cord for that powercord, a modem cable and a video display adapter (to plug into a TV or video projector). Now if a manual as thick as dictionary gives you comfort, you will be disappointed by the literature. You just press the Power On button and you're half way to getting it up and running. The lack of written directions is made up for in the tutorial the computer presents you with upon this first power on.
After some hand-holding, the iBook guides you through your settings and presents you with your desktop. (Again, the training wheels are appreciated.) There the icons look like candies in a Japanese candy store. The menu bar on the bottom especially. The icons merrily bob with a single click before the application is launched. They are as happy as you are that you have made it this far.
It comes chock full of programs that I will never use, iMovie and Quicktime for example. Knowing they are there and I have the opportunity to say, edit my own home movie, is reassuring. Plus I have not yet sensed that they slow things down. iTunes, on the other hand, is an easy, clean program that makes storing and organizing your music so simple that even I could rip a CD on the first try.
Being as tech-impaired as I am, I found iTunes to be very much the ego booster. To be able to put a CD in, click once and have at CD ripped is a huge triumph. Haven't gotten to the burning yet, but it looks promising. One thing I have done, is gotten an iPod. It too came in a tiny lean box with just 3 packets (headphone, charger and FireWire cord) and a CD with elementary instructions. Like a kid in kindergarten, I matched the icon on the FireWire plug with the icon above the FireWire port and, with iTunes open, dumped all my music into the iPod. Go out for a jog, repeat.
Life without Microsoft Office is a grim world. Even though, this iBooks comes with AppleWorks 6, which does read MS Word and Excel files, it is a clunky replacement. So many of the icons and menu options are rearranged and unrecognizable that you need a road map to find the Thesaurus. Knowing your old pal, MS Office, is out there makes using AppleWorks annoying. I ditched it and installed MS Office.
The World Book Encyclopedia 2003 Edition is some nice icing on the iBook cake. I didn't know it was even there until recently. Launch it and you are greeted with a symphonic introduction. The Interface and functionality is much like what you'd see from the public library.
I decided to splurge for the CD-RW & DVD. While some iBook owners are submitting their iMovie videos to Sundance, I am contently perfecting the art of ripping and burning CDs. But without a TV, I found the DVD player in this laptop is a decent substitute. Sound and picture were impressive given it is a laptop. The speakers are the size of quarters and my screen is only 12", but if it's a good enough movie there's no reason to complain. Never had to stop the movie, squint or lip-read because I couldn't tell what was happening.
So far the only annoyance is that the cursor goes nuts every now and then. Where you want to click is occasionally the only place it refuses to.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1105.00
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor: PowerPC G3
Processor speed: 801-900
Screen Size: 12 inches
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Epinions.com ID:
kilgwen
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Reviews written: 1
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