Do Apple iBooks Make Good Geek Laptops? 151
Curious Geek asks: "I'm in the market for a good, cheap laptop. Primarily I'm looking for something that is relatively rugged, has a LONG batter life, and that is *nix friendly. I'd primarily use it for Perl, PHP and Java coding either on client sites, in front of the TV, or on the train. It would also be nice if I could run dummy websites from it and let it take care of customer invoicing (again, this is all going to be Perl/PHP/Apache stuff)
At the moment, the best bet looks like an apple iBook, it has a 5 hour battery life, ships with OS X (although I could use mac linux or YDL) and is rugged enough that loads of spotty yoofs have been given them at school. It also has the ability to house an internal wireless LAN card, which is pretty groovy. Can anybody recommend anything better? My price range is limited ~$1400 USD. I know that for that price I could get an X86 laptop - but do any of these have a battery life as good as the iBook?"
Kinda slow.. (Score:1, Redundant)
Also, ask around to see what the actual battery life of any laptop you buy is. The advertised times are sometimes measured under pretty unlikely circumstances..
Re:Kinda slow.. (Score:2, Informative)
Overall I have had my iBook for a little more than a year and I forsee another 2-3 years of solid performance before I need to upgrade it. It was worth every penny!
Re:Kinda slow.. (Score:1)
Re:Kinda slow.. (Score:2)
Re:Kinda slow.. (Score:2)
seriously, it is. I'm installing some stuff on Win98 running under Virtual PC on my iBook right now (I need some Windows-only software for work). It is relatively slow.
Running mac apps it isn't so bad. I'm relatively happy with my iBook (600 w/640 megs of RAM), though I wish I had one of the newer ones with a better graphics chip. The things aren't the fastest machines in the world, but I like OS X, they are pretty well-built (at least compared to the last few Dell laptops I have used), and the battery life is quite good.
Affirmative (Score:5, Insightful)
A G4 and MacOS/X have served me well. I would suspect that an iBook will serve you equally well (the 12" version is heavily used by some road warrior journalists I use, they love the battery life, size and ease of use).
Oh, and MacOS/X has Perl, PHP and Apache already installed...which is kinda nice (although many will install later versions themselves, I'm sure).
Enjoy.
-psyconaut
P.S: Previously I had a Sony VAIO XG-19...which was rather expensive and elaborate at the time of purchase. I'd say I like the Powerbook more.
iBook2 running linux (Score:5, Informative)
You could pick the older model up (say 500 Mhz, ATI Rage Pro; not Radeon) for a decent price, I bet. I bought a carry sleeve from Waterfield Designs (www.sfbags.com) that keeps it very safe in my backpack. I find it feels a bit more rugged than the HP or Compaqs in a similar price range (but less than the heavier Thinkpads, which I used to have)
OSX, formatted with HFS+, I hear is pretty fast if you get the latest versions (online update). I use Debian Linux on it, and am not lacking any features (plus I get ext3, which is fast and I can just poweroff in a pinch)
Battery is okay, but only if you turn down the screen brightness, and make some tunings to the drive spin down (under Linux, probably is better under OS X on batteries). I can get four hours out of it fairly easy.
Debian (Score:1)
Re:Debian (Score:1)
Fairly simple, eh?
As for whether he's got it in a multiboot configuration (by that I assume you mean dual-boot)... why would that matter? Obviously I don't know, so you'll have to wait for him to reply...
Re:Debian (Score:2)
Oh, go ahead and patronize me.
The reason for my confusion was the fact that he made as many references to OS X as he did. The first one was talking about the speed with formatting the drive as HFS+. I assumed that he was advocating OS X as the primary operating system. Then later he talked about running Debian as the primary. Hence the confusion.
I assume you mean dual-boot
No, I actually meant multi-boot. No reason to restrict him to only two OSes. Especially considering that OS X and OS 9 can be booted separately on most machines.
