apple ibook

*adele*

im thinking bout using ALL my savings on a computer and i want to spend it well,i have been looking at apple ibook and its nice and seems to suit,has anyone any information on it?

kinkstr

What is it you want a computer for exactly?
A PC may be also be an option

*adele*

well i want a laptop and i want it to be pretty small and compact

tonky

My mates have iBook and PowerBook, I've used both of 'em.
They are pretty much complete out of the box.
What do you want to know?
I guess the iBook is compact, nice & neat.
Presume you've checked the Apple site: Here

*adele*

yea it looks pretty good,has it much memory?i dont really understand all the statistics(sp)on it on the site

Linku

I've got the 12" iBook, which will probably be the one you want to get because the 14" uses the same resolution anyway, and the 12" is much much more compact.
It doesn't sound like you'll be doing heavy work on it so just make sure you upgrade the RAM to 512MB and upgrade the hard-drive if you're going to be putting lots of music or files.

lomb

the 3 most important thing with a laptop are warranty-no use it not working and u throw it in the bin after a year, battery life- no use it not working for long also as time passes batteries age and lose charge so u want one with good life to begin with, and size- u want something small.

the best laptops with regard to the above are acers travelmate series. they have an dublin repair depot and offer a 3 year warranty for 170 euro and are reasonablly priced too.

acer also are reliable and in addition to numerous tests their hinges are strong which is more than can be said for 90% of the crap out there including apple, targa and e machines. theres nothing worse than your screen hinges cracking and your screen cracking - shows very poor design.

dells lattitudes are also very good but pricey, ibms laptops are very good also but incredibly expensive so acer-dell-ibm good

troublesome laptops- apple- numerous problems do a search, fujitsu- poor build quality but good warrantys available optionally, sony- very good but crap warrantys, targa/ emachines- cracking hinges, dell inspirions-heavy and heavy on power.

tbh- dont spend ALL of your savings on a laptop unless you need one, they are all poor investments, buy a used cheap desktop and you will have as tonnes of performance for little money reliably and cheaply.

monkeyfudge

Are you based in Dublin?

I have 7 of the latest iBook models in work. We use them for training. PM if you want to have a decent hands on look at one.

I use a powerbook myself, but I was very impressed with the little iBooks. They start at about €1000, which is pretty good historically speaking for a portable mac.

lomb

with a 3 year warranty a 14inch apple is over 1700 euro (with needed extra ram and bluetooth as it wont take a usb one for some reason) without even a dvd burner. i personlly would stear away from it unless u want a fashion statement, if u have broadband buy a pc laptop as it will autoupdate antivirus/windows/anti spyware and u will have a stable and secure machine. the problems on pcs come with dialup, downloading updates take forever and need to b done manually as otherwise they screw up your connection when u connect.

Jaeger

lomb wrote:

tbh- dont spend ALL of your savings on a laptop unless you need one, they are all poor investments, buy a used cheap desktop and you will have as tonnes of performance for little money reliably and cheaply.

Never a truer word spoken, the amount of people I know who spent triple on a laptop than they would on a desktop for the amount they use it....

Unless of course you're looking to impress other people. Then by all means a nice colorful laptop is the one for you.

monkeyfudge

lomb wrote:

with a 3 year warranty a 14inch apple is over 1700 euro (with needed extra ram and bluetooth as it wont take a usb one for some reason)

Of course a usb bluetooth adaptor works with it. No need for installing drivers on OS X either.

As someone already said, the 14" is pointless as it has the same resolution. Also, I wouldn't recommend Applecare either, it's really not much use...

you might be talking €1,148.99 for a 12" iBook with 512mb and a 60gb hard drive.

You could get a cheap Windows laptop for around €800.

But it's all about what you want. I use Macs and PCs as they bought have their uses.

