iBook Questions (considering a purchase)

[mattyd]

I've been using an IBM desktop for about 5 years (that has, in all honesty, been a trusty machine for me, especially after installing XP), but I'm overseas for a year and the main computer I've been using is my friends PowerBook G4. As much as I liked how much XP improved on previous versions of windows, it is obvious to me that OS X is light years ahead of it in most ways. There is no question in my mind that my next computer will be a mac. I'm considering buying an iBook. I was wondering if anyone could answer the following questions:

A) I've heard some talk about the iBook screens not being as nice as the PowerBook screens. The PowerBook screen I have been using is magnificent. Has anybody used both that can give me a fair comparison of the two?

B) About RAM- Is adding RAM to the open slot difficult? Are you allowed to do it without voiding the warranty? I'm curious because Apple's RAM is expensive and I'd rather buy more ram from a 3rd party website at a later date and add it myself.

C)We have a ADSL connection in our apartment(which by the way, aren't so great in Casablanca, but worth the ~US$30/month). He has an Airport Extreme card and 10.3. Can Rendezvous do Internet connection sharing, or just file sharing and Chat stuff? Just wondering if we would have to get a wireless router or not.

D)What do you all think about the Apple Care Protection Plan?

E) Anybody who owns a G4 iBook can feel free to tell me any reasons they can think of to convince me to buy one. Please, sing it's praises. Or, if you've had issues, let me know about that too.

~mattyd

 

[MacBoyX]

A) I've heard some talk about the iBook screens not being as nice as the PowerBook screens. The PowerBook screen I have been using is magnificent. Has anybody used both that can give me a fair comparison of the two?

I've actually found that my iBook G4's 12" screen is brighter than my 12" PowerBook's. Now I do find the 14" iBook's screen not as great because you are still stretching 1024x768 to 14" but it's still great. The only thing I can say is if you can, get to an Apple store and decide for urself.

B) About RAM- Is adding RAM to the open slot difficult? Are you allowed to do it without voiding the warranty? I'm curious because Apple's RAM is expensive and I'd rather buy more ram from a 3rd party website at a later date and add it myself.

It's easy as pie. And it in no way voids your warranty. Apple memory however has come down alot in the past few months and is only marginally more expensive but you could buy memory and install it. My word of warning is don't buy cheap ram. If you arent going to go with Apple's memory go with Crucial or some other major brand. I bought cheap RAM for my PowerBook and got kernel panics galore. Also of note. If you buy RAM when you buy your 'Book, it's covered under your Warranty (both standard and AppleCare).

C)We have a ADSL connection in our apartment(which by the way, aren't so great in Casablanca, but worth the ~US$30/month). He has an Airport Extreme card and 10.3. Can Rendezvous do Internet connection sharing, or just file sharing and Chat stuff? Just wondering if we would have to get a wireless router or not.

This works great, you can hook the ethernet port of ur iBook to the cable modem and them get ur AirPort Extreme card to broadcast the signal, but to be truthful, this sucks cause your iBook has to be on and awake to do this. Please note you do NOT need to buy an AirPort Extreme base station a 49USD Linksys router works great too. It's not rendezvous that shares the connection it's the AE Card. Rendezvous is just an auto config IP protocol.

D)What do you all think about the Apple Care Protection Plan?

It's worth it if anything goes wrong. My problem is I changed Macs so quickly over the past two years I never got past my 1 year warranty. I am coming up on that on my PB and i will be purchasing and I did buy it for my G5. Better safe than sorry. What I was impressed with was CompUSA's warranty. I had bought the exteneded monitor warranty (AppleCare doesn't cover monitors) and broke my monitor in half, cracked the sucker. They replaced and also fixed the broken Combo Drive i had too!

E) Anybody who owns a G4 iBook can feel free to tell me any reasons they can think of to convince me to buy one. Please, sing it's praises. Or, if you've had issues, let me know about that too.

