Ibooks - General Impressions

[007]

Hello.

What's everyones opinion on Ibooks? I've sold my ancient Sony laptop, and i've been offered a brand new G4 Ibook for ?650.

Specs...
1.2GHz PowerPC G4
512K L2 cache (at 1.2GHz)
12-inch TFT Display
1024x768 resolution
768mb Ram (as opposed to the standard 256)
30GB Ultra ATA drive
DVD/CD-RW drive
ATI Mobility Radeon 9200
32MB DDR video memory
AirPort Extreme

Good purchase? Are they getting revised soon though?

Scott

[Crossed fingers]

Depends what you're using it for, if you're buying this direct from Apple don't ever buy their memory upgrades- just get it cheaper at Crucial and install it yourself. For myself it seems pretty good, would like a bigger screen, maybe 15 inches. Don't think they'll upgrade in the near future this to be honest.

I thought they looked quite cheap, but i had a look instore and they're very stylish and something i wouldn't be ashamed of.

[Pacman555]

Haven't you just bought a new Mac mini? :P

[pace]

I've got one reacently and am very pleased it's especiall good for taking into uni and using in the library due to the smaller size.

It seems to run pretty quickly as well for word processing and internet but thats all I use it for mostly.


Thats a very good price when taking into account the extra ram, mine 512 extra cost about ?70 or so from crucial, now if only i could get the damn screw out to put it in.

[Ish]

I like them a lot. I'm planning on getting one myself shortly. In fact that very same model: I just want something light and small for carrying around and sitting in front of the TV with that I can use for writing.

[007]

Sounds pretty awesome. I was very close to a mac mini, but didn't want it running for long periods of time on my TV.

I know MSN is a M$ program, but can I get that working on my mac?

[Valken]

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx?pid=download&location=/mac/download/misc/msn_401.xml&secid=35&ssid=4&flgnosysreq=True

[pace]

Sounds pretty awesome. I was very close to a mac mini, but didn't want it running for long periods of time on my TV.

I know MSN is a M$ program, but can I get that working on my mac?

theres also a pretty cool program called adium for mac which can run alot of
instant message programs like msn yahoo etc.

[Paleface]

It's not a staggering price s/h; new, with 256 ram, they're ?699, so you're saving, what, about ?100? That's like I said, not staggering on a s/h laptop.

It's a fine machine, will do a ton of stuff; my Powerbook, which is only an 867mhz G4, and essentially a very similar spec, is pretty speedy with lots of apps running and using Photoshop filters. Are they getting revised? Probably not majorly. They've just been slowly speed-bumping the G4 processor and adding things like Airport as standard.

It's a fairly good price, but nothing OMG!, really.

MSN for Mac works as a chat client, but doesn't do all that nifty Xbox integration stuff. It's a bit behind the PC version. And it's not as nice as iChat. Or Adium, for that matter.

Also: it's pretty light, the screen is fine imho (nice and sharp, and the font anti-aliasing helps). You should get 2.5-3hrs battery out of it depending on what you're doing, how bright the screen is, whether wireless is on, and state of the battery. My Powerbook is down to about two hours battery 1.5 years into its life.

[Valken]

I still get 4 hours out of my iBook battery after a year when using wireless, Safari and iTunes

[007]

Thanks for the info chaps. I bought it and it's on the way now.

Couple more questions...

Some files I view, like game trailors, use Windows Media Format. WMV or WMA I think. Is there a program for Mac that lets you view these video and audio files?

Secondly, is the default internet browser the browser that looks like I- Tunes? Or is that Safari?

You can buy or download microsoft office right?

[bangaio]

MS Office, media player and messenger all work fine (they are mac os native apps but load win files fine).
Safari is the default browser - my old ibook had internet explorer too not sure if that is the case. My old 600mhz g3 is a bit long in the tooth now and 1.2+ghtz g4s at half what i paid for mine 4 years down the line is amazing to be honest

[Magnakai]

You can get Windows Media Player for the Mac, or you can use the fantastic VLC (which comes in handy for watching other-region DVDs too)

The default browser is Safari, which is a fine browser built on Mozilla, though you can get Firefox or Camino from www.mozilla.org if you fancy a change. I guess it looks like iTunes...
It comes with Internet Explorer too, which you occasionally need for banking sites and whatnot.

Microsoft Office is most definitely available for the Mac.

You might also like to check out http://www.versiontracker.com for some freeware stuff...

[womblingfree]

IE for Mac is pretty horrible, best off putting it in the trash and if you have any compatability problems download NetScape. Safari is what you should be using mostly though it's very good.

Microsoft Office is available but pricey. Appleworks or iWorks as I think it's now called is pretty good and will save and display Office files, although sometimes there is a problem with formatted documents.

The best thing is to just use what's included with the Mac for a while and you may find you don't even need anything else.

EDIT:

By the way magnakai that VLC player is sensational! It's playing all the ogg and AVI stuff i haven't been able to open. Cheers.

[Paleface]

IE for Mac is vile, and six years old. It also has major CSS bugs in. Drag it to trash and never look on it again, unless you're into web development and need to check things in it. Safari 1.2+ is very good (what you'll have) but you'll want Firefox too, mainly to avoid compatibility problems. Camino is just another Gecko-engined browser that's fallen behind Firefox a little now. Safari's great, though. I like it a lot, and it's very space-efficient.

VLC is very good. TBH, Windows Media Player isn't bad under OSX.

Office X is good, although iWork could be a better bet if you can't get a cheap/student copy. Entourage (Outlook replacement) I haven't touched, but Word/Excel/Powerpoint are all pretty good. Note that Access doesn't exist for Mac. This is an important thing to bear in mind.

Bear in mind, when you get it, you want to turn it off and reboot it as little as possible. It loves being asleep and plugged in. It wakes from sleep near instantaneously. It does consume more battery when asleep than a PC laptop because of this, though. And pay *VERY CLOSE ATTENTION* to what it tells you to do with the first charge cycle of the battery. (Full charge, full discharge, full charge, IIRC, but don't take my word for it). If you're not careful, you'll end up with a badly calibrated battery.