What will you be using the Notebook for? Email? Movie editing? Gaming?

lomb

monkeyfudge wrote:

As someone already said, the 14" is pointless as it has the same resolution. Also, I wouldn't recommend Applecare either, it's really not much use...

what would u suggest she does with it after shes spent all her money on it and it breaks after 1 year and 1 day. throw it in the bin? there are many disappointed people out there that this happens to. repairs cost usually beyond the value of the machine at 1 year due to obselesence.

buy an acer with 3 year care and local repair facilities at a resonable price if u need a laptop, unless you want to impress people or yourself.

ps i was told usb pc dongles are not supported by mac osx by a mac zeolet. i can neither confirm or deny this.

12" screens are really small and u may find urself squinting. i would recommend the 14".

Hugh_C

adele, the person called lomb has an unfounded crusade against Macs, She trolls the Mac forum in here on a regular basis, best advice is to ignore her,

lomb wrote:

what would u suggest she does with it after shes spent all her money on it and it breaks after 1 year and 1 day. throw it in the bin?

it won't, believe me, this is being written on a powerbook I bought at the end of 1999, still going strong.

lomb wrote:

ps i was told usb pc dongles are not supported by mac osx by a mac zeolet. i can neither confirm or deny this.

then learn to keep your trap shut, as usual you're talking sh1te. this machine uses a usb bluetooth dongle out of the box. no need to even look for drivers, that's the beauty of OS X.

lomb

hughchal wrote:

adele, the person called lomb has an unfounded crusade against Macs, She trolls the Mac forum in here on a regular basis, best advice is to ignore her,



it won't, believe me, this is being written on a powerbook I bought at the end of 1999, still going strong.



then learn to keep your trap shut, as usual you're talking sh1te. this machine uses a usb bluetooth dongle out of the box. no need to even look for drivers, that's the beauty of OS X.

all laptops break, and when they do they are $%^&%£, one does need a 3 year warranty on the machine unless u can self insure it. ie accept the loss of it if it does break. as i say apple are good (i have been convinced of it) if u use dialup and dont like auto updating with that and use it to do web/email/graphical stuff. i can honestly say i have had numerous viruss/spyware etc until i enabled autoupdates on 4 programs. since then i have a stable setup.

actually its pcmcia i think that macs dont support not usb bluestick dongles.
buy what u like, i can honestly say an acer are the cheapest pc laptop/cheapest 3 year warranty inc accidental damge/ local repair facilities around.
1650 euros buys this -acer aspire 2023 with 5 hours battery life Mobile Intel® Centrino™ Technology with Intel® Pentium® M 1.6GHz processor - Intel® 855GME chipset - Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200 (802.11g), Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition, 15.4" WXGA TFT display, 60GB HDD, 512MB (2*256) DDR, ATI Radeon 9700 128MB, 56Kbps modem, wired LAN 10/100/1000 gigabit, DVD-Supermulti (slot), Li-Ion battery, S-video/TV-out, 4 in 1 memory card reader

the 1650 includes 3 year warranty, leather look case, optical mini mouse, 128mb memory stick etc. very good value, if a little big, but still resonably light at 3kg

tonky

Hughchal:
here we go....
damn troll's escaped again

Hobbes

If you have to get a laptop, Macs are the way to go.

However burning all your savings on it? Why? You have to ask yourself why it is worth all that money to you.

To be honest you can get a cheap secondhand laptop good spec. The Mac can wait for you later.

lomb

from your profile you are 14 or 15 years old. can i ask why a 14 year old would need a laptop? modern kids

Hugh_C

lomb wrote:

actually its pcmcia i think that macs dont support not usb bluestick dongles.

Talking sh1te again lomb, I should have added that the message I wrote last night was on a 5-and-a-half year old Apple laptop into which I'd stuck a PC wireless card yesterday, no less. A Belkin 54g card which I'd bough on eBay for 19.99 US - & you know what? I didn't even have to find drivers for it, it just worked out of the box and picked up my wireless network straight away. I only needed to configure the WEP.

