I've owned three iBooks. The clamshell was a sturdy design, but heavy and limited. My G3 iBook 800 was great, worked well, but the screen was a little small (dense) and it didn't quite fit on the lap. Plus I wasn't a fan of the drive tray. So this new design is far better. It is much sturdier. They replaced EVERY material in construction for the better, improved battery life, and it is much faster. It might just be the perfect laptop at any price. For most people, it can even replace a desktop. Comes with tony hawk, plays beautifully. All other apps I have work perfectly, airport extreme is faster than airport, and keyboard is MUCH better (no longer squishy, better feedback). You will not regret buying this machine. Not sure that the 1GHz is worth the extra money. This model hits the sweet spot.
Ever since the iBook went G4, the machine took on a whole transformation. It is no longer lacking in the processor department and thus is a very "well-rounded" laptop.
As for the machine itself, it's great. The entire laptop is white, crisp white (a mixed blessing...it's elegant, but very, very hard not to dirty it), and the overall design is great. Everything is ergonomical and compact: the little latch to close the iBook stays hidden on the top, but then magically appears as you close it. (Gotta love Apple's design team for those little things!) The keyboard, unlike other models, isn't "spongy."In fact, it is rather sturdy for a laptop keyboard. It is stationed to a strong metal backboard and if you take the keyboard and backboard off, you will see a slot for an Airport Extreme card (card that enables wireless internet). No more PC "NIT" cards protruding from the sides, everything is on the inside. The top of the computer has a translucent Apple logo that glows when you are computing in the dark. The trackpad is large and precise, and the button (Windows users, beware: no "Left-clicking" in the Mac world, only "Command clicking"!) is large and responsive.
Battery life is excellent, I get an average of 5 hours with normal use. The charger has a light indicating the level of charge so you know when the 'book is charged (green for charged, amber for charging) without turning it on or waking it from its "Sleep" mode. Panther, the latest version of Mac OS X (10.3), is stunning, powerful, and reliable in its own right (go ahead and check out those reviews or Jaguar's reviews, the previous OS X version.) I don't want to go into the benefits of its UNIX core, just trust me that it is stable. The "iLife" set of software is one that really revolutionized the Apple world, after OS X, software-wise. It's all here: iTunes (store, burn, and buy music in one easy-to-use program), iPhoto (organize, burn, share, print, edit, email, and more with a plug-and-play friendly piece of software), iMovie (for editing, storing, and organizing your DV movies), but no iDVD...no DVD burner (but you can buy an external one.) Some other good programs that supplement your iLife are Mail, Appleworks, iChat, iCal, etc. It comes with World Book 2003, Quicken, and a few others.
It's fast. CD's burn with one click. My iPod (a great addition to this for music lovers) loads with one slide of a Firewire cable (literally.) Safari has built-in pop-up control (never has a single pop-up existed here.) Games (only the Sims so far) load and play flawlessly. DVD watching is pristine. USB 2.0 and Firewire (a BIG plus for external hard drives) work at top speed. No bugs, no crashes, no viruses. This machine was engineered to have the software and hardware be integrated. Have a problem? You won't be told to call a different company. You will always have one number to call, and they can't transfer you (since they make the hardware and software)
What more is there to say? I love my iBook! It's light, user friendly, and works like a dream. Quick! Go order one. You'll be in for a treat.This little beauty came into my life around Christmas, and she and I have been inseparable since then. I ordered it directly from the Apple Store Online, and I had it maxed out on RAM, and had the optional 60G hard drive installed. I love the processor speed, immense capability, and versatility. The screen size makes it a suitable replacement for a desktop computer.
I do everything on this computer: word-processing, spreadsheets, music transcription, photo editing, Internet communications, audio editing, and managing my music collection. I have Office X, Sibelius, and iLife 2004. I run iTunes in the background, write a report integrating Excel and Word, plus can have all my pictures handy on iPhoto. I can have five or six applications running at the same time (not including iChat and MSN Messenger, which are ALWAYS running), and the processor doesn't even hiccup. I use an iPod 40G as an external hard drive (not to mention all dem kewl tunes!), and have a Canon PowerShot A80 digital camera, and an iMic audio converter. Add to that an AirPort driven wireless network and a laser printer, and you have an ultra-powerful home office for any kind of occupation, from music composition, culinary research, to communications-based businesses.