Re:Debian (Score:1)
Re:Debian (Score:2)
I personally use Debian about 100% of the time; I just have it all set up the way I like things, and haven't had time to get into OS X. The original poster was asking about OS X, so that is why I talked about it more. But I'd suggest that people just use what they like; OS X seems to have a lot of potential.
Re:Debian (Score:1)
Thanks (Score:1)
iBook = so-so (Score:2, Informative)
However, the Powerbooks are really quite nice. They are fast enough to run most useful programs, have good styling, are rugged, get good battery life, and generally are a seamless computer solution. An out-of-box Powerbook is a computer that you can use and not worry too much about whether it will work when you push the power button. I've found that Powerbooks are pretty bug-free on hibernate and suspend, something I haven't found in an X86 yet. It's nice to be able to close the computer, pick it up, and go. Open it again, and no bluescreen.
If you are going for cheap, I think you'd get more bang for your buck out of an X86. If you are willing to spend extra, the Powerbook's extra features are well worth it.
Re:iBook = so-so (Score:1)
Just because it has a titanium shell does NOT make it durable...much of it is made of cheap plastic that cracks and chips very easily.
FWIW, I absolutely love my powerbook, but there's no denying the build quality is quite poor. In addition to those points, the internal 802.11b reception is appalling, and the keys touch the LCD when the lid is closed...inevitably scratching the display if you don't have a "screen protector". I'm not the only one with these complaints, just check powerpage.org and Apple's own support forums. I hear the iBooks are far more durable, so I'd stick with that.
In any case, I'd recommend waiting a couple of weeks until Macworld Expo NY to see what Apple is gonna bring us next. If anything, you might find new pricing on the iBooks...
PowerBook Problems and a possible solution (Score:2)
I've found that simply raising my AirPort base station as high as I can get it (in my case, on top of my PowerMac G4, which sits on top of my desk) helped reception enormously.
I love my PowerBook G4/400, although I periodically think about replacing it with a newer model. I would certainly not replace it with an iBook since I love the higer resolution screen.
Note that you can get reconditioned TiBooks for about the price of a new iBook, and that might be worth thinking about for many people.
D
Re:PowerBook Problems and a possible solution (Score:1)
My current case it actually pretty tight. I assumed that was a GOOD thing since it will a) keep the lid from jostling while latched (the filmsy latch releases easily and doesn't keep the lid tightly sealed), and b) keep the paint from rubbing off since it can't move around within the bag. The Tom Bihn shell is suspended, so the unit never gets banged on an edge.
Re:PowerBook Problems and a possible solution (Score:2)
D
Re:PowerBook Problems and a possible solution (Score:2)
here [macconnection.com]
Re:iBook = so-so (Score:3, Informative)
Re:iBook = so-so (Score:1)
For the Anonymous Coward above, by "seamless" I meant "worrying about practically nothing." Since Apple make the OS and hardware, it's more of a single piece of equipment. As much as I like PC's, the architecture sometimes shows stitches like Frankenstein's monster.
Depends on what you need to do. (Score:1)
Then again, if all you're doing is Unixy stuff, Linux still is appreciably faster than Darwin on the same machine.
Either way, the iBook is a serious machine; it will do the job pretty well.
Powerbooks and Ibooks are great but.... (Score:3, Informative)
What enchanted me was the support services that apple has avaiable if you can get to them. My case and point: The holly service manaul
What a great thing! This little manaual not only told me of the two little release buttons that gave access to most everything one would have to upgrade or replace (modem, memeory, hd, even the CPU). But also told me how to dig even deeper while making sure I didn't make obvious mistakes (don't press here you will break a tab).
The trouble with the service manauls is the access. Apple seems to only want service centers to have access, so you end up having to dig around for a long time on their ftp sites in order to get them. Perhaps the idea is if you can't find the service manaul on a resonably oganized ftp site then perhaps you shouldn't be ripping into a laptop anytime soon.
