“In this article I will try to share my experience with the best piece of hardware I ever used – a 12.1-inch iBook G4. I focused the article on giving my comments on different aspects of the iBook – software, hardware and the overall appearance. The article is accompanied by screenshots, photos and a small video.”
Are you going to marry your ibook?
I am so tired of these “news” articles about a user’s first experiences with their new Apple system. They always say the exact same things and amount to little more than “look what I just got” pieces.
How many more of these biased reviews are we going to get… It seems like every other day we get hit by “Why I love my iBook” followed by a “Why I hate my Apple” drivel.
Just give me the cold hard numbers. I don’t need to know why you hate/love it. I can make up my own mind!
BTW, I love my iBook too… but come on!
Strong opinions and bias are not synonyms. This is an opinion piece, not a research paper.
You cannot give hard cold numbers to tell experience, if you could I’d be a rich man; since I’d be selling people the best numbers…
I guess when someone loves their Dell/Toshiba/<insert countless clone brands here> enough to write about it they might publish it here too.
Actually I’d enjoy reading an article about a fanatical Dell lover…
I use one at work and we just bought one for home that lives in a roll top desk. Why wait for Vista…I have Tiger right now….and lovin it.
They are neat little gadgets.
😉
In case you think any of us are “trolling” this puff piece, my main PC is a Powermac G5. Most of the other posters seem to be Mac users as well. Draw your own conclusions.
They generate a lot of hits, comments and flamewars. Honestly, just take a look at the Apple related articles in the past few weeks and compare the number of replies with other articles.
Apple articles automatically generate clicks and flames, and that’s why OSNews, Slashdot and its ilk keep posting them.
Does this imply that all the stories are not interesting?
I think I’m mentioning this for, oh, the 2766427647264387538764th time, but here it goes:
We at OSNews do not post stories for the sole purpose of generating hits. If I were to post stories just go get hits, it would imply me somehow getting a salary, or part of the ad revenue. Since this both isn’t the case (I do all this on a voluntary basis), there is no reason for me to post articles just for the hits.
So, please, stop spreading that dreadful and old lie. I’m quite willing to move to more drastic measures against this misinformation, as it is a direct attack on my motives and a questioning of why I do the work I do. I hope I made myself perfectly clear.
Perhaps, but there’s a very noticable trend for the *type* of Apple articles you publish. If you’re not doing it for money there must be an agenda at hand. hmmm?
I think there’s a good balance of material on OSNews. There’s far more Linux related stuff but I guess more people use Linux and therefore don’t bash these articles.
Well said. In never ceases to amaze me how many people will read an article that they claim to be uninterested in. For my part, I continue to enjoy reading OSNews. If your readers prefer No Spin send them to “The O’Reiley Factor”.
Quite a few of us enjoy reading opinion pieces and are willing to take them for just that. What a dreary choice we would have if we all based decisions on the number game. Part of my decision process is based on the opinions of people who actually own the product I am looking to buy. Articles such as this have a place in here. Thanks for posting them.
Bill
>They generate a lot of hits, comments and flamewars. Honestly,
> just take a look at the Apple related articles in the past few
> weeks and compare the number of replies with other articles.
> Apple articles automatically generate clicks and flames, and
> that’s why OSNews, Slashdot and its ilk keep posting them.
How do you think Linux gained popularity so fast? Jealous much?
😛
Could it be that they generate a lot of clicks because people are actually interested in them? Now there’s a thought 😉
If you have the time to read it and post a reply to a story that you are not interested in, then you have waaaay too much free time on your hands.
So many news, so many news sources. If you’re not interested in something just skip it.
I don’t check every single story on OSNews and bash it just because I’m not interested in it. There’s so much people visiting this website and all of them fall in different interest groups and that’s the beauty of it, we all find something worth exploring.
If you think you can make a website with posts EVERYONE will find great, why don’t you make one and stop polluting the comments for once?
I never respect any kind of journalism that proceeds to tell you one product sucks therefore this must be better.
Tell me what the strong points are I will draw my own conclusions thankyou!
Apparently you guys must have clicked on the article if you’re here whining about it. So shut up. Mission accomplished.
