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Now I don't know what to do...

P

Pipian

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 22, 2003
249
0
On the Compaq site they atre offering a laptop for the exact same price as the ibook, but with 256Mb of ram, a DVD drive, a 15" screen, a P4 at 1.8 Ghz, Firewire, and USB 2.0, and an "ATI Radion 4x AGP card" whatever that is...

Why should I get an ibook compaired to this other than OS? I'd like to get an ibook, but this seems to look better from 1st glance.
 
(I'm compairing this to the 999$ ibook, as I'm not much on the money scale)
 
Well, if you could provide a link that would be good-that way we could look for potential flaws in the system (like shared memory). But at that price, I hate to say it, but it's a wonderful buy. I still don't believe it 100%, but if it's true, even I, a Mac zealot, don't think I could tell you to get a Mac that is double the price just for the OS and iApps.

But please, a link?
 
Only tidbit I could offer is my general experience with Compaq is that they break a lot, especially their laptops. iBook seems to be the only laptop that's inexpensive and reliable. All others are more expensive even when they're PCs. XP also runs like a dog on many laptops since the processor speeds are lower than the desktops. Enough RAM in an iBook and X runs really well.
 
I believe this is the machine in question http://www.shopping.hp.com/cgi-bin/...etailed_specs&browse_link=true&#defaultAnchor

It uses Shared Memory for the graphics so this will slow the whole thing down. It is only $999 after a $100 mail in rebate. It's only XP Home, not XP Pro. It has no real iapp replacements. It does have a 15" screen but it not able to push it to a higher resolution thant the 12" screen on the iBook.
 
Badly :)

Instead of putting any dedicated RAM on the board with the graphics chip they use a portion (up to 64Mb) in this case of the main system RAM. The effect of this is 3 fold:

1) You have less RAM available to the OS (Windows in this case) so it has to page to disk more often. This is slow.

2) Main system RAM is normally slower thatn the specialist RAM you get on graphics cards. This means that graphics operations are slower.

3) This is the real kicker. You GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) and CPU are now fighting for main memory bandwidth! This is really bad for a P4 as they like lots of badwidth to start with. Add any DMA devices (disks for example) into this and you are talking very slow graphics and slower main CPU performance.
 
Compare the weight and dimensions of both laptops:

Compaq: 7.25 lbs, 1.79 inches thick.

iBook 12" : 4.9 lbs, 1.35 inches thick. Smaller and easier to carry around.

iBook 14" : 5.9 lbs.

Both iBooks have an ATI Mobility Radeon AGP 2x. The 12" also has a 30G hard drive.

The Compaq does not have a FireWire port, or wireless networking support.

Not the mention all the software bundled with the iBook. If we look at what is included in the Compaq:

Antivirus (90 days support): UNIX is the best antivirus ever, and lasts much longer than 90 days.

Outlook: Mail is included in Mac OS X.

Media Player: QuickTime.

Easy CD Creator: I don't own a Mac (yet), but isn't CD burning standard in OS X?

Microsoft Money: Quicken Deluxe.

Microsoft Works: I'm not sure what that is. However, Appleworks comes with the iBook (not sure?)

And many others not included in the Compaq, such as Deluxe Worldbook 2003, Otto Matic and Deimos Rising (whatever they are).
 
great points laukev7..

as for a couple uncertains you had:

yes, burning is standard in os x from disk copy or from the finder (i personally use toast whenever possible, but the others are free with the machine)

yes, appleworks comes with the ibooks (and imacs).
 
I have no idea what I was thinking before. For some reason i thought you said the Compaq laptop was $499. In that case, I would say go with that great value, but since they are the same price.....iBook all the way!
 
I plan to use the laptop for Typing, small photoshop work, and maybe games like Unreal.
 
get the ibook and juice some more ram into it. should work just fine...

don't expect great gameplay, but for PS it's decent as it has a pretty good resolution for a screen that size.
 
Unreal Tournament, the original, may be able to work in OS 9, as the iBooks still can boot OS 9. It should work fairly well, as should PS.
 
I'm biased, but my iBook 800 runs fantastically with 384MB of RAM. It performs very well with demanding pro-audio apps and a bit of PS. I can run the newest Wolfenstein without a problem, so it may have you covered on gaming, to a degree.

The only drawback I see to my iBook is the speed of it's drive. It's plenty fast, but I'd like it faster. I'm only mentioning this for balance.

Dan
 
-Pipian

It looks like a tough decision on the surface, but having owned Compaqs - Notebooks included - theyre particularly delicate and are a lot of trouble.

Whereas the iBook is one tough little machine.

Then there is alway the "It's the software stupid" factor. With the Compaq, even if it's hardware was of the same quality of the iBook, you'd still have to deal with the nature of Windows (not a biased remark, just fact).
 
Having owned an ibook, i can say that it is very tough, and pretty light while not too thick.

If the PC had dedicated graphics, then I'd say it would be a tough decision.

I would take into consideration highly that the ibook is much smaller (in a good way), and that its hardware, as well as software, would be more reliable.
 
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