pc or mac?????help

bnev

hey,

just want some people's advice. I'm looking to get a laptop(as small and portable as possible) to use for college work. Just typing out projects and the likes. No games or anything, i have a home computer for that!! Was leaning towards a powerbook. But I'm not too sure how easy it is to change over and use them with the college PCs.

I will also be buying it in an apple store in the US too. Does anyone know if there would be to go with the warrenty in Ireland if it is bought in the US and I have a problem??

thanks
bnev

formatman

I would recommend the MAC route based on your needs

I would wait until after the APPLE expo in France in September to buy incase they update the models of say the IBOOK ...or wait until they update if it is before then

try the education discount store on www.apple.com/ie go to the store and log in with your school or collecge details

NEOoffice , a version of open office is free and will do most of your basic word and excel work ,buy Iwork which includes KEYNOTE 2 ...a advanced version of Powerpoint

bnev

thanks for the advice. But how easy is it to transfer files between an apple and the college pcs?? If I wanted to print them out. I don't have a printer at home so I have to use the ones in college!!

bnev

Peteer

Hi Bnev,

For printing on the PC. One of the print options on the Mac is to save as PDF. So if you use this any time you need to print on a PC all you will have to do is transfer the PDF to the PC and regardless of the application you produce the document on should always get the same output on the PC printer.

HTH,
Peter

eth0_

Formatman - it's "Mac", "Apple" and "iBook".

Peteer

eth0_ wrote:

Formatman - it's "Mac", "Apple" and "iBook".

formatman wrote:

I would recommend the MAC ........ APPLE expo in France ............. IBOOK.
.... buy Iwork which includes KEYNOTE 2 ...

Ya missed Keynote & iWork!

formatman

.... on second thoughts doesn't even deserve a reply

bnev

if i got office for mac will that work with no problems transferring to pc?? I have been told different answers by different people!!

Wibbs

bnev wrote:

hey, just want some people's advice. I'm looking to get a laptop(as small and portable as possible) to use for college work. Just typing out projects and the likes. No games or anything, i have a home computer for that!! Was leaning towards a powerbook. But I'm not too sure how easy it is to change over and use them with the college PCs.

You should have no problem at all. The PDF option is there and I've not had any problems with transferring MS Office docs from mac to PC and vice versa.

I will also be buying it in an apple store in the US too. Does anyone know if there would be to go with the warrenty in Ireland if it is bought in the US and I have a problem??

As it's a worldwide warranty Apple dealers/resellers have to cover the warranty on any Mac brought to them. Even if you don't have the reciept the serial number should tell them the date of manufacture.

From what you describe, the 14" iBook would sound like a better bet. Just slap in extra RAM and away you go. The iBook has better battery life and better wireless reception than the PowerBook and you save a few quid too.

If You do go the powerBook route, I wouldn't go for the 12"PowerBook as I think it's a waste of money IMHO. The 17" is nice but very delicate. The 15" is the best in the range IMHO. Go for the combo model(CD/DVD CD Writer), you'll again save a few quid and if you do need to burn DVD's get an external one (Eg LaCie) as they're faster and burn dual layer and will cost about 150.00.

deevey

as small and portable as possible

12' Ibook all the way ...

It'll do everything you need and no problems with transferring to other computers you can use MS office or neooffice .. both will do the trick fine without a hitch..

Powerbook in my mind seems like overspend for your needs and you can go splash out on a gig of ram.. battery life seems better on the ibook too.. (i get 5+ hours outta mine most of the time....depending how bright my screen is set.

.. if you dont need it straight away take the advice in one of the last posts and wait til sept and see if the ibook gets an update

bnev

well i was planning on buying it late august early september anyway, so i might as well wait and see. When will the upgrades get announced?

rsynnott

eth0_ wrote:

Formatman - it's "Mac", "Apple" and "iBook".

Brandname Tourettes. Or possibly he just writes for a tabloid.

David Stewart

In relation to compatibility issues, I'm a journalist and I use MS Office on a Mac. I supply my copy as Word document to all of the magazines I work for and there is never a problem and I know for a fact that some of them use PCs for editorial. I've never had a complaint yet. I've also used my powerbook on one magzine's PC network and I was able to print to the office laser printer eventually. (Combination of network access privileges and out of date drivers)

Urban Weigl

bnev wrote:

if i got office for mac will that work with no problems transferring to pc?? I have been told different answers by different people!!

I often work with Word and some Excel documents created on PC's, as well as the other way around, and I haven't had any problems yet. So yes, it will work fine, and I actually find Office Mac 2004 better than the PC version.