It runs linux quite well ;-D
It runs linux quite well
Really? I like my iBook just fine except for the fact that I have to run OSX on it because Linux doesn’t have driver support for the Airport card. And the power management in OSX is just too amazing to live without. But I deplore OSX otherwise and would live with lengthy suspend/resume times (as opposed to the instant suspend/resume I get with OSX) if it meant I could run Linux on it instead. (FreeBSD or OpenBSD would do me just as well, if not better.)
Edited 2005-11-23 19:47
Another “I paid over $1200 for a Mac to put linux on it”. Sell it, and go pay $500 for a DELL and load Linsux on it. You’ll make a few hundred bucks on the deal, and not bore us with your blazing insight…
One reason is Apple’s hardware is a whole lot nicer than that bottom of the barrel barely suitable for a doorstop dell.
Please, stop being so irritating. On OSNews I am tired of too many people that are not able to recognize humour. The first post was : “It runs linux quite well ;-D”. Do you see the smiley at the end? That’s means that the post is meant to be funny! As I read the comments, it indeed made me laught!
I find it curious the odd acrimony Mac folks seem to have for Dell. Have you ever owned a Dell? Some of their notebooks (like the Latitude subnotebooks) are very good.
I have a Dell Latitude 5100 that’s two years old.
It’s a great unit. I actually like it BETTER than the subsequent models (though the VERY next model the 5150 was a little nicer).
I also like iBooks because the 12.1″ unit is small, light and fast.
I sold my 700mhz G3 iBook in 2004 to finance the purchase of a Mac Mini.
But, now… I’m getting tired of carrying around a heavy G3 Pismo, and just ordered an older G3 600mhz unit for $379
As a mobile email and music playing unit, it will be ideal. The only thing I need to add to it is the 256mb RAM from my Pismo and an Airport Card.
And I’m saving for one of the new Intel based iBooks in January or Feburary.
At that time, I’ll probably resell this iBook and get most of my money back from it.
A Dell doesn’t have to be bad for an Apple to be good, and vice-versa.
I still used a new Gericom Notebook (3.1 GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB of RAM). It was a good machine, but the problem was that it run Windows XP. Yikes!
I wish i could afford a laptop much less the gericom described.The 3.1GHz PIV laptop simply smokes any i-book.
Perhaps, and yet the ibook and all thay comes with it smokes laptops in its price/feature category.
It no doubt “smokes” it’s battery as well, and would probably “smoke” your genitals if you tried to use it on your lap.
I’d rather have a G4 or P-M based laptop any day, despite having less gigahypez than the PIV, because I need something that is usable away from desks and power points, and PIV based portables just don’t cut it.
It’s no doubt true that the Gericom smokes the iBook. This should give you pause when you read how much this guy likes his iBook. Apparently, there’s a bit more to computing than how hot you can make your processor run.
I’m amused to read these stories because:
a) there are quite a few of these around
b) it took the author nothing more than to actually get to know the Mac to start liking it [I particularly enjoyed Mr. Anand’s well-written reviews in this respect
]
c) these people convey a ‘shocked’ feeling at how good their computing experience is using a Mac
People who until very recently wouldn’t have dreamed of getting one, really start to dig the Mac. That’s saying something. As an old-hand Mac-driver there is no news value in these stories, but that’s not how I see them.
The real information is a very striking change in attitude towards the Mac. I used to be pitied for owning a Mac, in that many words [not that I cared]. I haven’t heard comments like that in a while
.
So this guy leaves out a ton of interesting stuff that he doesn’t touch in his article, but there can be no doubt that he’s happy to own his machine.
I don’t hear that from Windows users. Happy to own their machine. But I guess that’s no surprise when your main interest is to get the absolute bottom-bargain-basement deal on the cheapest possible components ripped out of the circuitry of a B-52 toilet light and packed in the wrapper for a bulk container of military Meals Ready to Eat.
I probably wouldn’t feel much affection for something like that either.
The wearing out of a keyboard in 2 months’ time is something I have never encountered or heard of. It seems thorougly weird and it should not happen of course.
Other than that, keep these articles coming. They should inspire more people to take the big step. An Apple is a friendly thing, don’t be nervous about them.
