Buy a dust cover for the PC!
Written: Jul 01 '03
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Pros: Small and light, Easy to use, Long battery life, Superior design!
Cons: Limited software, proprietary hardware.
The Bottom Line: Go out and buy an Ibook. Unless you can afford a Powerbook then go buy you one of those!
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| castrostreet's Full Review: Apple iBook 12.1 in. (M8860LL/A) Mac Notebook |
Buy a dust cover for your PC because after you get your hands on an ibook you won't be craving windows much.
Well here I was with my second attempt at Mac. 6 Months ago was my first unsuccessful attempt. Back then I was wowed with OS-X to the point where I shelled out big bucks to have the (then) top of the line Dual 1ghz, Mirrored Door Power Mac which I souped up with over 1Gig of memory and Dual 100gig hard drives. It should have been a sweet machine. Lightening fast and slick. But as it turned out it was loud, fan noise was a problem, it ran hot to boot. Was very heavy so once it was placed it stayed there and to be honest it was buggy and crashed. Now OS-X Mac claims is stable but not on my power Mac it was worse than windows!
It would do video processing applications fast but general games and stuff ran just as slow as my buddy's iMac. I got tired of it quick and shunned it for my Windows laptop too much. So off it went on E-bay though I must say they do keep their value more than a PC machine. I almost recouped what I'd spent on it. I was disappointed because I really liked the OS-X interface.
So a few months later I decided to try an Ibook. I could get one for $999 ( 1/3 the price of the PowerMac) and that way I would not feel so bad if I did not use it as much.
To my surprise I loved it. Everything about the ibook just works. #1 I love the design. Small and light, with a pure white finish it looks like a piece of art. The fit and finish are about the best I've seen in a laptop (exceeded only by the Powerbook G4 12") It looks sculpted. From the "Apple" on the lid that glows using the refracted light of the LCD display to the pulsing "Sleep" light on the front to the "So simple I can't believe no one has done it before" power adapter with LED ring that glows "Amber" when charging and "Green" when fully charged. This laptop just has so many well thought out features.
I have a dell that has an LED meter on the battery. Problem is you have to remove the battery to see it... DUH. On the Ibook you just turn it over and press the button to see what your current charge level is.
The Keyboard yes is a bit flimsy I will agree. But it feels fine when typing. I can touch type with ease and for a peek-n-type typist the white keys with black writing are easier to view than most standard laptop keyboards which are almost all black with white lettering.
Some may complain that there is no PCMCIA port. I was concerned of this at first also. But the internal port allows you to install an airport card right under the keyboard. And after going through 3 PCMCIA WI-FI cards for my dell It was nice to know that the APPLE Airport card will work perfectly with an APPLE computer and hey it even works effortlessly with my netgear wireless router. And nothing sticks out of the side to catch on things because the antenna is internal. The reception is great also by the way. As for other PCMCIA cards well there are just not that many of them out there. Most PCMCIA cards are used as port replicators and the Ibook has all the latest ports so you don't need to add any. And any accessories made now are all coming out USB anyway or even Firewire.
Also under the keyboard is a space for a memory module which you WILL need to use. Because this model comes with only 128MB on the main board. And that is not enough.
Other ports are 2 USB, 1 Firewire, 1 Ethernet, 1 Modem, 1 audio out and a VGA out(using included dongle)they are really all the ports most folks will need. On the other side is the power in port and the CD rom. I now wish I had gotten the CD-RW/DVD-Rom combo drive because I now use this computer all the time.
Why do I use it all the time? Because it's just so lifestyle friendly! I mean I rarely ever shut it down. Why would you when you can simply shut the cover and it goes to sleep using just a fraction of power. Then just pop the top and it's back with everything just as you left it. Not like windows "Hibernate" or "Stand By" which both take longer and cause some running programs to go unstable. You can have any OS-X program open and it will be unaffected by sleep.
Now on to OS-X. Can there be a better operating system? I don't know of any. This beats the pants off anything Apple has done before. Sorry OS9 die hards but OS9 did not get many of us WinDieHards to switch! But X will reel in the converts as evidenced by the proliferation of my friends who are making the switch. It must have been the hardware of the Mirrored Door Power Mac that made it unstable because OS-X on this Ibook is rock solid. I have had it running now for about 2 months straight without turning it off and yes a few times certain programs have stopped responding so you Force Quit and guess what? It does not make your whole computer go loopy. Guess what else? No system lockups, NO blue screens of death, minimal frustration means less stress and this computer is all about less stress. It's pleasing to look at with it's cool shape and calming white color and the graphics with the Aqua interface are superb. Screen resolution and clarity are super too.
Now I went from a Dual 1ghz G4 to an 800 Mhz G3 processor. 1Gig of memory to 384MB. Guess what? I can't tell the difference in most programs... Yep in fact some things open faster. It's weird. It took forever to open large Imovie projects on the PowerMac. On the ibook they open very quickly. Now of course editing and rendering video clips takes a lot more time on the ibook but for the amount of time I spend doing that with my home movies it's hardly a problem for me. Itunes works great and I have about 20 CD's worth of songs loaded into it. Iphoto likewise works. Mail is a wonderful program and Safari is by far the best of the best of web browsers. It's so good in fact that Microsoft decided to stop developing Internet Explorer for the Mac. They figure why bother when Safari is so much better who is going to want our lousy crappy IE? And they are right. Safari is the best. It's faster, has built in Pop-Up stopper and now that it's out of Beta most of the bugs are out. But if you do find a bug just hit the bug button and report it. Apple is always striving to make their stuff the best. They have "Little man syndrome", as the underdog they have to try harder and that means better stuff for you and I!
Speaking of better. Apple just announced the new OS-X "Panther" version and let me tell you it looks to improve on this already spectacular operating system. And with your Ibook or any Mac you get a trial subscription to MacWorld magazine. Sign up for it, it is a great resource for newbies.
But what you are going to get out of the box is the "Jaguar" version of OS-X and it is great. All you need is included. Apple works is a great program that is compatible with MS Word and Excel files. Itunes 4 is stellar and with Apple's music store and internet radio stations built in I guarantee if you like music you'll use this program all the time. Iphoto is the best of it's genre. Imovie is powerful and easy to use. Ichat replaces AOL instant messenger with easy and style and uses the AOL network to boot! Use ICal calendar to manage your time and Address Book to store all your info. If you want to publish to the internet really easy then get .Mac that's "Dot Mac" this is an Apple service that is built into OS-X and offers e-mail address, easy publishing to the web of photos and storage of files online. It's well worth the $100 yearly fee in my opinion. But it is totally optional. Not having it won't affect any functionality on your system.
When it comes down to it Apple is a Hardware company. They make very little money selling software. But they develop the best software so they can sell their hardware. That is why you will never see a "Generic" Apple. It's also why Apple can make such high quality hardware and still make more of a profit. With Apple you won't see a million peripherals or a ton of software. There are fewer Peripherals but the ones that are there work well. And the software that is designed for the Mac is typically well designed. Also now with OS-X it's based on Unix which has literally thousands of software apps available for free. So all in all it would not be a bad idea for you to jump on the Apple Cart now. Good things await!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 999.00
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor: PowerPC G3
Processor speed: 701-800
Screen Size: 12 inches
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Epinions.com ID:
castrostreet
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Member: Jason Davison
Reviews written: 55
Trusted by: 3 members
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