The rest of apple support kinda stinks (IMHO) however. Hardware problems such as mine where difficult to pin point. The people I talked to for support spent a large amount of time working with me to find if the problem was software or hardware related. And when we did discover hardware related troubles they where reluctant to alow me to preform the work myself asking me to send in my machine to a service center.
Bottom line: the little machines are some of the best laptops out there. With great aftermarket support and fairly good apple service I would feel fine dumping 2 grand into a new one if I had it. In a perfect world I would ask for more nerd support, but hey if your gearing your company towards other things perhaps you don't have time to listen to a nerd.
z.
service manual depo: http://home.wanadoo.nl/manual.man/manuals.html
Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do any laptops come with three mouse buttons?
Are the Apple laptops stuck with only one button like their desktop mice?
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? (Score:1)
Also when you use XFree86 on Mac OS X it already knows about the other mouse buttons (and the scroller). In fact most programs already know how to handle the scroll mouse button.
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? (Score:1)
So yes it is a valid concern and yes you will almost certainly be clicking on the right side of the single mousebutton as long as you still use other systems. It is however liveable, at least in apps designed with one mouse button in mind.
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? (Score:2)
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? (Score:2)
At least if you have two buttons, you can emulate 3 buttons and click both buttons to get the middle button. That's not optimal, and you have problems with misclicks when doing that, but you can't even do that with only one button.
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? (Score:2)
It's hard enough finding mice with 3 working buttons (and not a wheel).
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? - not apple (Score:2)
i sure wish apple would put 2 or 3 button pads on their laptops, they could leave them configured to all act as the same button for dummies by default.
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? - not apple (Score:2)
I've never seen a three-button mouse on an x86 laptop. If someone made one, be it Apple, IBM, or Dell, they would find a burst of popularity from the Unix crowd.
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? - not apple (Score:1)
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? - not apple (Score:2)
The third button is mapped as , well, a third button, but when you click and drag vertically with it, it acts like a mouse wheel.
My Tadpole Sparkbook has one of those IBM keyboards with 3 buttons and a point stick as well.
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? - not apple (Score:1)
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? - not apple (Score:2)
Forget X11 -- MacOS has been a two button OS for years now, since contextual menus came out in, what was it, 8.0? I need to plug in a mouse to use Word or Excel comfortably. I don't understand how users live with the standard mice.
That said, I loooove my TiBook. OS X or Yellow Dog, it's the best Unix laptop I could have bought.
Girlfriend: Sometimes I think you love that computer more than me.
Dilbert: I do not love you more than this computer.
Dilbert thinks: Please don't ask me about the laptop.
Girlfriend: This computer...?
Sony (Score:2)
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? (Score:2)
Also, I tend to use an external mouse when I'm at a desk, because I really dislike trackpads when doing delicate work. There are lots of great 3 button USB mice out there.
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? (Score:1)
Agh. Replying to my own post... I actually have two thumbs, but only one one each hand.
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? (Score:2)
I tend to use one of these [nexfan.com] when I'm using MacOS without a mousing surface around.
Re:Laptop with 3 mouse buttons? (Score:1)
As for the original question, I am doing development for my hobby application (Postgres, perl and apache) and for my work (java and Postgres) on the laptop. It's great to be able to move around the house and sit where I want to instead of at the computer desk all the time. When I'm hooked up to the network, I can even NFS mount my Linux home directory on the laptop and work on it directly instead of sshing files back and forth.
Sager (Score:1)
You can also grab the powernotebook computers without paying the Microsoft Tax. (They sell them clean.)
-Brian
Re:Sager (Score:1)
Re:Sager (Score:1)
No PCMCIA slot in the iBook? (Score:1)
Re:No PCMCIA slot in the iBook? (Score:2)
Re:No PCMCIA slot in the iBook? (Score:2)
I guess mac users were never fans of upgradability anyway.
