Rating: 
Summary: Reality Check. . .Please
Review: After reading Odessa's review I had to weigh in with my REAL WORLD review. The 800mhz model is vastly superior to earlier iBooks running OS X. The 32mb's of VRAM (Video Memory) is to be credited for this improvement. Apple positions this Mac in its Consumer line. As such, it should not be compared to someone's "Work" machine due to the fact that it is not in the same league. That said, the iBook's 800mhz processor is more than fast enough for non-professional uses of all of Apple's iApps (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Mail.app, etc). It's no Dual 1.25mhz Tower, but don't be fooled by claims of this portable being slow. It's simply is not. Regarding claims of 1 hour battery life, that, too, is not accurate. Firstly, the 800mhz iBook, which Odessa reviewed, was introduced within the last two months (from the time I posted this review). So, the assertion that the battery was effectively dead must apply to an earlier model, and is considered a warranty item and would be replaced by Apple free of charge if true. This is Apple's best designed, most durable, fastest, and easiest to use Consumer Portable ever produced. ... The iBook ships with Apple's Combo drive which plays CDs, DVDs and burns CDs. It ships with 32mb VRAM, four-times the VRAM included with Apple's original Dual USB iBook. Jaguar 10.2 ships along with all of Apple's iApps. The entire package is covered by one year of AppleCare, Apple's "bumper-to-bumper" warranty program.
Rating:
Summary: Reality Check. . .Please
Review: After reading Odessa's review I had to weigh in with my REAL WORLD review. The 800mhz model is vastly superior to earlier iBooks running OS X. The 32mb's of VRAM (Video Memory) is to be credited for this improvement. Apple positions this Mac in its Consumer line. As such, it should not be compared to someone's "Work" machine due to the fact that it is not in the same league. That said, the iBook's 800mhz processor is more than fast enough for non-professional uses of all of Apple's iApps (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Mail.app, etc). It's no Dual 1.25mhz Tower, but don't be fooled by claims of this portable being slow. It's simply is not. Regarding claims of 1 hour battery life, that, too, is not accurate. Firstly, the 800mhz iBook, which Odessa reviewed, was introduced within the last two months (from the time I posted this review). So, the assertion that the battery was effectively dead must apply to an earlier model, and is considered a warranty item and would be replaced by Apple free of charge if true. This is Apple's best designed, most durable, fastest, and easiest to use Consumer Portable ever produced. ... The iBook ships with Apple's Combo drive which plays CDs, DVDs and burns CDs. It ships with 32mb VRAM, four-times the VRAM included with Apple's original Dual USB iBook. Jaguar 10.2 ships along with all of Apple's iApps. The entire package is covered by one year of AppleCare, Apple's "bumper-to-bumper" warranty program.
Rating:
Summary: Great machine
Review: Anyone who suggests a Celeron or Pentium instead of this laptop is missing the boat. With this one you get 5 hours use between charges; with those you get MAX 2-1/2 hours. As to the amazingly uninformed statement about the G3 being outdated, the G3 has been updated many times and is NOT the same chip that was introduced years ago. It works fine and competes very well in speed against all competitors. This is just a GREAT machine. Polished, smooth ... it just WORKS. I use mine daily, and NEVER reboot. Just close the lid and it sleeps; open the lid and it wakes ... fast if you use OSX. ... For the price, you can't beat it. It just WORKS, and it works nicely.
Rating: 
Summary: Go for the G4 based laptops
Review: Apple has been disappointing me lately. Instead of pushing the laptops based on the G4 cpu down into the iBook range, they are forcing us to pay for a Powerbook instead. You're kidding me! The G3 came out when the Pentium was on the market! Sure they've upped the frequency, but you can't hide that it is a very out of date engine. Think of it as running a 2-cylinder engine: it doesn't matter how high you rev it, it's not going to do a whole lot. The G4 compares well with a P4 or P4 based Celeron. Why is it that Apple won't sell us a G4 at something close to the cost of a P4? Because they think we'll still pay money for these outdated G3 machines that are years out of date the minute they were built. Not only is the CPU slow, but the graphics are outdated too! ATI Radeon Mobility graphics are far below what is consider entry level. True you can do worse, but you expect more from Apple. The only good thing I can say is that these components are so old, most of the bugs should be worked out. If only you could high-end software on it! I strongly suggest you wait until the G4 moves down into this space. It won't be long. The G3 is about to be discontinued as IBM takes over from Motorola as the main CPU supplier to Apple. At that point things should start looking better. Until then, do be fooled, if you can't afford a G4, then you can't afford an Apple.
Rating:
Summary: The screen is too small
Review: For this kind of money you should accept nothing less than a 14" screen. A 12" screen is just too small to be useful. I am also less than impressed with the G3 CPU which does not compare *at all* with a G4. A G4 will run high-end software, a G3 will leave you waiting. If you don't believe me go to CompUSA and have them run the same demo on G3 and G4 machine. There is no way you will accept a G3 after that. I would buy a Celeron notebook before I would buy a G3.