OS X is extraordinarily user-friendly that way.

lomb

hughchal wrote:

Talking sh1te again lomb, I should have added that the message I wrote last night was on a 5-and-a-half year old Apple laptop into which I'd stuck a PC wireless card yesterday, no less.

am i really?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=215803&highlight=apple

do u really want a 14 year old girl to spend her savings on a mac, that will probably get dropped? fine way to learn how to save money.......... :rolleyes:

telemachus

In fairness it does seem a bit hasty for a first personal machine to rush off and buy well over a grands worth of laptop. Regardless of how reliable various options are, as has been noted if you damage a laptop be it through accident or fault and it's a day outside warranty you're looking at serious money to fix exen apparently minor problems, which at 14 may leave you with an expensive lump of metal.

I'd tend to agree with other people that you have a serious think about wether you actually genuinely need a laptop over a desktop, there are a hell of a lot of people with extremely expensive latops that almost never leave their desks. Since it'd be your first computer you'd also be alot safer in regards damaging it as they're far easier to repair/replace parts.

If it has to be a mac, you could always buy one of the new minis and save a nice wad of cash. It's just a case of working what exactly it is you think you need to do on the move that's worth paying out the extra 500 plus for.

*adele*

i dont want a big high performance one because as it had been pointed out i am 14 i have an old desktop but i travel and am away from home alot and i usually spend all my money in internet cafes,my dad has a laptop but ive been banned due to viruses/nail varnish incident/always being on it.And if at all possible dumb it down a bit i dont understand all this computer speak...:)

Souperfreak

I have had a computer since the IBM 386 with windows 3.1 (circa 1994) and I have recently gone mac. Now having said that I still use pc's everyday at work and we also have an IBM laptop at home as well as a powerbook. I much prefer the powerbook.

My dear if you are looking for a computer that is easy to use and really reliable. Spend that little extra and buy a mac it is worth the stability in the operating system.

For over a year we have had a mac I have never seen a slow in its performance as I load more and more programs on to it. But we have reinstalled the IBM 4 times because the memory leaks in Windows.

GET A MAC THEY ARE GREAT!

lomb

*adele* wrote:

i dont want a big high performance one because as it had been pointed out i am 14 i have an old desktop but i travel and am away from home alot and i usually spend all my money in internet cafes,my dad has a laptop but ive been banned due to viruses/nail varnish incident/always being on it.And if at all possible dumb it down a bit i dont understand all this computer speak...:)

i its just for web use, maybe u would be better buying a cheap used mac/pc laptop and take a 'gamble' on it. they do comeup on boards for around 300-500 euro. how would u connect to the internet though when u travel?

Souperfreak

lomb wrote:

buy an acer with 3 year care and local repair facilities at a resonable price if u need a laptop, unless you want to impress people or yourself.

Read the Website LOMB

From Acers website www.acer.ie

Parts not covered by the service
Damages due to negligence or careless use, incorrect maintenance, maintenance by unauthorised personnel, transport in unsuitable packaging, any cause not attributable to manufacturer’s defects and small damages such as scratches, scores, etc. derived from routine product use are excluded from service coverage.
The battery is excluded from the warranty extension service and maintain original warranty conditions ( 180 days ).
The warranty does not cover malfunctions due to viruses or system conflicts due to the installation of drivers or peripherals, data loss for any reason.



If she drops the laptop it doesn't matter when it is done it is NOT covered under acer's warranty. NO company would cover that! If you drive your brand new Audi into a wall you can't take it back and get it fixed for free because it was under warranty.

Apple Ibook's are great sturdy machines. I have used them and played with them. Plus you can take the plastic casing off sand it down and paint it with acryllic paint. You can have a completely unique machine that NO ONE else has. (Research that first!)

But I don't want the above comment to take away from the fact that they are lovely machines, you can get open office for it too which is a free version of Office and it is completely compatiable with Microsoft Office that will save you a lot because office is expensive (open office is also available for a pc).

My suggestion would be to buy a second hand Ibook. New isn't worth it, unless you are playing really demanding games.