Re:No PCMCIA slot in the iBook? (Score:1)
Nice troll, though.
Is plugging in a PC card really considered "upgrading"?
Re:No PCMCIA slot in the iBook? (Score:2)
Is plugging in a PC card really considered "upgrading"?
If it didn't come with the computer, it's an upgrade.
Personally, I don't think the lack of PCMCIA slots is a big deal on the iBook. The single mouse button is what keeps me away.
Re:No PCMCIA slot in the iBook? (Score:2)
You can always use an external mouse too. I have a decent three button (no scroll-wheel, thank god) Sun mouse, but haven't bothered to figure out how to get it working in X. Haven't felt the need to find out.
Re:No PCMCIA slot in the iBook? (Score:2)
The lack of DB9 serial port kills the iBook for me, and you can't add one with the non-exsistant PCMCIA. I'm sure there's a USB dongle to DB9 serial that would work fine, but I'm too lazy to dink around.
Otherwise, a fine and well made laptop.
Re:No PCMCIA slot in the iBook? (Score:2)
http://www.keyspan.com/products/usb/pdaadapter [keyspan.com]
Re:No PCMCIA slot in the iBook? (Score:1)
Re:No PCMCIA slot in the iBook? (Score:1)
Re:No PCMCIA slot in the iBook? (Score:1)
Re:No PCMCIA slot in the iBook? (Score:1)
Definitely recommended... (Score:4, Interesting)
I dont think these are in your price range, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Field Pack [dolch.com]
Both of these claim to have extreme battery life times and since they are marketed more towards military applications, they are pretty rugged. I mean, come on, check out Itronix's quote:
We have teamed with select systems integrators to enable you to deploy a solution right now for border security, first responder teams, bio-terrorism response teams, and network infrastructure.
. .
The FieldPac looks pretty tough, too. . . think about it, you are on that train and some thug demands your money and you can reach down, pat the case and say "Don't make me use this . .
Seriously though, the app type stuff you mentioned could probably be done on most any semi-recent laptop (P2-233 would probably suffice) and most of the consumer laptops are going to have fluff (like *sound* who needs *that*?) that could dimish your battery run time (somewhat). If you really want long battery life, hunt around in the gear aimed towards outdoors work (again though, they are probably outside the 1400 buck price range).
Web development (Score:2)
I can edit the source files in my perferred text editor (most *nix editors have been ported), then save it, and view it in Mozilla which invokes Apache, PHP, and MySQL (PostgreSQL also works) to serve the page.
I use a 400mhz G4 tower, which should be about as fast as the new iBooks. I find the speed more then adaquate. Photoshop even runs with all that server software running in the background.
If only the thing had 2 mouse buttons!!
Re:Web development (Score:1)
Umm, just buy one - MacAlly mice work quite well in OS X and you'll be surprised that the right button is very functional as soon as you plug it in.
They rock! (Score:5, Informative)
I also have a toshiba notebook running linux, and with the iBook on my lap sitting on the couch I can hear the toshiba's cooling fan start up from 4 metres away. The iBook is quiet as a mouse.
It's funny, when I got the toshiba/Redhat system I used it all the time, but now there's simply no point anymore. I use it for the parallel port and that's it.
OK, compare the following features:
There are a bajillion other little things that make the iBook better than anything else on the market (except perhaps the TiBook), and they all add up. Honestly, once you've started using OS X everything else feels like it's stuck in the 80's, including the winNT/98/2k machines I have to work on 8 hours a day.
Hope this helps!
Re:They rock! (Score:2)
date -s "string"
Where string is a date in the same format as date outputs by default (you can use different formats, but that's the most straightforward).
Re:They rock! (Score:1)
Eye the Book. (Score:5, Informative)
Hardware
Mrs. Officemonkey runs an older clamshell tangerine iBook running Mac OS 9.2. Her battery is good for ~4 hours per charge.
