Good Deal?

[maraczc]

Right now Future Shop and Best Buy are having a sale on one of their compact notebooks. I worked it out and if I sold my iBook it wouldn't cost much more to buy it.

The notebook is an AMD with the same dimensions, screen size, battery life, and hard drive as the iBook. The differences are:

Combo Drive (I have the CD model)
Athlon Mobility XP 1.6 GHZ Proccessor
DDR Ram and 3 USB 2.0 Ports
ATI Mobility Radeon 32 MB (The good: it's 4x apg, the bad: shared memory)

Would you trade up to this even though it's windows? Will it be ALOT faster than my 800 MHZ iBook?

[mactastic]

I'd say the deciding factor for me would be the OS. I'd rather my personal machine ran OSX than XP, but that's just me.

edit: Does the PC have Firewire?

[rebelberg21]

Might not get too many unbiased answers on here....lol

But I understand you're problem.

My brother has a PC with XP and a very similiar processor as the one you're talking about.

But as the person above said. The OS for me is a deal breaker. The PC could have the fastest processor available but I truly don't like XP. (So it's you're preference really.....are you really willing to let go of OS X?)


After using my brother's PC I'm reminded of why I don't use them anymore.

Good luck which ever way you go.

[coolbreeze]

Here is another example of why Apple should never allow their OS to run on an Intel-based system. Why would you buy a high-priced Mac over a $400 Dell that will blow it away? Unless Apple thinks it can survive as solely a software company (with perphials, of course) I think it would be a mistake.

Just my opinion. (sorry for hijacking this thread).

As a recent switcher (Feb 03) I could never go back to the headache of Windows (well, don't have a choice at work...).

-Breeze

[vniow]

Ugh, AMD's chips are not notebook friendly at all, they run hot and have horrible battery life, if you're going for a PC notebook then go for something with a Pentium M (not a Pentium 4M)

[OutThere]

I'm not sure how long I could stand using windows XP, but the computer seems like a pretty good machine. v said that AMD procs are not laptop friendly, so it seems you might benefit from looking for something with a pentium. While they are much more expensive the intel Centrino procs are supposedly really good. In the end it comes down to your decision on how much you want the hardware over the software.

[bobindashadows]

Is it nearly as cool looking as the iBook? And also, how do you plan to use the laptop? As a desktop machine that you might move around the house/apartment/dorm room/office, or truly as a portable? If you're determined to switch and want to take it with you all sorts of places, then I'd go for a Centrino, I've heard they're very laptop friendly. Otherwise, I'd say go for the AMD.

[Vlade]

I just built my own PC and I can say that XP isn't as bad as alot of mac users make it out to be. I still prefer my mac, but XP has crashed less than OS 9.

[maraczc]

Thanks for your tips but I'm not interested in shopping around for a new computer right now. And I'm certainly not interested in buying a Centrino. It's either switching to this mentioned computer or not switching at all.

And yeah, it looks ok.

[OutThere]

Originally posted by bobindashadows
Is it nearly as cool looking as the iBook? And also, how do you plan to use the laptop? As a desktop machine that you might move around the house/apartment/dorm room/office, or truly as a portable? If you're determined to switch and want to take it with you all sorts of places, then I'd go for a Centrino, I've heard they're very laptop friendly. Otherwise, I'd say go for the AMD.

The Centrino processors are made only for laptops, and laptops that have Centrinos also come with built in 802.11b wireless networking support.

[amin]

The specs on the laptop you are considering are similar to my Athlon XP desktop. I don't have an iBook, but I'd say the performance is comparable to my 12" Powerbook in the applications that I commonly use. Personally, I wouldn't trade. XP isn't bad in my opinion, but OS X is better. If you don't think so, then by all means trade.

[CooCooCaChoo]

Originally posted by Vlade
I just built my own PC and I can say that XP isn't as bad as alot of mac users make it out to be. I still prefer my mac, but XP has crashed less than OS 9.

I would take exception to that, having sold these pieces of pain and missery.

I love the x86 but hate Windows with a religious zeal. If I could run Macromedia Studio MX, Corel Graphics Suite and Painter 8 on FreeBSD (which I used to run; Penitum III 550Mhz, 768MB RAM, 60gig HDD, Matrox G550 w/ FreeBSD 4.8, KDE 3.1.2 compiled using GCC 3.3), I would have stuck with the PC.

Most of the problems associated with running a PC can be clearly placed on the sholders of Windows, not the hardware itself.

Whilst everyone else was using the Intel ACPI code and specifications Microsoft did their own, net result? just look through the Microsoft knowledge base at the number of issues Microsoft suggests "reinstalling Windows" as a solution.

[G3-Pwnz-G4]

...or you could just keep the ibook and then buy yourself a thing of oreo's, rent a dvd, get some milk, and enjoy the evening!

oh yea, lemme say a lil something about a topic that pisses me off: os9 is outdated. stop using it as a model of comparison.

[Vlade]

Originally posted by G3-Pwnz-G4
oh yea, lemme say a lil something about a topic that pisses me off: os9 is outdated. stop using it as a model of comparison.

Ok, then I will say it crashed less for me than OS 10.1.

[Backtothemac]

Well, from an OS and iapp standpoint, I would say keep the iBook. However, the AMD does have a burner, and it will be MUCH faster than the 800MHZ iBook is.

[G3-Pwnz-G4]

Originally posted by Vlade
Ok, then I will say it crashed less for me than OS 10.1.
well, yea. that's cuz it's 10.1... jaguar hasn't crashed for me in quite some time.

[rhpenguin]

Originally posted by G3-Pwnz-G4
well, yea. that's cuz it's 10.1... jaguar hasn't crashed for me in quite some time.

Jag crashes for me about every 6 days. But my iBook is very abused. And usually its Mozilla that kills it.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by maraczc


Would you trade up to this even though it's windows? Will it be ALOT faster than my 800 MHZ iBook?

it all depends on what you use it for

for internet, word processing, email, and computer programming, my pentium II level PC laptop with 160 mb ram is as fast as my pentium 4 desktop with 512 mb of ram

for basic things, your 800 mhz ibook will feel as fast as the newer PC laptop