Although larger and heavier than the 12" iBook, I believe the 14" screen is definitely worth the extra weight and price. If you get it, the wireless card (AirPort Extreme) is a must. The optional built-in Bluetooth module is nice, especially if you have a compatible PDA or cell phone.
I didn't realize I would love owning a laptop. Until I met this one.First of all, let me say that I paid the 1500 dollars in September, before they changed all the iBooks to G4s and the USB ports to 2.0 . Why is this important? Well, a few reasons. Final Cut Pro only works on G4s. I paid 699 dollars for the upgrade that my computer could certainly handle, however the software was designed to look for a G4 or G5 in order for installing. So, as that wouldn't have been too aggrivating until I tried to take it back to CompUSA which I soon found out has a zip-O-la return policy, I got a bit peeved at both CompUSA and Apple Software design. Well, within two months of my purchase the 'new' G4 iBooks were on the net to buy, and I had my answer on Apples ideas for makeing a touch more money by getting me to buy a new laptop, if I want to run something like.. oh Final Cut Pro, or some animation software on the market.
However, the reason I put five stars wasn't Apple's beautiful software marketing and design, or CompUSAs ability to move a person to consider programming a video game thats objective is strangling CompUSA employees.
The real reason is that for laptops, and for this price, it is a quality laptop. You see, I can't justify to myself paying over 1500 of a base price for a tool that I'm going to be using out of my home. At any moment it could be stolen and I am much more at peace with a loss of 1500 dollars for a top of the line iBook which can be much more readily replaced than 3000 dollars for a top of the line PowerBook.
My laptop has survived a 2 ft plus drop while open from a bed to a not so plush carpeted floor. There wasn't too much destruction done other than some of the lineing on the left edge of the screen and the battery doesn't fit as smoothly as before. Everything still works, including all the ports I use, like the USB, firewire, 56K Modem, and the Adapter port. It works fine on battery and plugged in, so I really didn't lose any functionality.
The laptop operating system doesn't break down, although it does freeze every once in a while. The software that it comes with is very useful, and handy, and not as annoying as say, windows media player.. The text editing software that it comes with is ahhhhh!!!ggrrr.. when you try to program html initially.. fortunately, after going to the preferences you can fix this loading html pages as a web browser does initial setting. iTunes is fun, and useful, and the only drawback is that it doesn't read the song encoding on CDs that Windows Media Player does. So you have to either manually type the name of the song in by hand, or buy your songs off the internet at a buck a piece. The iPhoto works fine and allows for some adjustment, but if you're into adjusting your photos, use nothing less than Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 . Photoshop might well be a waste of 600 plus dollars if you get good at Elements 2.0 . In fact.. I'd dare say Adobe Illustrator and Elements 2.0 could be a grand combo. Safari is a good browser with annoyances with interpreting java on the web. No joke, web browsers that understand Java well on the web on macs are rare as leopard seals. There is only two of them. One is the Microsoft Internet Explorer(who stopped making new IEs for mac because Safari does everything it does) and the other is Safari. Every other web browser.. say.. mozilla?? like Netscape 7.01, Firebird .7 and Mozilla and Camino seem to all be carbonized. And the problem? Well, for some reason, carbonizing does not like Java or something. No Java, no chatting, or java online gaming. So the only chatting you can do say on Yahoo is on Safari and IE. No problem, they are both free. And Safari is included with all the new macs. But for your daily web browsing, you might want to download Firebird .7 . After you get the tab browsing down and the various keyboard commands, you will find its just the best daily browser out there. It runs secure bank transactions in xml fine and quickly. As a bonus AppleWorks comes with every new iBook, so you definitely have a decent word processor. But don't be fooled with the Microsoft Office that seems to be included, Microsoft wouldn't forgoe a profit that easily. The Microsoft Office on the computer is a 30 day trial. Office X is 500 dollars. Not too much for full licensing for a single user. And well worth it if you're in college or otherwise use it frequently. Look at QuarkXPress for some serious pricing.. oww. The clock is nifty and calendar is useful, and the internet options are easily read in the upper menu bar. And for entertainment, you can talk to the computer and it will do what you say.. if you can speak it well enough for the computer.. you know.. the standard speech recognition flaw. The fun thing about all this is that you talk to the chess game and play an entire chess game by speaking alone. It's actually pretty nifty.