I have a newish iBook (tail end of 2001) in the snowcase. Sadly my battery is good for only 3.5 hours. It runs Mac OS X and does most of what you're asking about.
We both use Airport to connect to a base station that is hooked up to our DSL modem. The chargers for the iBooks are "Yo-Yo's", so the cords wrap up pretty neatly. I'm told the new chargers are even more compact.
I have big ham fingers, but I like the keyboard on my iBook. My keyboard features an inverted-T cursor pad on the right-hand side which also maps to pgup, pgdn, home, and end.
My iBook is smaller, slimmer, and lighter compared to my 2-year old Compaq Armada laptop, but the iBook doesn't have a floppy drive, infrared port, or card slots. It also gets pretty durned hot.
The one-button trackpad has my vote for the lamest Apple feature holdout. I'd also like a bigger screen, but I was cheap (I bought the system on clearance for $999).
All in all, I like the new iBook's hardware as much, or better than any laptop I've ever used. It reminds me of my Palm V.
Software
If you're interested in web development, Mac OS X is a good platform, but there are a few caveats...
Mark Liyanage [entropy.ch] packages PHP and MySQL, and Fink [sf.net] does a really good job of making a whole lot of *nix-y things available in Debian-like packages. Between these two sites you should be able to equip your iBook with the necessary tools.
Also, Mac OS X has some unusual directory conventions and the Apache configuration file is a little non-standard. The usual caveats about mucking with the configuration file apply, but if you're a novice with Apache, you'll have a steeper learning curve.
I think BBEdit [bbedit.com] is the best text editor for the mac. I use it to write HTML and Python scripts. It checks and colorizes syntax and you can use regular expressions for search and replace. I'm usually quite cheap about commercial software, but BBEdit is worth buying.
Mail.app does a good job with e-mail and if you're on a low-Microsoft diet, you can dump Internet Explorer and download Mozilla or OmniWeb. Appleworks (which comes with the iBook) is a 'good enough' office suite and my experience with the demo of Microsoft Office is that it is very very good (but not necessary for my home machine thanks to having a Wintel machine at work).
Don't worry about file formats between platforms. Virtually all software that runs on both Mac OS and Windows will use the same file format. The only notable exception is the line-endings on text files (I eliminated the problem by changing the default options in BBEdit).
Mac OS X application development is taking off and you can run most of the command-line tools you're used to. You can also install the X Windows System and run the Gimp, Xemacs, or whatever.
The Verdict
Even if you get a low-end iBook, you'll get the second-most happening *nix on the planet, solid hardware, and good battery life. Everything works right out of the box and, feature for feature, the iBook is comparable in price to other major manufactuers.
what does battery life have to do with it? (Score:1)
Re:what does battery life have to do with it? (Score:2)
fujitsu lifebook p-2000 series (Score:2)
Try one out! (Score:1)
iBook with Darwin? (Score:1)
I would expect that avoiding the GUI would improve your battery life.
Does darwin have proper power management?
Does apple's JDK run under darwin?
I'm thinking about getting an iBook, and most of what I need it for could be done entirely in on a command line. Is darwin useful enough, and does it give better battery life?
Re:iBook with Darwin? (Score:1)
The Java stuff will work just fine under command-line only OS X (=Darwin), and I guess the power management features will work too..
I have an iBook, but I'm always on the GUI. I just boot into single-user mode for the periodic 'fsck'
Re:iBook with Darwin? (Score:1)
I haven't been a MacOS user in about 3 years (since the attack on the clones), but it might be time I returned to the fold.
Re:iBook with Darwin? (Score:2)
True, but as any good Unix person knows, it's very bad to run your normal stuff as root. You can type ">console" at the Aqua login screen to get a text mode login prompt if you need it.
