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Apple iBook notebook class computer with 800 MHz G3 CPU, 512 KB level 2 cache; 256 MB SDRAM; 30 GB Ultra ATA hard drive; 12.1" TFT active-matrix XGA display, ATI Radeon 3D graphics with 32 MB DDR video memory.
I/O ports include a 10/100BASE-T Ethernet port; 56K modem; 2 USB ports; FireWire (IEEE 1394) port; AirPort card (802.11b); VGA, S-Video and composite video out; stereo audio out. Lithium-ion battery with 5 hours of running time.
Software includes OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), OS 9.2, iMovie, iTunes, iPhoto, Appleworks office suite, Quicken 2003, World Book 2003, and others.
OK -- What’s a Mac doing in this PC-centric journal? Always on the lookout for alternative solutions to everything; sometimes I learn something. What I’ve learned lately is that the iBook is a very good computer, and a better alternative to most PC notebook computers I’ve seen at the same price.
An interesting development this year is that laptops are outselling desktop computers. My own anecdotal observation is that many people I know are buying laptops as their primary computer instead of upgrading their desktop computers. The way laptops are equipped these days, they are very close to desktops in capability.
Apple’s laptop computers comes in two flavors these days, the titanium-cased G4 PowerBook series and the more modest-looking appliance-white G3 iBook series. Apple is good at putting together feature-rich hardware with few compromises; the smallest iBook is no exception, with 2 USB ports, FireWire, Airport wireless, a five hour battery life, and ATI Radeon 3D graphics and 32 MB DDR video RAM, squeezed into a 9"x11"x1.3" 4.9 lb. package.
If you deal with your computer strictly on the interface level, you owe it to yourself to take a good look at the iBook. The Apple GUI still wins the prize, hands down, for consistency, integration and user friendliness. Add to this the strongest collection of included applications (iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes) and you wind up with a computer that you can take out of the box and use. The applications software included in OS X is much more capable and easier to use than its Windows counterparts.
The iBook is tidy, elegantly simple in appearance, and functional. Apple always wins points on style, and the iBook is no exception. It delivers on its looks, too, in several large and small ways. All the ports are on one side; you don’t have to turn it around to plug in cables. The diminutive power supply is plain, square and white. It has two flush folding hooks that open to wrap the cords on when not in use. The lithium-ion battery last five hours and has an external LED bar graph that lets you view remaining battery life even when the computer is off.
Two of the things I pay attention to most in a laptop are the keyboard and the screen. After all, if you have to plug in a keyboard and a monitor to make it usable, you might as well have bought a desktop computer in the first place. The iBook gets high marks for its TFT display, with better brightness and contrast than most laptops I’ve set it beside. The hinge is sturdy and the screen stays open where you put it. It’s not top-heavy when the screen is open. The latch hook retracts when you open the screen so you don’t snag it with your clothing. The keyboard has standard size keys and standard placement of the special function keys. The tactile feedback makes sense to my fingers.
Some of the reasons that I like the iBook has to do with what I dislike about so many notebook computers that I have picked up. Here’s the laundry list of complaints:
The iBook has none of these problems.
The apple interface is still king of the hill for usability and consistency. While Windows XP is a big improvement over previous versions, Apple is still better at “It Just Works”. Simple example: you almost never plug anything into Windows without needing a device driver. With Apple, you almost never need a device driver; you just plug it in and it works. If you want a computer that you can hand to a non-computer person and not be tech support for the rest of your life, this is it. If you know this kind of person (or you are this kind of person), you will be happier with an Apple.
On the whole, Apple got it real right - I wouldn’t use it if I couldn’t plug it into my home network and do things without a bunch of finger-pulling. Where it has actually made things simpler for me is in my work: I can plug it into Unix, Windows or Apple networks and it just works. OS X uses Samba to communicate with Windows networks. On the geek side, I have never met a Samba installation that didn’t require configuration. Until now. I’ve plugged the iBook into several clients and several friends’ networks, and I never had to configure anything. I’ve used it to communicate between two machines on a client’s network that wouldn’t talk to each other. OS X automatically scans all available network connections, Ethernet, AirPort, and modem, a n d automagically selects the fastest one available.
A lot of the appeal of the iBook is the total experience. The keyboard, the screen, the Macintosh GUI, the overall usability, the consistency of the hardware and the software - as they used to say in the days of the Lotus lawsuit, the “look and feel” of the total package. After 20 years of practice, Apples are much more seamless than PCs. The latest iBooks and PowerBooks are epitomes of this progress.
Should you ditch your PC and go for Apple instead? Not a casual decision. It depends on if you are welded to any software on the PC. If you aren’t locked to a particular PC program, try the Mac. If you only use Microsoft Office, try the Mac. You will have a better overall computer experience. Photoshop, and PageMaker are better on the Mac; if you use either of these programs principally, you’ll be better off on the Mac. If you are serious about video and video editing on the computer, the best software available is on the Mac.
If you use both Apple and PC, you are going to have to figure out how to exchange data. If you use Microsoft Office on the PC side, you can get Microsoft office X for the Mac, and exchange file across both platforms without any issues, regardless of which version of MS Office you have on your PC. (Remember to embed your fonts in the document, same as between PCs.) You can also use OpenOffice for MS Office documents on the apple side (or on both platforms, for that matter), and avoid the cost of another office suite.
The smallest iBook is a fully capable computer and my notebook of choice because of its size and because Apple’s human engineering shines throughout in daily use. If you’re looking for a desktop substitute, you should look at the PowerBook G4 line. That’s where the fastest processors, the biggest screens, and largest hard drives are. Look there for video editing. I intend to keep that stuff on my desktop computer, so the iBook fits the niche I want; fast enough, lots of battery life, connects painlessly to every network I encounter, and small enough to fit in my satchel with everything else I throw in there.
Apple’s iBook is not for everyone, but you owe it to yourself to try it before you spend money on a PC laptop. It’s a better laptop than almost anything on the PC side. Trying one might convince you.
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Product Information:Apple iBook As Equipped, $1078 |
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