I don’t hear that from Windows users. Happy to own their machine. But I guess that’s no surprise when your main interest is to get the absolute bottom-bargain-basement deal on the cheapest possible components ripped out of the circuitry of a B-52 toilet light and packed in the wrapper for a bulk container of military Meals Ready to Eat.
I probably wouldn’t feel much affection for something like that either.
I have no argument against the Mac infact I find them quite appealing but the statement above is one of those statements that have absolutely no basis in reality.
Simply rebadging something e.g. “Superdrive” doesn’t make a pioneer drive any more superior.
Many PC users are enthusiasts who lovingly assemble there machines using premium components that outspec Mac counterparts by miles. It is however a complete falicy to suggest that Mac’s use superior components to other big OEM’s as demonstrated in Tom’s? recent review.
‘Many PC users are enthusiasts who lovingly assemble there machines using premium components that outspec Mac counterparts by miles. ‘
I did not know PC users were now assembling their own laptops. Impressive!
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got QuickTime (forerunner of Windows media player and Real)
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got MacTV (first media center PC with remote))
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got eMate (first Tablet PC)
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got QuickTake (first Digital camera)
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got Newton (First PDA)
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got FireWire
While you guys were building faster PCs: We lost legacy ports
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got iPods
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got iTunes
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got iMovie
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got iPhoto
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got Airport (First consumer WiFi capable laptops)
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got Final Cut Pro
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got GarageBand
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got Os X (Jaguar, Panther, Tiger)
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got iMac G5 (slim All-in-One)
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got Front Row, Photo Booth
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got http://www.crazyapplerumors.com/
While you guys were getting Viruses, Worms, Malware and Trojans: We got nothing!
While you guys were building faster PCs: We got…well you get the gist.
You guys did get a lot of first person shooter games though!
Fast is good, but there is more to life than speed alone.
I did not know PC users were now assembling their own laptops. Impressive!
Pretty desperate comeback i’d say, I was commenting on a sweeping statement that mac users use in regard to their products, but then you knew that!
btw why did you use quotes instead of italics?
While you guys were playing with your yuppie toys we were learning HTML
Agree, it looked like a rather desperate comeback.
I have to ask my 11 yr old son how to do that HTML thang.
Just wanted to point out even people without knowledge of coding etc can still have some fun with computers. There is nothing wrong about building a kick-a** computer and writing some fun code or writing your own programs- that would give some people great satisfaction.
Cheers
See, anyone can do it!</p>
I run Kubuntu on my iBook, and I must say that I have very little to complain about it. The only issues are the screen (the colours and view angles are horrible) and the sound, but otherwise the hardware is IMHO next to perfect.
And yes, it runs Linux quite well.
So you paid over $1200 to put free Linux on an ibook? I don’t get it? Please tell me you left OSX on it?
“So you paid over $1200 to put free Linux on an ibook? I don’t get it? Please tell me you left OSX on it?”
No, I didn’t. I fiddled with it for a month or so, but it just didn’t cut it. The reason I bought an iBook was that I wanted a lightweight and quality laptop without paying 2 000 euros for it. At the time of my purchase (last spring), in the PC world there just weren’t any good, cheap, and lightweight laptops available. They were always priced over 1 500 euros. And for some points, Linux does the job better on Apple hardware than on a PC (like suspend-to-ram). And after I had installed Linux, I had the opportunity to sell the OS X, which lowered the overall price a bit.
And people praise OS X too much IMO.
“And people praise OS X too much IMO.”
How so? I’ve used both, and think OSX is much more refined and responsive. I’ve used Fedora and SuSE and they’re plain, and quirky…
“How so? I’ve used both, and think OSX is much more refined and responsive. I’ve used Fedora and SuSE and they’re plain, and quirky…”
Well, before I got my iBook, everybody was telling me how OS X is superb, but the question is, why am I not using OS X then? The answer: because OS X isn’t superb. It’s good, if you like it, but it’s no replacement for Linux. They’re just too different to even compare. And I think it’s fair to say that it’s not my fault that I didn’t like it, but I don’t think anyone even cares.
OSX is my operating system of choice, but it is by far not the end-all-be-all of operating systems– no OS is. They all suck badly, just some suck a little less than others. Which those are is all personal.
That’s the interesting part of the OS landscape
.
