Ok.. so I sold my pc, and my G4 PowerMac, so now I have enough for an iBook 12" G4 1.2Ghz with the Airport extreme. I want to know your opinion on the iBook... I'm mainly into audio editing and image editing, not extreme just little basic stuff. I will probably use it enough at least every other day to run the battery dead, is that too much ware on the battery? Im going to be using my little G3 file server I built all for storage. I want to use an External 5.25" Firewire/usb2.0 enclosure for a DVD burner... will I need anything to allow it to support apple ilife apps? For audio I am going to be using the M-Audio Sonica USB 7.1 audio with my logitech Z-680's, if there is a better card out there that has the individual 1/8th at least 5.1 output please let me know. About how long will the system run in Sleep until the battery is depleted, and does it allow me to swap batteries while in sleep mode like my friend's wall-street g3 does? About how long does it take to charge the battery to 100%? Sorry about all the questions, lol... I just wanna make sure it will do good for me. Thanks
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Buying an ibook
- Thread starter stevey500
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The iBook is a great machine. It will be OK for your audio and work fine with the pix editing. Just fill it up with RAM (with the slow G4, I have found that it has really helped me. I do some video.). It will not run out of battery during sleep, and in general my battery life has been great. With AE turned off,I watched a 3 hour DVD on battery power. Also, I reccomend getting an external HD to store your pix and audio on because the most u can get the iBook with is 80G. I don't think that u can swap batteries in sleep. I have tried but i remember reading it somwhere. It is a great machine. Congrats!!! 😎
Buy it. You'll be happy! I use mine for Photoshop, Illustrator and Quark and it does just fine. You will want to fill it with RAM as mentioned above, but I wouldn't worry about speed at all after that. For what you want to do, it'll work great! And the battery life is awesome-I use mine on battery constantly with no problems or signs of it wearing out.
hey thanks! How about the keyboard? I am currently using the apple Pro USB keyboard and I love the feeling of it, so smooth and quick, but I am also borrowing my friend's Powerbook G3 Wallstreet running Panther (XpostFacto) and the keyboard on that .. is amazing, I can type so fast on that with no mistakes and its just about completely silent and the keys just run along so smoothly, is the iBook g4 the same way??
stevey500 said:
No. It is different. The keys on the PowerBook are rounded and the keys on the iBook are not. Many people complain about the keyboard on the iBook but I find it is fine for my needs. If you really like the PowerBook's keyboard, you may be disappointed with the iBook in this area. I, unlike others in this forum, like the iBook's keyboard. Overall, the iBook is a great little machine for the money.
Hi, you can check my sig. for what I have but mostly get an external HDD for your storage of large files i.e. video, photos and the edit process. That is the only thing I have yet to get and even with my 60g HDD I still want more space for my files. I do mild photo edits with photoshop ele. 3 and use flash to make cartoons along with mild video and the iBook handles it fine for me 🙂
I'm not sure about the keyboard since I have an iskin over it and it makes the keyboard feel soft but that's fine by me. The battery lasts quite some time I'd say around 4-4.5hrs for me with surfing the web, itunes (using the radio feed) and some apps in between. The only thing I do when doing video is plug the power in just in case I'm not paying close watch on the time and don't want the battery to run out on me. I also use the iBook without the power plug on a daily basis until the battery is dead (sleep mode).
Last but should be first "max out that ram" you won't be sorry that you did this since ram prices are pretty good now.
Well hope this helps as with the other posts...enjoy
I'm not sure about the keyboard since I have an iskin over it and it makes the keyboard feel soft but that's fine by me. The battery lasts quite some time I'd say around 4-4.5hrs for me with surfing the web, itunes (using the radio feed) and some apps in between. The only thing I do when doing video is plug the power in just in case I'm not paying close watch on the time and don't want the battery to run out on me. I also use the iBook without the power plug on a daily basis until the battery is dead (sleep mode).
Last but should be first "max out that ram" you won't be sorry that you did this since ram prices are pretty good now.
Well hope this helps as with the other posts...enjoy
Order of priority
1) Max the RAM
2) Get external Firewire hard drive
3) get an external keyboard &/or mouse (or keep the ones from your G4)
If you don't already have the external DVD burner, why not put the money toward a iBook 14" superdrive model? Check www.xlr8yourmac.com to check compatibility of external DVD burners
Remember that the only way to get 5.1 / 7.1 out of the Mac is through either an optical output or through a adaptor (like the Sonica) that has a built in decoder. And the source material must support the surround format -- a DTS or Dolby DVD played with Apple DVD Player will, most other audio formats will not. Your Z680's have an optical input and the surround decoder built-in so you should go optical from the Sonica to the Logitech control unit.
1) Max the RAM
2) Get external Firewire hard drive
3) get an external keyboard &/or mouse (or keep the ones from your G4)
If you don't already have the external DVD burner, why not put the money toward a iBook 14" superdrive model? Check www.xlr8yourmac.com to check compatibility of external DVD burners
Remember that the only way to get 5.1 / 7.1 out of the Mac is through either an optical output or through a adaptor (like the Sonica) that has a built in decoder. And the source material must support the surround format -- a DTS or Dolby DVD played with Apple DVD Player will, most other audio formats will not. Your Z680's have an optical input and the surround decoder built-in so you should go optical from the Sonica to the Logitech control unit.
ldburroughs said:
Ditto this -- I *love* my iBook, but the keyboard is not a strong point. If you are a fast typist, you may find it frustrating. I cannot type quite as quickly and accurately on my iBook as I can on most desktop keyboards, or the best notebook keyboards I've seen. But again, I *love* my iBook.
With regard to your battery, it will probably be good for roughly 300 full discharge cycles, or parts of cycles that add up to 300 full cycles. Based on your description, you may need to buy a new battery every 1.5-2 years or so. That will be an issue for any notebook, though, and not just the iBook.
I will just have to get use to the keyboard, I'll just do anything to have a portable apple computer... What I am running right now is a Powermac G4 Digital Audio 800mhz 1mb FSB (OC'd), Nvidia Gforce 2 32mb AGP card. . . Will I see much of a performance increase or decrease if I get an iBook 1.2ghz ~ ? Thanks
stevey500 said:
According to the benchmark lists at xbench.com, it seems like most of the 800 MHz G4/DA's were around 85-90 on xbench, and the iBook 1.2GHz were 105-110.... I ignored the really low entries for both. So maybe slightly faster on the iBook? Assuming equal ram. And of course taking into account all of XBench's limitations....