0092762 said:
I'd have to disagree with you...
The Dell 700m is approx $800 (Dell posts a 750 off 1499 coupon every two weeks, my friend bought one like that) and it has:
+ 12.1 Widescreen, way better than the 12" ibook or powerbook
+ Pentium M 1.8 GHZ which again destroys any G4, ever...
+ A DVD burner you can't even get in a 12" ibook
+ Better battery life
+ 512 mb of way faster memory, and system bus...
+ 4.1 lbs
+ SD card reader, which is actually very useful with a digital camera
- Integrated graphics (curiously fast enough to play games like nfs underground)
- No Bluetooth
- Cheaper design, but still nice, and way better than dells of a year ago, i'd be perfectly happy with it
- Windows (this is the deal breaker for me and why i'm not buying it right now)
The shock sensor and scrolling trackpad are just gimmicks imo, not that important to warrant mention.
You can disagree, but stick with the facts instead of the FUD:
$750 off $1499 every two weeks: Wrong. If you search the dealnews archives for the last couple months you'll see it is usually $600 off $1499, when it's available at all. So really you are talking almost $1000 (since it's hard to hit $1501 with stuff you actually want).
12.1" widescreen: Right/wrong. Definitely higher resolution - that is good. But it is a high glare screen (hint: they call it "Crystal-Clear"), so the brightness comes at the expense of glare. For many of us, that is an unacceptable tradeoff.
P-M 1.8: Agreed, definitely faster.
DVD burner: Fair enough (I don't need it because I have one in my desktop, but some people might).
Better battery life: Wrong. The stock battery is a crippled low capacity one.
Way faster memory/faster bus: Right about the bus, wrong about the memory. iBooks actually ship with DDR333 memory, which is up to spec. But the FSB is too slow to take full advantage of it.
4.1 lb weight: Right/wrong. With the stock battery it's 4.1 lbs, but with a normal battery it will be around 4.5 lbs. Which is still lighter than the iBook (though that is primarily because the build quality is weaker).
SD card reader: Sure. (again, I have no use for it, but some might)
You are right about integrated graphics (which will kill you on Longhorn/Vista), cheap build quality, no BT (which I definitely want, and a dongle is just asking to be broken off), and Windows.
I don't consider SMS to be a gimmick, esp not on the iBook (which has a strong external frame, and now has internal protection to match). I take good care of my laptops, but I've still dropped my current iBook at least once in the past 6 months...fortunately it was from low enough that nothing was damaged. Now I'll have more peace of mind. But maybe you never drop your laptop, or don't care whether it breaks if you. I have no idea.
Scrolling trackpad is definitely NOT a gimmick. I have iScroll 2 on my iBook 1.2, and I literally found it frustrating to use my gf's 15" Powerbook (1.25 Ghz model) until I installed it on hers too. Yes, her machine had bigger, brighter, wide-screen, higher res 15" display, but I honestly found it aggrevating to use until I installed iScroll 2. It's just one of those things that you don't realize you need until after you've started using it.
Anyway, you are batting about 9/14, i.e. around 65%. Not so bad.
Now, I'm not saying that the Inspiron 700M is not good hardware value for money - on the contrary, for the needs of some people, I think it is a very good value (though I must admit that the fact that it is sized for portability but doesn't have the build quality to stand up to being carried everywhere is a pretty big flaw). However, it is just FUD to claim that it is better than the iBook (hardware wise) along almost every dimension, which you seem to be doing.
Incidentally, I have a friend who has owned a lot of Dells. He used to be a Mac user back in the System 8.x days, but he has just been using Windows for years now (basically, he "switched" when his friend gave him an Athlon for free). All other things being equal, he would prefer OS X, but he is very concerned about value for money in hardware. He asked me about the (1.2 Ghz) iBook, and I honestly told him that the 600M or 700M was more hardware per dollar. But he has no interest in buying the Inspirons, because he wants to carry it around everywhere, and he knows from experience that Inspiron build quality ranges from mediocre to crappy (and many reviews seem to agree). He was interested in the Latitude D610, but at $1200-1300 for equivalent specs to the $1000 600M, it does not represent a lot of hardware per dollar. So now he is planning to buy the new iBook, because it has OS X, good build quality, and beats the D610 in terms of hardware per dollar. (the D610 has better overall hardware, but he is going to use the iPod deal to effectively get the iBook for $800, and it is quite clear that the D610 does not offer 50% more hardware for the extra 50% cost...in fact, some things on the D610 are actually slower, like the graphics chip).