I have had 3 iBook G3's 1 iBook G4 and a PowerBook G4 12". I love the iBook, it's a tank. The case is so tough and looks good even after it's been abused a bit. It also sucks that you basically for 1099 USD can get the same Mac I paid 1599 for in my PowerBook G4 12" 1GHz. Where the iBook used to lack with the G3 processor (no AltiVec) it no longer does. The 1GHz 12" would be a killer computer. It can now also be maxxed out at 1.25GHz RAM. I can tell you if I was looking for a new portable Mac I'd buy an iBook in a heart beat. I have had some issues with my G3 iBooks in the past but there hasn't been ONE single issues with my G4 800 12" iBook. Get one...you wont regret it.

macboyX
http://www.macboyx.com

 

[mactastic]

A) I've heard some talk about the iBook screens not being as nice as the PowerBook screens. The PowerBook screen I have been using is magnificent. Has anybody used both that can give me a fair comparison of the two?

I have a 1Ghz TiBook, and my wife has an 800Mhz G4 iBook, both screens are fabulous.

B) About RAM- Is adding RAM to the open slot difficult? Are you allowed to do it without voiding the warranty? I'm curious because Apple's RAM is expensive and I'd rather buy more ram from a 3rd party website at a later date and add it myself.

It depends on what you think of as difficult. Here are the Apple instructions. You are allowed to install RAM without voiding your warranty.

C)We have a ADSL connection in our apartment(which by the way, aren't so great in Casablanca, but worth the ~US$30/month). He has an Airport Extreme card and 10.3. Can Rendezvous do Internet connection sharing, or just file sharing and Chat stuff? Just wondering if we would have to get a wireless router or not.

Not sure what you are after here. Rendevouz is a zero-config protocol, if software makers implement it, it works. It does nothing on its own.

D)What do you all think about the Apple Care Protection Plan?

Get it. It's worth the money particularly for a laptop where if anything goes wrong it get pricey fast. Even if you don't buy it initially, buy it within your one year period.

E) Anybody who owns a G4 iBook can feel free to tell me any reasons they can think of to convince me to buy one. Please, sing it's praises. Or, if you've had issues, let me know about that too.

~mattyd

My wife loves her iBook. Stylish, bulletproof, long battery life, nice feature set. The only complaint she has is that you have to thump the trackpad pretty hard compared to my TiBook to get it to register a click.

 

[mattyd]

rendezvous

I wasn't clear on what Rendezvous was, I read up on it now. Having studied Computer Science, I feel a little silly about that question now. Thanks for the input, both of you.

 

[mattyd]

acpp

I just noticed something else you said

Even if you don't buy it initially, buy it within your one year period.

So you can buy the extended 3-year plan any time before the year is up?

~mattyd

 

[MacBoyX]

Yes,

Though the people in the store will make it seem that you cannot buy AppleCare later, as long as you have ur reciept, you can buy it at any point in the first year. YOu think they'd push this since sometimes 250 is enuff to put you out of the running to buy one.

Also note standard warranty is 3 months (90days) phone support/1 year hardware. You will be charged if u call them after 90 days and it's NOT hardware related.

macboyX

I just noticed something else you said



So you can buy the extended 3-year plan any time before the year is up?

~mattyd

 

[mpopkin]

Hey
The 12 inch screen on the 12 inch Powerbook is the Exact same screen used for the ibook, thats right, Apple uses the same model screen for both the ibook and powerbook 12 inch, note this is just the 12inch, When you get up to the big boys aka Powerbook 15 and 17 inch this is when you see the Samsung Screens similiar to the qualities seen in the Apple Studio/Cinema Displays. The quality goes. PB 15/17>>PB 12"=IB 12"> IB 14" THe PB 15/17 inch are the best damn displays out there and that is a fact of nature, i recommend you get what you want, but realize that only in the Powerbook15/17 will you be getting a truly unique and high Mega Pixel display

I've actually found that my iBook G4's 12" screen is brighter than my 12" PowerBook's. Now I do find the 14" iBook's screen not as great because you are still stretching 1024x768 to 14" but it's still great. The only thing I can say is if you can, get to an Apple store and decide for urself.




It's easy as pie. And it in no way voids your warranty. Apple memory however has come down alot in the past few months and is only marginally more expensive but you could buy memory and install it. My word of warning is don't buy cheap ram. If you arent going to go with Apple's memory go with Crucial or some other major brand. I bought cheap RAM for my PowerBook and got kernel panics galore. Also of note. If you buy RAM when you buy your 'Book, it's covered under your Warranty (both standard and AppleCare).




