[robert]

Does anyone have any real world experiences with these new ibooks? I am thinking of getting one but am concrned with the power of them. How do they relate to the g4 towers. (do they equal a g4 733)
Running Illustrator and such.
thanks,
Robert

 

[Dr.G.]

Robert, I have had one of the new 14" iBooks (with everything that could be put in to this laptop included) for about 10 days (typing on it now). It does all that I wanted it for -- iMovie and iPhoto (my son will start to use iTunes during the Christmas break). My wife has a fairly new Dell Inspiron, so this is all I have to compare it to re another laptop. Is there something specific you want to know about this laptop that has not been written up before on various websites? I have used a friend's G3 iBook and this is much faster, better screen, etc.

 

[ekcondon]

I have been drooling for a new iBook G4 for a long time, and I'm finally getting one for Christmas , I'm paying half

. I was trying to decide between a 15" Powerbook or a nice 12" or 14" iBook. All in all, for the price, the iBook does everything I need it to and MORE!. I have only comapred a G3 800 iBook to a G4 Quicksilver 800, haven't comapred it to any of the early model G4's.

 

[Chealion]

In my house there is a 12" iBook G4 and a 800 Mhz G4 tower (QuickSilver 2002.)

Spec wise the two are quite close, but there are definite differences that can be felt between the two. Particularly when you are accessing anything from the hard drive. The difference between a 4800 RPM drive and a 7200 RPM drive is huge. The iBook with its slower drive does take more time to do some tasks, but if you aren't too concerned about hitting the hard disk so much (You have enough RAM) the iBook just flies. It would be very comparable to a QuickSilver 733 without the L3 Cache. Only it isn't as comparable. The 933 Mhz and 1 Ghz models of the iBook would be even faster then 733 so for the most part you'll find the performance quite close between the two of them.

 

[Dr.G.]

Chealion, your comment about time seems to be accurate. Patience is helpful when comparing an iBook to a PowerBook. Still, my personal decision was made easier when I realized that by getting the iBook rather than a 17" PowerBook (as I had once considered), I am able to get a Sony 828 digital camera (when they are finally released), and even an iPod (if that is what I wanted, which I do not).

 

[Aaross]

Robert, I've had my G4 933 iBook for about a 3 weeks now and love it. My work machine (I'm an illustrator) is a G4 867 with 640mb of ram. The ibook has 256mb.
Now, I don't use the iBook for my work, so I can't give you a direct comparison, my main software is Corel's Painter 8, which is not loaded on the iBook. General impressions are that the iBook is just a tad slower than my work machine doing basic things like opening & closing files, etc. Goofing around in Photoshop and Illustrator the speeds seem comparable, but then again, I have no graphics tablet hooked up to the ibook and haven't played around with large files. As Chealion pointed out, the hard drive could be the speed difference and obviously I have double the ram in the G4 tower.

If I get some time in the next few days, I'll load Painter on the iBook and hook up the Wacom tablet and put it through its paces. I'll get back to this post, I'm kind of curious myself on the comparison.

 

[Dr.G.]

Would someone explain what a "bounce" is on the dock? Someone asked me if when I opened up iMovie or iPhoto, or some other thing on the dock, did I not get frustrated with the many "bounces". I know the icon goes up and down one or two times and then open up instantly. Is this the "bounce" that he was so hung up about with his G3 iBook?

 

[moonsocket]

Dr.G.
Yes, that is the bounce.

Does your ibook have the bluetooth built in? i think i should have ordered mine with that. i was looking at the bluetooth mouse and keyboard today. really nice!

chris

 

[robert]

Thanks all. I am using a g4 350mhz tower with 896mb ram for line art illustration work right now. it hangs a lot of the time. I also am lossing office space due to a new addition in the family so portability is a nice feature. aaross, those comparisons would be great.
hope to hear more from real users.
Robert

 

[Dr.G.]

Moonsocket, I had 640mb RAM, Bluetooth, Keynote and Airport Extreme put in by Apple. All I had to do was take it out of the box and plug it in, and I was ready to register and roll. Airport Extreme and Bluetooth (with my Logitech Optical Wireless mouse) were recognized instantly. Talk about easy???

My only concern has been doxie hair on the keyboard and outer shell (static electricity)...that and dirty hands on the keyboard. I get 4+ hours on the battery, but I am using the plug-in electric box, so this is not an issue. I am not a "road warrior".

 

[Aaross]

Robert, I managed to hook up my tablet and install Painter on my iBook and I'm happy to announce that I didn't notice any difference in performance between the 2 machines. However, going from a 21" Cinema Display to a 14" monitor was a bit harder on the eyes.

 

[robert]

Aaross, that is great news. I use Illustrator to do simular work as you. Nice work by the way.
Thanks for the real world test.
Robert