Edited 2005-11-23 20:35
>Well, before I got my iBook, everybody was telling me how OS X is superb, but the question is, why am I not using OS X then? The answer: because OS X isn’t superb. It’s good, if you like it, but it’s no replacement for Linux. They’re just too different to even compare. And I think it’s fair to say that it’s not my fault that I didn’t like it, but I don’t think anyone even cares.<
I had the same experience, I acutally just had an iMac g4 given to me and it’s a very nice machine but OSX just dosen’t fit me, I’ve played with it and can run it quite efficiently but it just dosen’t flow right for me or something. I also have used linux execlusively on the desktop for a couple years so I am sure my habbits are different from the average Windows user who migrates to Mac.
I think I’m going to install linux on that machine and see how it runs… I may end up reinstalling OSX
I’m sure he gave OS X a very honest shot before installing Linux on the thing. I do not at all find it inconcievable that someone would prefer using Linux to OS X. After several weeks of mostly using my Mac, I spent the weekend using my Linux box (working on an x86 program), and I cannot say it felt inferior in any way. It’s different, and each platform has its strengths and weaknesses, but once both are up and running, they’re both very good.
The horizontal viewing angle on my iBook is near perfect– the vertical angle just plain SUCKS. A few degrees off target and parts of the screen become washed out.
The keyboard on the iBook is perfect. Typing on it is really a pleasure and the sound of pressing the keys is not obtrusive at all.
Well I’m typing this on my iBook, and I wouldn’t describe the keyboard as exactly perfect. The feel is ok, but the layout could be improved. By default you have to hold done the ‘fn’ key at the same time as a F1-F12 key to invoke the function keys. By default if you miss the backspace key and overshoot, it ejects the disk. Superb!
Apart from that I’m very pleased with it.
By default you have to hold done the ‘fn’ key at the same time as a F1-F12 key to invoke the function keys. By default if you miss the backspace key and overshoot, it ejects the disk. Superb!
You can change said behaviors. I like being able to turn the volume, brightness up and down with ease. I hardly use the F1-12 keys. I’t personal.
i don’t think the key board layout has anything to do with how it is configured by default.
I also have a 12″ iBook, and I absolutely *love* it. I pretty much agree with all of the author’s points, except the one about the keyboard.
I used a 12″ Powerbook keyboard, and it feels considerably better than the iBook keyboard, but whatever — for $1200 CAD this was a pretty sweet deal. I get about 5:30 of battery life with the screen dimmed and wireless on — and that’s with an extra 512 MB RAM stick.
there’s no good reason for this to be posted to OSNews. This is not new hardware, it’s not a good hands-on review, and generally doesn’t help anybody.
It helps the guy who wrote it. Makes him feel good; he tell all his friends he writes about computers and has published letters, and such. I went to a network trade show back in the early ’90’s and had my picture and quote in InfoWorld; made me feel good, but I don’t think I’m Bill Gates or anything…he’s a journalist whore is all…
Agreed.
OS News has a habit of positing negative things about Apple, then to “balance” their coverage… rather than linking to articles which show Apple product’s genuine advantage… they tend to link to articles which show people’s emotional attachments to Apple products. Though the emotional response is typically a positive one, the end result is that it grows the notion that Apple products can’t compete on merit but instead Apple products are only sold based on the emotional connection that the “zealots” make.
I’m not implying that they are making a concerted effort to achieve this goal, but the preferences/biases of the editors would certinly imply that that the trends we’re seeing are happening as a result of it.
This is the problem when editors cherry pick editorials rather than letting the those that read the site dictate the majority of the content.
When the people pick the news items, the general aura of the company or product is reflected by the news that results. The more negative or positive attention a company or product gets… shows how well it is serving its customers. By trying to offer an equal balance of positive and negative attention, they are doing a dis-service the company that deserves more positive attention and vice versa for the company who’s products may deserve more negative attention.
Edited 2005-11-23 19:54
As its already been mentioned you don’t NEED to read EVERY article posted on OS news! Have you heard of skipping past it?
I think this was a good article it brings insight into tommorows mainstream computer (yes personal suggestion here, no footenote, no backing just me saying it).
