Do you think new Ibooks will be sluggish with OS X?

[bentmywookie]

I am looking to upgrade my powerbook G3 400 to the new 12 inch 800 mhz Ibook however I am concerned about how it will handle OS X. From what I've read, people seem to have opinions on both sides - i.e., Ibook is just fine and Ibook is sluggish, however the sluggish opinion seems to have more supporters.

I was playing with one at CompUSA this past weekend and it seemed ok, not too fast, not too slow. However rebooting it seemed like it took forever. I would just want to use it for web browsing, dvd viewing, word processing, mp3 and cd-burning stuff and the occasional game of Warcraft III.

If anyone has any experience and opinions as to whether or not they feel the new 800 mhz Ibook with the 32 meg radeon 7500 will be snappy with Jaguar I would greatly appreciate it.

Also - is Apple's ram "better" than 3rd party ram that is offered in deals by places like MacMall? Is it worth the extra money to get the RAM from apple or is the free RAM offered in deals just fine?

thanks in advance for any help!

 

[macstudent]

I have had my ibook 700 since may and I think it works great in jaguar. It only has a 16mb video card, but I maxed out the ram, which really helps. I use it mainly for photoshop and flash. While the screen can get small, I feel it is a great little computer.

 

[SilvorX]

one of my friends did a test of a 800mhz ibook and he finds it pretty fast, since it uses a 32 mb video card now, hopefully its fast to most ppl lol

 

[mmmdreg]

it depends what you're used to...coming from your computer, I guess it would be faster and generally better, however, if you've been using DP G4 towers for a while and decide to get an iBook, it may seem a little on the slow side...

 

[macmax]

I own a 500mhz ibook myself for the apps u wish to run it is really ok.

if you are going to do some rendering, then think about it twice.

Jaguar works fine with it, i am also considering of buying me a 800 ibook.

I can't find a reason to buy me a titanium for the things i am using my mac at this moment.

Man , i couldn't be happier than i am with this little beauty, i truly love my mac.

 

[edesignuk]

Re: Do you think new Ibooks will be sluggish with OS X?

Originally posted by bentmywookie
However rebooting it seemed like it took forever.

You need to see what version of X it was running, the boot time in 10.2 in comparison to 10.1 is a MASSIVE improvement.
Also because the new iBooks have 32Mb video they now fully support QE in 10.2, so again, if the iBook you were looking at didn't have 10.2 installed you really wouldn't have seen it performing at it's best.

 

[sparkleytone]

boot time is not a measure of performance. its UNIX, get over it.

being that my iBook 600MHz with 640MB of RAM only seems to get quicker with age, I'd say the iBook would be just fine for you. Especially for the minor tasks you would be doing. If WC3 is really going to be the only truly intensive app you will be running, then you should be just fine. Especially if you max out the RAM. Do not run on less than 384MB RAM.

I would recommend, if you have no reliance on OS 9, formatting the stock hard drive image and installing X only would probably be the best bet for you. Partition however you want, format, reboot, and install Jag...That way you are going to get the best performance from the getgo.

again...do not skimp on memory. and no, apple memory is no better than other memory. i got my 512MB chip from OWC.

p.s. BOOT TIME IS NOT A PERFORMANCE BENCHMARK ON *NIX SYSTEMS...its a notebook, let it sleep.

 

[bentmywookie]

thanks

thanks for all the info. it is most appreciated. i think i will order it this weekend.