Try ebay for a second hand one. Make sure they have a good seller rating and accept paypal.

lomb

Souperfreak wrote:

Read the Website LOMB

From Acers website www.acer.ie

Parts not covered by the service
Damages due to negligence or careless use, incorrect maintenance, maintenance by unauthorised personnel, transport in unsuitable packaging, any cause not attributable to manufacturer’s defects and small damages such as scratches, scores, etc. derived from routine product use are excluded from service coverage.
The battery is excluded from the warranty extension service and maintain original warranty conditions ( 180 days ).
The warranty does not cover malfunctions due to viruses or system conflicts due to the installation of drivers or peripherals, data loss for any reason.



If she drops the laptop it doesn't matter when it is done it is NOT covered under acer's warranty. NO company would cover that! If you drive your brand new Audi into a wall you can't take it back and get it fixed for free because it was under warranty.

Apple Ibook's are great sturdy machines. I have used them and played with them. Plus you can take the plastic casing off sand it down and paint it with acryllic paint. You can have a completely unique machine that NO ONE else has. (Research that first!)

But I don't want the above comment to take away from the fact that they are lovely machines, you can get open office for it too which is a free version of Office and it is completely compatiable with Microsoft Office that will save you a lot because office is expensive (open office is also available for a pc).

My suggestion would be to buy a second hand Ibook. New isn't worth it, unless you are playing really demanding games.

Try ebay for a second hand one. Make sure they have a good seller rating and accept paypal.

unfortunately for yourself the laptop is 950 stg in the uk and a 3 year all risks warranty is 110quid, this includes accidental damages. i have added these up and euroised it, @1650 it would indeed cover accidental damage.

Souperfreak

That quote was taken from the Acer Advantage Warranty Extension Program for Notebooks.

Yes it is accidental damages but it clearly states underneath the accidental damages Warranty that clause that DOES NOT COVER


Parts not covered by the service
Damages due to negligence or careless use, incorrect maintenance, maintenance by unauthorised personnel, transport in unsuitable packaging, any cause not attributable to manufacturer’s defects and small damages such as scratches, scores, etc. derived from routine product use are excluded from service coverage.
The battery is excluded from the warranty extension service and maintain original warranty conditions ( 180 days ).
The warranty does not cover malfunctions due to viruses or system conflicts due to the installation of drivers or peripherals, data loss for any reason.


Dropping your laptop though accidental is also negligence!



Back to what the thread is about (not acer's policy) an ibook is a great idea!

lomb

hmm that is strange, i think acer sell accidental insurance seperatly. the 3 year pack is 69 or 79, and the 3 year with accidental insurance is 116, there is also the bonus pack of 3 years with laptop bag +mouse+ few other bits and bobs for 100.
see here: https://sslrelay.com/s77548008.oneandoneshop.co.uk/sess/utn;jsessionid=15421e3abaa877b/shopdata/frameset_2020.shopscript

dell also do complete care which is accident insurance but for a similar spec laptop i think dell would want 2500 probably with completecare.

*adele*

i would have internet access because we have an apartment with it over there(spain where i travel to alot)

lomb

could always buy a used pc that will do what u need for 250euro and be more reliable and easier to fix than any laptop.
or could buy a new cheap celeron pc or yes a mac mini too
saves u hauling an expensive laptop about, when all u need is web access, also no real risk of accidental damage.

CathyMoran

Am writing from the 12" powerbook - yes, it was very expensive but it has been very easy to use, is sturdy and works - I do not have to worry about viruses as much, my wireless Broadband works well... They just happen to be quite expensive machines and the software is expensive too. I have travelled quite extensively with my laptop and it was been fine. I also have a Fujitsu Siemens laptop for college - is also a 12" and was a bit cheaper than my powerbook. It is hard deciding between the size of the screen, weight and other issues - have found that most of my male friends prefer the larger screens but I love the fact that the smaller ones are so portable. Personally I would prefer the mac, but then again I have most of the mac products, I love them...

gutta

*adele* wrote:

i would have internet access because we have an apartment with it over there(spain where i travel to alot)

with an apartment in Spain, it sounds like you're loaded so get Daddy to shell out for a cutesy 'ickle iBook to play with. They're fab.