There is enough computer software out there for the mac, especially if you want to get work done and you work with video or images. The Mac OS X and Mac OS 9.2 don't save files quite the same way which can be a touch annoying if you are using old macs at school still. You have to specify the exact program to open this or that file between the two operating systems. This is easy enough.. as long as its only a file or two, come ten or so, and it gets a bit annoying. On the good end, it is more compatable with pcs now. There is a decent software translation of Windows XP for purchase for ultimate compatability. Wasn't too bad, but as always.. anything Microsoft runs as slow as a slug. Try a G5 if you want to run the Windows XP translation a lot. If Windows XP freezes, it doesn't freeze OS X, and thats kinda nice. Adobe has most of there popular software available on the mac, and so does Macromedia. And Living Language has their 9.0 versions of Language Lessons in plenty of European and Asian languages available on Mac. Also, if your into Video, Adobe dropped Premiere because Final Cut Pro was kicking their but in earning the market share. And if your into animation software, Cinema 4D 8.5v and Maya 5 both support mac, as well as Lightwave. So as far as getting something done, the mac is awesome.. it doesn't freeze much if you treat it decent(don't run a zillion programs at once). It simply works, and has better compatability than Linux. Although Linux rocks too, Mac OS X is a Unix base with more compatability. It is simply more compatable with stability than Linux. Microsoft Windows? Well, its compatable with a bonus of being hacked and virus wrecked and blue screened every so often. In other words... Microsoft Windows tends to limit me getting anything done.. particularly in Graphics Design degree which of course is only macs.
As far as games, of course most of the games out there are made for windows. On the other hand, many might argue that if you are a real gamer, you own an XBox or a PS2 already. Besides, Microsoft XP is available for Mac. Like I said, get a G5 for that kind of thing.
The chatting programs? Well, Windows Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and AOL instant messenger, as well as the OS X customized iChat version of AOL instant messenger that comes with any new mac. The Yahoo Messenger can't do as much as it can on Windows.. on the other hand.. it doesn't get hacked like the one on Windows, which doesn't freeze my computer, which makes my life a bit easier.
If you're into video, you should remember two things.. one, VCD format. You know, that old laser disk format that any CD burner can place on a CD-R/RW. two.. if your into business cards, the business card CD-Rs can hold video flash presentations as well. So, basically, if your not looking for 2 hour movies on a dvd, you can easily burn animations as well as edit them from the CD-Rs on the iBooks. The other detail is that 400 firewire is the only thing sold on iBooks. 800 firewire is considered 'professional'. However, although my 400 dollar Olympus digital camera can make short videos, it, like many Digital Cameras on the market, does not have firewire. In fact, that is much more likely to be restricted to digital camcorders. Such as my Digital Camcorder does have. Still, you still have to look for a firewire port, not all camcorders have them.
Hopefully, you found my review helpful. Oh, one more helpful hint. Certain Epson scanners come with Photoshop Elements 2.0 . A good piece of software with a needed accessory. I definitely recommend it. ArcSoftware is the usual accessory. Don't be fooled.. although its fun and useful, for work with multiple photos, nothing beats Elements 2.0 .
Hope you all enjoy this laptop if you buy it. Obviously every business is out to make money and Apple is no different. But Apple OS X and Apple laptops as a combo are better and more useful than nearly anything with Windows on it.
BrianLooks like Apple hit a home run with this one. This has been the best upgrade since my LC. With Panther my 933 is one fast machine. I downloaded US Army and it runs that with no problems. Max out the memory and get Apple Care. With broadband this one great appliance.
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