This works great, you can hook the ethernet port of ur iBook to the cable modem and them get ur AirPort Extreme card to broadcast the signal, but to be truthful, this sucks cause your iBook has to be on and awake to do this. Please note you do NOT need to buy an AirPort Extreme base station a 49USD Linksys router works great too. It's not rendezvous that shares the connection it's the AE Card. Rendezvous is just an auto config IP protocol.



It's worth it if anything goes wrong. My problem is I changed Macs so quickly over the past two years I never got past my 1 year warranty. I am coming up on that on my PB and i will be purchasing and I did buy it for my G5. Better safe than sorry. What I was impressed with was CompUSA's warranty. I had bought the exteneded monitor warranty (AppleCare doesn't cover monitors) and broke my monitor in half, cracked the sucker. They replaced and also fixed the broken Combo Drive i had too!



I have had 3 iBook G3's 1 iBook G4 and a PowerBook G4 12". I love the iBook, it's a tank. The case is so tough and looks good even after it's been abused a bit. It also sucks that you basically for 1099 USD can get the same Mac I paid 1599 for in my PowerBook G4 12" 1GHz. Where the iBook used to lack with the G3 processor (no AltiVec) it no longer does. The 1GHz 12" would be a killer computer. It can now also be maxxed out at 1.25GHz RAM. I can tell you if I was looking for a new portable Mac I'd buy an iBook in a heart beat. I have had some issues with my G3 iBooks in the past but there hasn't been ONE single issues with my G4 800 12" iBook. Get one...you wont regret it.

macboyX
http://www.macboyx.com

 

[stevietheb]

A few months ago I was making this same decision. I narrowed it down to a 12" iBook and a 12" PowerBook. I took a 3 hr trip from Austin to Houston so I could visit the Galleria Apple Store and compare the too. IMO, for the money, nothing beats the iBook in terms of durability and features. I sat both computers side by side, turned the screens up to full brightness, and the iBook's screen looked MUCH brighter (when you graduated to the bigger pbook models, however, there was a major turn around).

All in all, the iBook is great...even convinced my brother to get one of his own (he liked it, being a longtime Unix man). The only negatives that I've found are that my battery doesn't sit flush in the case (there's a gap), the keyboard doesn't seem to sit perfectly straight (though it is the best laptop keyboard I've used...except for the big pretty powerbooks), and the mouse button is a bit tough--but you get used to that.

Personally, I prefer the look of the 12" iBook to the 12" powerbook...when the powerbook is open, it just looks a little cheesy to me--call me crazy!

Enjoy whatever you get!

 

[mms]

I have a Rev. A. iBook G4 12" and just love it. The screen is great, and it's so bright that I often lower the brightness. Some people express fear that 12" isn't enough screen space for them, but I find that 12" is perfect. Unless you often have many, many palettes or whatever open in Photoshop (which, BTW, runs without a hitch), extra screen estate might help but for everday use, it works fine. I used to use a 14" computer, and now that I have used 12" I will never go back. Adding RAM isn't difficult, but like previously mentioned, get good RAM, even if it means a premium. OS X is picky about RAM, and my old computer had repeated kernel panics until I figured out that my generic RAM was the problem. Airport Extreme is great, and I love being able to use the lightning-fast internet anywhere in the house.

The only semi-problem I have found is that latching the keyboard back into place is somewhat difficult, and I had to force it in. I got the hang of it after several tries, and I believe it's just that I was too used to the keyboard of the G3 PB, which was really easy to take on and off.

Unless you do extensive video editing, in which case you need as much power as possible, the iBook is perfectly fine for pretty much whatever you want to do. I have also heard that the polycarbonate shell is more protective and conceals scratches better than the aluminum covering on the PowerBook.

I personally feel that AppleCare is great and I buy it for any Macintosh that I buy. Although I haven't had much major problems with my computers, and Apple generally has good quality hardware, IMO you should always play it safe on your several thousand dollar investment.