Off topic, but Apple just updated some of their products -- namely the iBook and the Mac mini -- yesterday; so now is definitely a good time to buy. Have you considered the 12" iBook instead of a PowerBook? You could save a lot of money, and it's really good value, not to mention very portable and with good battery life. Apple is finally including enough RAM out of the box, as well as not just WiFi but also bluetooth, so you really won't need to spend any extra on upgrades. I hope I'm not getting too technical.

Urban Weigl

By the way, a really excellent word process for Mac, which I now often use instead of Microsoft Word, is Nisus Writer Express. You can find it at http://www.nisus.com -- it's $39 for students. It uses RTF as its native file format, which was created by Microsoft and as such works seamlessly with Word, etc.

richieg

Urban Weigl wrote:

I often work with Word and some Excel documents created on PC's, as well as the other way around, and I haven't had any problems yet. So yes, it will work fine, and I actually find Office Mac 2004 better than the PC version.

Off topic, but Apple just updated some of their products -- namely the iBook and the Mac mini -- yesterday; so now is definitely a good time to buy. Have you considered the 12" iBook instead of a PowerBook? You could save a lot of money, and it's really good value, not to mention very portable and with good battery life. Apple is finally including enough RAM out of the box, as well as not just WiFi but also bluetooth, so you really won't need to spend any extra on upgrades. I hope I'm not getting too technical.

Its a pity apple don't offer the 12" ibook with superdrive and then it would be a great little notebook. I have been deliberating over this for a while now but with the recent upgrade I think I'll go for the 14" which isn't that far froma p/book now.

Dr_Teeth

The new 12" iBook definately. It's cheap and powerful enough to do what you need. Both the 12" and 14" iBooks have the same display resolution (1024x768) so you really gain nothing for the extra money other than things looking bigger.

You will be able to open PC documents with either MS Office for Mac or NeoOffice, even the built-in TextEdit application can open word docs, though you won't see advanced things like images and special layouts. You'll be able to connect to Windows file-sharing networks and print to shared printers too.

I'm writing this on my 4 year old 12" iBook. It's only 500Mhz but it's still going strong! In my experience Mac laptops have better build quality and keep their value and usefulness long after their PC equivalents. They also usually have a longer battery life and handle being put to sleep and woken up much better - I leave mine on for weeks at a time because I just shut the lid when I'm done with it.

With MacOS you won't have to worry about most viruses, exploits and spyware either. So get an iBook.

D.

Hugh_C

richieg wrote:

with the recent (iBook) upgrade I think I'll go for the 14" which isn't that far froma p/book now.

I've been deliberating as well, and agree that the 14" superdrive iBook looks like great value. I currently have a 3 year old powerbook (15" TiBook 800MHz) which isn't going to last too much longer - I get slightly electrocuted when it's on charge. The only thing about the iBook that's making me doubtful is the display - there's no scope for plugging it into an external display with a higher resolution - there's a VGA out ok, but I think it's stuck at 1024*768 mirroring, whereas the PowerBook has a DVI out which can be hooked up to a display with higher res, and it doesn't have to mirror the main display.

Hmm. I can't afford one anyway...

deevey

there's no scope for plugging it into an external display with a higher resolution - there's a VGA out ok, but I think it's stuck at 1024*768 mirroring

Google screen spanning doctor for the ibook .. ~Im currently running a second display spanned (widescreen 15') with the screen spanning doctor

Used it without a hitch for last 8 months

It will span to any display you care over VGA at any resolution the display supports ... and allows you to span to s-video / composite as well (what i mainly use it for)

Oh ibook is alot tougher in my opinion to the powerbook.. having dropped mine multiple times from a 4ft bench its still A1.

Only shame is the low hard drive speed .. it can be upgraded though with a bit of care and good memory for where the screws go..

Urban Weigl

I would definitely go for the iBook in your case. It was just updated as well, so it's very good value at the moment. I'd save my money and go for the 12" version though, because it's more portable, and has virtually the same specs, and I rarely ever burn DVD's (remember it still has a CD burner and DVD player, so yo ucan burn CD's and watch DVD's fine).

Once you add the student discount it's cheaper again (if you are a student, just go to the Appple store for Ireland at http://www.apple.com/iestore/ and click the "Student" link on yer right, it will ask you for your university and city, and after that you can order at discounted prices).

deevey

And an external USB DVD writer if you decide you wanna burn em, will work just fine as idvd 5 has been updated to export an image file which can be burned with toast