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I have a 12" PB and it's perfectly fine. The screen is more than bright enough, I usually keep it at 5-6 bars. The portability is the main factor for me. I would love a 15" but it's too big to lug around every day.
 
i have a 12inch ibook and the screen is fine most of the time the only time i want a bigger screen is when im using photoshop (sorry for the double post)
 
My sister uses her 12" full time.

I PLAN to for my next (Yonah) PowerBook... except I'll be adding an external display for at home.

The screen does matter. The 15" screen I use now is brighter and bigger and fits more windows... and I like the wide format. No contest, the 15" is much better screen.

However, I wish I had the portability of the little 12". The 15" isn't hard to carry, but whenever I pick up a 12" I wish mine were that small and light.

So next time it's 12" for me--but I'll need an external display. I for one could not deal with the tiny screen and tiny pixels/text ALL the time. On the road, sure.
 
Well, I have a 15 inch PowerBook that I use for my main computer. I have a pretty nice Dell Dimension that I just gave to my wife cause I only use my PowerBook now.
 
I'm using a 12" iBook right now and its my only computer. I thought the screen size switch from my older iMac would bother me but it really doesn't. Expose helps to organize when you're running multiple things. You should be fine with 12" as long as you get Panther or Tiger, and I would recommend Tiger. Tiger is well worth the upgrade from Panther, but if you're buying new you'll get Tiger anyway.
 
nagromme said:
However, I wish I had the portability of the little 12". The 15" isn't hard to carry, but whenever I pick up a 12" I wish mine were that small and light.

i think in time, laptops will get even lighter and there will be a 5 pound, 15" lcd machine

today, in the stanford shopping mall, i saw the apple store (my first one) and the sony store nearby, and the sony store had a vaio which had a 4.1 pound, 13" widescreen lcd laptop so i know it's possible to get viewing area in a very light machine
 
I've used my 12" G4 iBook as my only computer for the past six months and I think it's great.

I run Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver as well as all the iLife programmes without any difficulty.

Yes, sure, the smaller screen can be annoying at times but the reason I chose this model was because it was a truly portable laptop with an outstanding battery life.

If you don't need the portability, a bigger screen may be a better idea but I certainly have no regrets about my purchase.
 
My 12" iBook has taken over most duties from my PC. The screen is a bit smaller, I was using a 17" CRT at 1152x864, but usable enough for most tasks. I love the convenience of being able to take it where I want to in my house or elsewhere. I really wish I could somehow jam 240GB of storage space into this thing but soon I will get an external hard drive for it to make up for that. My PC mainly gets used for network storage, a print server, DVD burning, gaming, and can be used for TV-watching. But for stuff like email, web browsing, music listening, and other basic tasks the iBook is more than sufficient.
 
I've got a 12" Powerbook and it's my main machine. I've still yet to sell my iMac but have only turned it on a few times since getting the powerbook. And that was to either transfer files or re-rip all my CDs after I wiped my iPod. Meh!

If anything, I prefer the smaller screen. Going back to the 15" iMac makes me think the resolution could have been a lot better.
 
I can't really stand the 12" screen, to be honest. It's great and it's small and cute, but I don't know, for me, maybe because I'm a taller/bigger guy and the way the screen reflects on my eyes, or maybe because I'm used to larger screens, I can't focus my eyes into the 12" without feeling strained/sore. I feel like everything is crammed together so tightly, and all these things are focused in a little screen. It's better for my eyes to be able to scan a width of a screen and not feel crammed, I guess.

Hence, I am waiting for the 14" widescreen iBooks. :)
 
Question for those who are familiar with the 12 inch ibook?

Do you guys use an external monitor with it on 1028res? How is that resolution on a 19 inch lcd for example? Did you install the hack so that you could view things on an external mon at higher res?

Also, if a portanle is to be your main computer....is it wise to take out the battery everytime you set it as a "station?"
 
I too would like to hear from those of you using a 12" iBook with an external LCD monitor. What resolution(s) does it support? Something more than the iBook's native resolution? How happy are you with the image you get on your external monitor? How does it compare to the iBook's monitor?

I'm thinking about getting an iBook for the wife & kids to use. Portability would be useful, although mostly just transporting it from here to there within the house. I really like the small form factor of the 12", but am concerned the small screen might prove to be too cramped for the occasional photo/video editing session. An external LCD monitor is a natural solution, but I'd like to know if the iBook supports different resolutions, and if so, how well.

Thanks!
 
I'm going to college soon, and I will buy the new 14" iBook.
But I also wonder about the external LCD. Is there any point in buying one for the 14"? If so, what would be the ideal size of the monitor? And what would the resolution be on it?
 
My 12" iBook has now taken over as my main computer for nearly everything since I put a 160GB hard drive and DVD+/-RW drive from my PC in external enclosures to use with it. I'll also be installing a 1GB stick of RAM in here later today. Except for wishing it had a faster memory bus, it seems more than adequate for what I use it for. For gaming and a few things I can't do on a Mac, I have my desktop PC around still. But I expect it to be pretty rare when I actually need to turn that thing on. I have no regrets about switching to this as my main computer.
 
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