I use a powerbook and it is superb. Its annoying when people complain about blah blah when you dont need to read it at all. If you think OS news is going down hill (etc etc) you know you have type in the URL everyday. People who complain just dont get it. I dont read every article on OS NEWS. Only those articles that i’m interested in. This is why OS News is a diverse yet very good news site. Catering for different audience.
Now if their was an article on why i love linux on my dell the comments list will be full of 100s of points on how great an amazing linux is. OTOH when we get a random interesting article on say Windows 2003 server, vista or OS X we get millions of people just complaining. So what you love Linux we love OS X please dont tell us how boring and so wrong the article is when 5 seconds later you be given that latest linux article the thumbs ups.
you could argue well this is a news site, well if thats the case, lets remove comments, the interviews the gallery. This is a community news site. Does it hurt once in a while to have an article that is talking about an OS and what it is like. I personally find it handy. Yes i do even like the articles on the other OSes too.
“But I deplore OSX otherwise and would live with lengthy suspend/resume times (as opposed to the instant suspend/resume I get with OSX) if it meant I could run Linux on it instead.”
Linux’s 4 seconds versus OS X’s 2 seconds. Big deal.
Buying the iBook raised my productivity in both private and work related projects for at least 50%.
It just works, it’s designed as a appliance computer
There are situations where I come back home from a 12-hour work day (that comprises of working on computers) and I cannot watch the iBook just sleeping on a shelf. I need to use it, for at least checking some of the blogs or do some un-necessary e-mail communication. I was never so happy with any hardware I had, and I had a few.
I agree, it’s fun to use a Mac, been using them for over 20 years and only got one virus in all those years (16 years ago).
I can’t understand why people think they need to suffer, don’t they have better, more profitable things to do in their lives that slave for the computer?
I still used a new Gericom Notebook (3.1 GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB of RAM)…about 8 months ago I bought a new Compaq Tablet PC…A couple of months ago I said let’s go to town to get me an iBook.
A new laptop every 4 months?
I bet he also loves his BMW, plasma TV and cavier too.
Doesn’t seem that his review is geared toward the rest of us either.
I actually traded my iBook for a stinkpad t42, and couldn’t be happier. The iBook was certainly nicer than most dells, etc, that I’ve tried, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the almighty stinkpad. Ok, so there’s no firewire on the stinkpad, which kind of sucks, but I have far more use for pcmcia than I do firewire. The keyboard on the iBooks sucks IMO — I’m *very* surprised that it was mentioned as a strongpoint.
It appears the days of Mac’s among the English elite are through; now we are onto the days of Mac’s and the English impaired (specifically; the English impaired who have blogs.).
I bought an iBook G3 800 12″ model when they came out. I didn’t own it very long and they are plenty of reason I sold it. One, it was very hot in the lower left hand corner and I was unable to use the laptop more then 30 minutes at a time. Second it would scratch very easy on the case no matter what I did. Third Apple decided to compile everything with G4 instructions making my whole laptop a lot slower and completely worthless. Four I sold it because I was under the impression G5 Powerbooks would come out, and I waited, and waited, and waited… Finally a few years later I bought an HP Pavilon zv6000 and was surprised that it wasn’t that bad. It never gets hot, runs fast and I can play games on it. My girl friend I bought her a 12″ Powerbook 1ghz model and it gets hot too… I won’t buy a Mac laptop again until they have better video cards in them and they are less hot.
Socially, what’s interesting is the tone. The self congratulation. Its reading articles like this (and some of the comments) that one realises what we are dealing with is a dreadfully destructive cult. These are people who sincerely have substituted the experience of buying and owning consumer goods for that of being given grace. They really think that the trivial bits of stuff they buy are marks of grace. They even confuse class in the same way: they seem to think that buying some kinds of goods changes what social class one belongs to. And they probably think that being upper class is the same as being saved.
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame. Is this the cultural wilderness that New England has finally come to?
Get real guys. This is not the kind of thing that buying and using any computer can do for anyone. Its much harder than that.
Yes, I have an iBook. Yes it is the best OS I’ve *paid* for, and the best OS I’ve used for a mobile device, full-stop. Certainly I appreciate hearing others’ opinions, at least I thought I did, but that article is terrible. There can beno other explanation than this person is the most unaccepting dullard in the world. If I were to have such low expectations, or demands, of anything then surely any OS would be deserving of such unconditional effusiveness. Not that this person necessarily wished for such widespread exposure, so all censure should be directed to the moron who decided it was suitable for a story on osnews.