Rating: 
Summary: My iBook runs PC industry standard CAD under emulation
Review: I bought a slightly slower version of this two years ago and I was okay with it then. I just recently gave it up because: 1. It crashed a lot. 2. It was feeling pretty slow compared to my desktop at work (I run a lot of the same e-cad software on both). 3. I never seemed to get much more than an hour of battery life after the first year. I switched my entire setup to Linux (I'm bought a cheap Celeron based laptop, dumped windows and installed RedHat). For less than half of what I paid for my first iBook I have a much faster machine with a 14" LCD and no Windows! I suggest you consider the same.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad but over priced for what you get
Review: I bought a slightly slower version of this two years ago and I was okay with it then. I just recently gave it up because: 1. It crashed a lot. 2. It was feeling pretty slow compared to my desktop at work (I run a lot of the same e-cad software on both). 3. I never seemed to get much more than an hour of battery life after the first year. I switched my entire setup to Linux (I'm bought a cheap Celeron based laptop, dumped windows and installed RedHat). For less than half of what I paid for my first iBook I have a much faster machine with a 14" LCD and no Windows! I suggest you consider the same.
Rating:
Summary: It's a keeper!
Review: I bought my ibook in November after dealing with a pc that just refused to go on-line all of a sudden, and no amount of help, phone consults or trouble-shooting could fix it--and on top of that, the warranty had expired the month before (But to be fair, the machine was over 3 yrs old). Anyway, I had my reservations about making the switch, having been a pc person for my whole life. I decided to check out the macs because they were priced more reasonably than most of the pcs I was considering. The smaller screen on this version of the ibook alone dropped the price significantly ($300+). As a grad student, my two main concerns were price and portability--this apple had that and more! I love my ibook. It is not as fast as the pentium 4s out there, but it is fine for what I do, which is write, burn CDs, watch DVDs and surf the internet. The design is cool; it doesn't crash--EVER!, and it has more than enough memory to store whatever I might happen to need for the next several years. It comes with itunes to burn cds, iphoto which syncs up with digital cameras, imail, a basical email program and appleworks, which has a basic word processor among other things. I chose to install MS Office for Mac because Word is a necessity for my degree work. All of this software is more than enough for my needs. But the biggest plus for me is the ultra-portability of this little mac, and I do mean little, in the best sense of the word! It takes up almost no room in my commuter bag, and better yet, it weighs less than 5 pounds (which is is nothing compared to my 10+ lb. dinosaur of a pc laptop), and the screen size is still very easy on the eyes even though it is smaller than most other notebooks. Plus, the battery life is incredible--I have gotten way more battery-time from the ibook than I ever did from a pc. The only disadvantages that I have notices are 1) there aren't nearly as many games available for the mac os--but I'm not a big gamer, so this didn't matter to me. 2) you can't personal your desktop nearly to the same degree as you can with windows--no cool little icons, no personalized color schemes, no individual fonts for icon labels . . . this was a bit of a disappointment for me, but for the price difference, I got over it pretty quickly. All in all, my friends tell me that Apple should hire me to do one of those commercials. I made the switch, and I wish I had done so sooner. It was easy, and I haven't looked back since.
Rating:
Summary: Is cute.
Review: I did work on Pc. I was.. and, i am a Mac enthusiast. Mac Os X is not a perfect OS. XP is much more better.. but the beauty of Mac, the naive semplicity of OS X are cute. I recommend not to use it for intensive work (like programming...). iBook is for teens and for education.
Rating:
Summary: why did i wait?
Review: i dumped windows years ago, and have been using linux since. linux is nice, and the major headaches windows gave me were fixed by linux, but linux introduces a whole new share of headaches.... i have wanted to try a mac since OS X came out, but they are so pricey, right? wrong! sure you can get a cheaper laptop, but find one with 3-5 hours battery time and a CDRW/DVD for this price. there are none. then notice this thing is smaller than the closest competitor, and faster too. don't buy the mghz myth. this 800 speed laptop with only 128 RAM does most things faster than the 1.8 pentium desktop i compared it to. it is wonderful. and the design is sleek! just buy it and take it out to do a little writing in park or take it to class with you. strangers come up and ask to touch it. it turns heads. as others have mentioned, this (and all macs) are not hardcore game machines. you want a game machine? buy a playstation. far cheaper than a computer. you want a headache, buy anything with windows installed. you want it to just work. buy a mac. OS X is incredible. unix power and stability, but mac easy. that beats windows easy any day. just plug it in and it is ready! print? plug in the printer and hit "print"! wizards? install disks? forget it! just plug and work. forget plug and pray. don't do what i did. don't regret spending $$$$ on RAM and video cards a monitors only to find apple had the answer all along. switch now. save the cash.
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