Good geek laptops? (Score:1)
Re:Good geek laptops? (Score:2, Funny)
RISC processing is going to change everything!
fujitsu 2040 series (Score:1)
The fujitsu 2040 series has a base battery life of 5ish hours with the six cell main battery. If you take out the dvd drive and stick in the secondary battery, the time goes up to like 12 hours. I've got the 2046, and I'm completely satisfied with it. The 800mhz crusoe cpu doesn't feel slow in the least. I've seen the 2040 on sale at Fry's for USD$1399
2-month-old slashdot article (Score:2)
Recommended (Score:2)
Re:Recommended (Score:2)
Weird. What model do you have? On mine, when it is sleeping with the lid closed, all I have to do is open the lid and it wakes up. If it's sleeping with the lid open, then, yah, I have to hit the space bar or something, but thats only if the lid was already open. (I've got the 600/12.1 model)
My iBook Experience (Score:4, Interesting)
I love it. I can safely say that this is the most satisfying computer purchase I've ever made. Not that my other computers sucked, but it just rules.
Up until a month ago, I ran Mac OS X full-time. More and more, I've been using Squeak as my operating system rather than Mac OS X proper, with the exception of web-browsing which I do in OS X. I switched back to Linux so I could work on some aspects of Squeak more easily, and tie Squeak into my environment, long story.
I'm a veteran Linux user, dumping it a couple years back to switch to Mac OS X. I've switched back, and am doing fine. Linux still sucks in many of the ways I remembered, especially in the area of GUI consistency compared to OS X. But then again, I spend a lot of my time in Squeak, not with regular X apps so it doesn't bother me much.
I installed Debian GNU/Linux 2.2r6 on this puppy and the install went as smoothly as any x86 Linux install I've ever done (and I've done more than my fair share). I was surprised to find that out. A while back, I tried to install NetBSD, and it was a pain in the rump, so I was expecting something similar for Debian. Piece of cake. Upgraded to Woody without any problems.
I can even close the lid and have the 'book go to sleep, just like in OS 9 and X. It doesn't wake up as lightning fast as OS X does, but eh, I expected worse!
This machine is fast and durable. Incidentally, that's what I wanted from a computer. I'm sure you can get faster iBooks and PowerBooks and maybe even a faster PC notebook, but this does what I need and them some.
Sound still doesn't work, to my knowledge. This is a bummer, but not a huge deal.
I have my right command and enter keys mapped to do the job of my other mouse buttons. No, it's not a pain in the ass. Quite natural. I have a USB mouse, but haven't felt any need to figure out how to get it working in X11 yet. XFree runs fast enough, some room for graphics speed up though.
Don't see the big deal aobut a PCMCIA slot. This baby has everything I need on board, which IMO is a helluva lot better than to have to futz with PC cards. USB to serial adaptor works like a charm with the Newton.
Aaron
Re:My iBook Experience (Score:1)
Only problem left for me is the 56k modem (any hints on that?) and FireWire - though that might work, I just don't have any peripheral to test it with.
Re:My iBook Experience (Score:2)
I've almost no use for the modem, but I assumed it worked. No idea though. No FireWire devices here, if I come across a simple one like a hard-drive, I'll try it for you.
Re:What the fuck (was Re:My iBook Experience) (Score:2)
Do people not realize that start (Score:1)
iBooks make slow laptops (Score:2)
It's not fast, but usable on a TiBook, but i was shocked to see how poor performance was on a 600Mhz iBook.
Don't buy it unless you enjoy watching paint dry.
Re:iBooks make slow laptops (Score:1)
Re:iBooks make slow laptops (Score:2)
I got my extra RAM from a 3rd party vendor so as to avoid the apple-tax.
YES (Score:1)
Powerbook G4 Paint Problems (TiBook) (Score:2, Informative)
I've owned my Powerbook G4 667MHz since November 2001. In March 2002, the paint on the unit began to bubble and flake-off [uiuc.edu].....like Herpes vesicles. The machine also began to generate a lot more heat than it did upon purchase. The battery life dwindled from a typical 3 hours down to 1.25 hours on a full-charge. The Powerbook's fan was always on. This was unacceptable for a $3200 laptop.