But seriously, OS X is good because of the power management, GUI, stability, CLI interface, a web browser with some really useful features… bad because the CLI interface is not good enough, the unix core is too hidden (tell me the magical invocation to restart the sound deamon, someone, please), a web browser with some really stupid features, something as trivial as xdvi doesn’t work out of the box and so many annoyances besides (maximize a window from the dock using keyboard commands anyone?). Perhaps a little like Unix/Linux/BSD with all the useful bits obscured in case the average user gets scared? Come on, make it scary for those of us who know what they’re doing.
How about a serious comparison one day? Rather than this drivel.
I also have a brand 12 inch iBook, and I loved the artical, the author and I sound like the same person. Half of the crap I read here is from idiots, who don’t know what they are talking about. The night I got this laptop, I calibrated the battery by running it till it shut it self down, that took 5 hours and 45 min. I was using it to stream audio and surf the web and email while I was watching TV, it never got so warm that it burnt me, infact it was bearly warm to the touch. I just don’t know were you guy’s come up with this crap. OS X is great, but so is linux, I use both on a regular basis.
Well, in this manner – what’s with all the windows related stuff (90% of the posts) ? Do they post this only because people flame abut it? Nonsense. If your OS is popular you get attention – like Windows and Linux. I think most Mac features doesn’t meet your “technical standards” because the Mac is a very easy to use computer and the customers aren’t that interested in the underlying technology. Mac Users don’t care if OS X uses Software version 28.000.234.11.b or 28.001.255.12a – you do, that’s why you’re disappointed.
On the other side, regarding _this feature, I also can’t get the point, why the iBook increases his productivity by 50% – maybe cause he now doesn’t get as many sleep as before
2 years ago my brother and I bought laptops, he a Dell Inspiron 4400 and I an iBook G3 800.
Today I still use my G3 as my primary machine traveling and at home.
I STILL can watch a full length DVD with the machine, the 802.11x works fine, and it is fast enough for all the tasks that I need, Photoshop, Illustrator, indesign, dreamweaver, bbedit, Flash, graphicconverter, office, entourage, quickbooks, a fully functional dev environment with (Apache, MySQL, PHP, Python, Perl), FinalCutPro3, after effect, TonyHawk 2, Sokoban, iPhoto, itunes, garageband, all work just fine. with the latest os installed Le Tigre.
The machine which incidentally was $749 from Apple paid for itself the first WEEK I used it for a simple website project, while traveling.
never broke a sweat.
My brothers,Dell inspiron which he really never used too hard (mainly to do homework for his MBA with excel and powerPimp, a couple of games, and web browsing) barely works.
Within the first year of his purchase the battery only last about 30min(a purchase which cost him $1400, the same price as the 12 inch Powerbook.)
The little IBM inspired mouse nipple in the middle of the Keyboard(what where they thinking?) is broken and affects the cursor with a drift when not in use.
One set of the two sets of right and left mouse buttons (why?) the one above the track pad stopped working.
The computer weights about 8 pounds which you would think is pretty ridiculous but what do you expect for the price.
it is incredibly hot underneath (even with its P!!!)
The little doors on the sides protecting the numerous, but useless or at least never used ports are all broken.
This is all for a computer that has its own protective and expensive laptop case, that was barely traveled with, and was not owned by a teen, but a serious MBA student.
My IBook was used on the beach, traveled trough India, and unlike my brother and as you can tell from my list of software, as a creative I HATE, conventional computer cases so it was mostly in my messenger bag inside of a converted pillow case… (ah ah ah yes that’s right! some Hippy sh…t.)
all the keys are still there, and the cpu is still WHITE.
I could actually go on with the problems, if I start speaking about the OS issues but I have to stop, and go to sleep.
But my point has been made over and over again.
Dell computers are Dull, they are cheap, they look bad (even in silver), they feel chinzy, and most importantly they come with Windows only.
Sure you could install Linux, but you can do that on an iBook just fine.
(ps: airport/graphics compatibility included with the most recent Yellowdog)
That is why Dells SUCK.
