[wdetmar]

Can someone give me a sanity check here?

I am currently running 10.2.6 (I did a fresh install, no OS 9) on a iBook 366 (Indigo?) Mhz 1 Firewire unit with 192 mb RAM. It runs great. My last laptop was a Compaq P3 600 (1024 x 768) running XP. My laptop before that was an IBM ThinkPad 770x (1280 x 1024). I still use it for email and web browsing. It's the best keyboard and screen I've ever had, on a Windows box, and it worked well as a desktop replacement.

After playing with this 366 Mhz system I really want an iBook, mostly for OSX.

My question is in regard to the iBook screen.

I went to my local CompUSA and they have an 800 Mhz and 900 Mhz on display. To me, the screen fonts look a little fuzzy compared to my iBook 366, and the IBM laptops that I've had. My only tests were with Adobe PDF reader, TextEdit and a demo web page.

1. Should the 900 screen be better all around, compared to what I have now -the 366 Mhz?

2. What technology does Apple use to render fonts on the iBook? Is "fuzzy" just the way it is? I looked at the PB's that were next to the iBooks, again, fuzzy. I looked at the Windows XP laptops, fonts were clear using Notepad. As I write this I'm not sure if the XP boxes were running their font smoothing technology "Clear Type".

3. Is there a way to adjust the clarity of the screen? I know that the systems are "open" and people can play with them at the store. I was wondering if there were some default things that should be set on the iBook that may have to be changed back after customers "play" with the system.

I have found some options in Preferences, but I have not found any documentation yet.

\System Preferences\Display\Color\Calibrate. Adjusting this seems to change the hue of the screen, but not the clarity.

What does \System Preferences\General\Font Smoothing Style do? I can't seem to tell the difference.

My crazy idea, before I make the final purchase, is to create some PDF's, TextEdit Docs, and offline web pages, put them on a CD and bring my iBook 366 mhz and 2 copies of the CD, so that I can view the documents on both systems side by side. My fear is that I may be disappointed with the 900 mhz screen.

Thanks.

[pat++]

The screen of the new iBook should be way better than the 366mhz iBook. It has much better definition (1024x768 instead of 800x600). You are probably not used to font smoothing yet... that's all. You can test the difference with/without font smoothing in IE. (Go in Preferences->Interface Extras) and enable/disable Quartz text smoothing.
The iBook screen is really perfect. You can go for it, you won't regret it.

[arclight]

Yeah, that's just quartz anti-aliasing everything it renders. You can change the anti-aliasing (font smoothing) in prefs and there are also third party apps that offer more control. I have an 800 with the spanning hack and the text on the CRT is blurry compared to the LCD on the ibook. Different types of screens and people make it more of a subjective thing. The main thing is that you can change it. You can even turn it off if you want the jaggies of yesteryear.