It took me a month of arguing with Apple and documenting my problem with photos before they would replace my defective unit. They denied any knowledge of widespread paint/durability problems, despite the existence of companies like TiPaint.com [tipaint.com] that sell touch-up paint for the Tibook. Touch-up paint for a laptop?!? That's absurd. Anyhow, my unit went in for a massive overhaul. They essentially gutted my machine and placed it in a new case, replaced the battery, fan and logic board. It took several weeks, since the critical parts were back-ordered (signs of a more widespread problem). I really wanted a replacement because my unit was a lemon. Instead, they "repair" it.... and create more problems. The paint is beginning to flake again, and I have reason to believe that the processor is not attached to the heatsink (constant fan, paint falling off, poor heat dissipation).
Problem is, us Mac users are SO dependent upon our machines for our respective livelihoods, that being without our computer for another repair of indefinite-length is killer. Having to fight with Apple to even get to the repair stage is a big enough deterrent for most users, reducing us to using crippled machines out of desperation.... If y'all haven't seen the infamous TiBook paint photos, hit up:
http://ems.music.uiuc.edu/p/photo.php?dir=Defectiv e_Powerbook [uiuc.edu]
Re:Powerbook G4 Paint Problems (TiBook) (Score:2, Funny)
We'll have to take your word for it.. ;)
Re:Powerbook G4 Paint Problems (TiBook) (Score:1)
Another satisfied customer (Score:1)
It's very easy to find software for the new OS, whether it's Carbon (converted from OS9), Cocoa (native OpenStep program) or some unix/xfree86 app. Occasionally I'll start up GNOME on my iBook to launch the GIMP or use XMMS. I've found that I don't use XFree86 as often as I expected to, but it's always there when I need it.
It sounds like you have a pretty clear idea of your expectations, and being in the same boat you were, I made this decision and have been very happy with it.
Regards,
-zack
Ibook and OpenBSD (Score:1)
Dirk
But can I put the CTRL key where it belongs? (Score:2)
Re:But can I put the CTRL key where it belongs? (Score:2)
If you decide to choose an iBook (or TiBook) ... (Score:1)
You should expect to see an increase in processor speed with the iBooks (rumor has it that the top of the line iBook will be running @ 1 ghz). Unfortunately, I don't think we'll see the iBook upgraded to a G4 processor until sometime next year.
Gateway Laptops Work well enough (Score:1)
The laptop itself was $1100 a month and a half ago, 933 p3, 15" screen 1024x768 native, 256MB RAM, 30Gb HDD, DVD, ethernet. You can get a pair of wireless cards and another battery and still be under $1400.
older Powerbook (Score:1)
I'm currently using a 500Mhz PowerBook G3 (Pismo, bronze translucent keyboard) with 320 MB RAM. The CD-ROM I almost never use and have substituted a second battery for an 8-10 hour battery life! If battery life is the main priority, one of these used could be what you're looking for.
Notes: If you use any Classic (MacOS 9) apps in it or Photoshop, get more than 320 MB RAM. You'll probably also want to get a newer hard drive than what came with them... something with a 2MB cache. It's large and heavy compared with the small iBook.
Re:No. (Score:1)
Re:Don't buy an ibook (Score:1)
Re:Don't buy an ibook - WRONG, WRONG, WRONG (Score:1, Informative)
All machines that can currently run OS X will be able to run 10.2/Jaguar.
ALL. NOT SOME, ALL.
Quartz Extreme will be available to those with AGP graphics hardware with at least 16 MB of RAM, but not meeting those requirements WILL NOT prevent you from using 10.2. If you do meet the requirements, you'll be rewarded with even better performance, but even without that, performance is likely to increase (from reports around the Mac community, from Jaguar users, anyway).
-/-
Mikey-San
Apple Authorized Service Lackey
"Moof!"