Its like a Ford Taurus vs a Honda Accord, at first glance they seem like a similar value proposition, until all the door knobs of the Ford fall off, the rear defroster stops working a year into owning it, and the stereo knob splits in half. While the Honda keeps going and going…
I know this from experience, but that is another story.
Ciao.
Ok, I’ll bite on this. Seeing as how I own a Dell laptop and a Ford Taurus you really seemed to be going after me personally here.
I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 that is about a year and a half old. It has a 1.7Ghz Pentium-M processor, NVidia FX 5650 Go w/128MB, 768MB Ram, 60GB 7200RPM drive, DVD Burner, 802.11g and a 15″ widescreen display. Being Centrino it has incredible battery life – originally it got 4-5 hours and now it is more like 3-4 after a year and a half of pretty heavy use on that original battery. This is all relatively unimpressive until you consider that I only paid $800 for the above system. I looked at an Apple at the time and the 15″ powerbook similarly speced it was over $2000 at the time. And, that is not including the software like Office I would have had to re-purchase and the $100 for the OSX update I would have had to pay by now. Sure the Dell system is in a less sexy plastic case but, considering that I could have bought almost 3 of them for the cost of the Apple I am ok with that. You can buy alot of batteries and replacement keyboards (~$30 from Dell Spare Parts) with that kind of money as well. The system has come back and forth to work with me every day and is used extensively and I have yet to have a single problem or issue with either the laptop physically or with XP. In contrast, I have a friend with a G3 iBook that had his logic board fail and Apple refused to fix it as it was just outside his warranty. It wasn’t until many months later, and after he bought a Dell to replace it in disgust with Apple, that they started a recall for that issue. I also had a coworker here at work who is on his third of the new flatpanel iMacs because of blown cap issues. All manufacturers have issues with certain parts and models and Apple is not excluded or some magic maker of perfect hardware.
Ironically same thing with my Ford Taurus. I have a 1997 one with 138,000 miles on it. I have had all of three problems outside of normal maintenence (breaks, tires, etc) – two sensors in the engine (cam shaft position sensor and the transmission range sensor) that failed as well as a water pump that went when I was on the highway at 120,000 miles. These were all <$100 parts (heavily produced domestics have cheap after market parts compared to Honda) and quick repairs once you got the code out of the computer that told you about it in the case of the sensor issues. My Taurus cost $16,000 when I bought it and a similarly speced Accord cost almost $30,000. Once again I could have just about bought two cars for the price so my next Ford I am buying shortly is almost free versus having bought the Accord in 1996.
The moral of the story is that both Dell and Ford make things that are of slightly lower quality but get the job done at a MUCH cheaper price. It is called value. Dell sells more laptops than Apple and Ford sells more cars than Honda for a reason.
whenever I try to make my self to like mac, there is always someone with disgusting review like this, to turn me off.
Damn!
I love my ibook too. I do have 3 quite big gripes though.
1. the vertical viewable angle of the screen sucks
2. As the reviewer states, the trackpad button is clunky as hell.
3. The VGA out is limited because you can’t turn the screen off to get about 1024×768. You have to install a screen spanning hack.
Its the iDiots that own them and feel they have to write articles like that.
I have a Mac owning friend thatis always quick to condem Linux as being unuseable. He has never even seen Linux runnnig! Sort of sums up a bit of the narrow mindedness in Mac fanboyz.
Great…you know one guy …and for you that sums up all mac user base….
For sure you are not the typical Linux user…cause Linux users usually – if not on a holy gpl war – are more rational..
Agree, some Mac users may be overzealous. The bigger problem are those who have never used Macs but are quick to criticize the Mac Os.
No, checking out the Mac for 5′ at a local store or a friend’s place does not count.
Do it like Anand of Anandtech. Use a Mac continuously for 30 days, before spewing forth rubbish.
There is a good choice of Oses right now. Use the one you prefer but stop putting down other Oses and categorizing all users of one platform as idiots- it is the same attitude as racism. Also remember, there have been lot more switcher’s to the Mac fold of late and many of those clearly don’t belong in the idiot category. Strangely enough, many people, after using the Mac for a while, start to feel that they should have switched earlier and wonder why others have not yet seen the light yet. To them, it is the others who are thick skulled clinging on to worm-, virus- and trojan-threatened Os.