G4 ibook - stats and appearance

[jefhatfield]

of the pictures i have seen of the G4 ibook, i have not been able to tell if the keyboard is white or grayish white

it's not a major point, but the thing looks different everytime i see a photograph of it

i can't wait to get my hands on one though...800 mhz to 1 ghz G4, combo drive, lightweight, and a consumer machine which i suspect will fly through adobe and macromedia professional programs

...and i don't think this machine would be shabby at games, either

 

[mstecker]

I just got mine

... the 12". I've had no fewer than 4 different iBooks in the past, so I have a pretty good sense of what's new:

The keyboard and plastic that surrounds it and the trackpad are a greyish off-white.

Best of all, the keyboard is a new design. The keys have a much more substantial feel and better throw than any of the previous iBooks.

Unfortunately, it still has the opaque white plastic exterior like the last few revs of G3 ibook (as opposed to the translucent exterior of the earlier models).

So far, I like it a great deal. I previously had a 12" Gen A PowerBook, and I must say I can't tell any difference between the performance of these two machines.

I'm also using the monitor spanning hack to run an external monitor on a second workspace at work - at much higher resolution than the built-in 1024x768.

It feels like the games I play - Warcraft, Medal of Honor, Black & White - are just as fast on this - if not a bit faster - than my old 12" AlBook. I think it's that the DDR, faster bus, and better GPU more than make up for the difference in processor speed (800 vs 867).

The slot loading drive is fast and slick. With my old iBooks, I always felt like I was about to break something when trying to get CDs in or out of the tray.

If I had to find something to complain about, I wish that they had found a way to put an extra firewire port on the machine. One is just one too few - but then again, the iBooks have always been like that.

I like it.

 

[whawho]

Adobe & Macromedia programs

I just bought my first laptop tonight which was the 14" 933Mhz model. I wasn't able to max out the ram... because my local Apple store didn't have any... so I was worried that it would lag until I could max it out.

I installed Photoshop 7, indesign 2, BBedit and Macromedia Studio and worked on some projects... it's quick... it lags when I had many projects/apps open but not too bad even with 256MB of ram. I was pleasantly suprised....

I tried running a couple games ... I ran the tony hawk game that it came with... and it seemed a bit choppy... I also ran Return to Wolfenstein and it was choppy as well.. I think RTS games would run cool...

I also ran Xbench on it and it consistently ran about 80 total... So all and all I am very happy. I bought this for doing Graphic and Web work and I think it will be perfect once I max out the ram...