Rating: 
Summary: Simply awsome!
Review: This is my first Mac, and I just love the iBook! The design is beyond anything that the PC world has produced. The thought that went into the big and little details is evident everywhere. The iBook is just a great pleasure to use, and OS X is a world class operating system. My only recommendation is to get more RAM! I got 512Mb chip ..., and now with 640Mb my iBook flies. When I played with 128MB in the store it was much slower.
Rating: 
Summary: just like anything else; it's about balance.
Review: this is my second mac. first was the imac G3 333. it was a nice reintro to apple for me. i've had my ibook 700 for one month now (bought from amazon.com) and i have been mostly pleased. i am a university student studying graphic design using photoshop, illustrator, freehand, flash, dreamweaver, indesign, etc... sure, the G3 isn't the fastest and can be slow; but wait a minute - this is a PORTABLE NOTEBOOK. not a desktop replacement. so for what it is and what it offers in it's price range, i think it's quite impressive. sure a G4 would probably rock and then again drain more battery juice and increase costs. as long as you accept that it's a great tote-around campus/coffee shop for sketching ideas kind of machine with killer battery life and fairly strong design, it's fantastic. any heavy work you'll wanna do on a desktop of some kind. however, i am sending mine back this week b/c of a couple of little problems i felt shouldn't exist as a new machine out of the box. 1) there were some minor (yet noticeable) hairline cracks on the lid around the apple logo. 2) my return key tends to need an extra push some times; occasionally sticking. 3) the screen when, opened has a slight lean/dip to the left. very minor, but as a designer, these things of detail tend to annoy the mind.
Rating:
Summary: Best laptop computer I've used
Review: This is the smallest, coolest looking notebook I've used.
I really like the way OSX looks. The screen is amazing. I take it on the plane on trips with my family so I can play games and watch DVDs.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding machine at a reasonable price
Review: Unlike many PC notebooks that are stripped down and lack features, Apple's iBook is a no-compromise portable that is perfect for the student (I'm one). It comes complete with wireless network capabilities, a high-speed ethernet port,usb ports, firewire, and enough hard disk space to satisfy even the most prolific digital photographer. If you still need room, just burn a few data cds on the cd burner! This new line of iBook really performs well too. It is fast. MOst of the student's activities (surfing the web, writing papers, checking email) will fly. Ripping cds and watching movies is also fast. OS X is also a HUGELY important reason to have this machine. It ROCKS. Features aside, this notebook is just cool too! Screen is awesome, it's sweet looking, and is really, really portable and durable. I don't think you'll be disappointed!
Rating:
Summary: first experience with OSX
Review: Well, as a programmer, I've used every version of Windows since 3.1, so I wanted to try something new. Linux is terrible as a desktop client. BeOS is dead, so that leaves MacOSX. Many people talk about the high system requirements for OSX, and it's true, iBook with 128MB of memory just doesn't cut it. First thing I did was to add another 512MB of memory, now OSX is tolerable, snappy even if you stick to doing general office productivity tasks and web browsing. The best part about OSX for me is the BSD UNIX foundation.
emacs, tcsh, ssh, apache, gcc all the geeky stuff that I need for programming is there. so, is the switch worth it? I think so. I used to need two computers -- a windows XP client and a linux server. now I can do it all on the iBook. I however do not have good things to say about Apple's iApps bundled witht OSX.
Both iPhoto and iTunes only appeal to novices.
iPhoto organizes your photos into its own multi-leveled directory structure based on date -- something I don't need on my already neatly organized photo albums on windows XP.
And as far as i know, quickly browsing/viewing photos at full screen like ACDSee is not possible with iPhoto.
iTunes similarly works best if you are just starting out with digital music, ie, ripping CDs with iTunes and letting it manage your collection. But I already have 25GB of mp3 on my windows desktop, moving them to the iBook is out of the question.
So what I really need is a simple program to play songs from a shared network drive. Fortunately, in the Mac world there's no shortage of good 3rd party software. I found Audion from panic.com which does what I needed (and much much more).
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