[urban]

I went to future shop(Canadian equivilent of BestBuy) today and tried out the 900MHZ 14.1" iBook. previously I had played with the PB 12" @ another store.
I feel that the iBook seems to be more responsive when opening applications,i.e. MS word, iTunes, iMovies, and other apps as well. the trackpad seems to respond much quicker and more precious. however, the font is blurry/ugly in MS word for whatever reason on the iBook. the sound from the ibook is also inferior to the powerbook. in addition, the ibook appears to be less sharp than the powerbook(any reason why).
my biggest gripe about the ibook is that the keyboard FEELS CHEAP. IT'S FREAKING PLASTIC(or so it feels like).
however, I very much like the white colour the ibook has got. I like it better than the metalic look of the powerbook

the reason I used MS word to compare both laptops is because i will be mainly using the laptop for schoo. word, excel, internet, music, and that's pretty much about it. i dont plan on playing games on the laptop becuz that's what a desktop's for.
i dont understand what altevec(sp) thingie is becuz im a soon-to-be switcher can someone please explain to me or point me to a read.

thanx

[gorgonzola]

I'm a little confused about your gripes about the keyboard. Most keyboards are plastic, and feel plastic. Desktop keyboards, laptop keyboards, whatever. It's all plastic. I'd have trouble naming keyboards that weren't plastic. FWIW, after using the iBook keyboard for 3 years, it still works fine.

The trackpad responsiveness should be the same, and the responsiveness of the OS should be pretty similar between the two; I'm surprised you noticed such a large difference. I wonder if there wasn't something strange going on with the PowerBook when you tested it.

AFAIK, the screen quality is pretty similar, so it's really strange that you noticed some great difference between the antialiasing on both. I've used Word on this iBook for years and the AA looks fine.

Of course, you're entitled to your opinion. I just wonder whether what you noticed was what you would generally see.

[urban]

ur rite, the trackpad on the powerbook could've been dirty that could explain its unresponsiveness.
and when i said the keyboard on the ibook felt plastic i was comparing it to that of powerbook. the pb keyboard felt better and didnt have the plastic feel.
to me the ibook didnt produce sharp graphics that could be due to the lighting of the shop.

at the very least i never meant to diss the ibook becuz i am going to get one when my school runs promotions on it in august.

[gorgonzola]

Yeah, the iBook obviously has a worse graphics card, but the quality of AA in apps like Word should be pretty much identical.

It's true that the PowerBook keyboard is unusually metallic...but that's something peculiar to the PB.

I'm sure you'll like the machine once you get it. It's not a G5 speed demon, but it's a real work horse that will chug through almost anything you throw at it. Very portable, and a nice, solid case. Mine is still in excellent condition after 3 years of international use and I would continue using it without hesitation if it was a bit faster...but unfortunately 500 MHz/384 MB RAM is getting rather poky now.

[alien]

Originally posted by urban:
[...] however, the font is blurry/ugly in MS word for whatever reason on the iBook.

[...] in addition, the ibook appears to be less sharp than the powerbook(any reason why).

[...] i dont understand what altevec(sp) thingie is becuz im a soon-to-be switcher can someone please explain to me or point me to a read.

If the iBook was running the MS Office Test Drive, or the full version not updated with the first service release, it wouldn't be using Quartz text smoothing, but the older and more coarse QuickDraw smoothing. That would explain what you saw.

As for the screen itself, you must take in account that the 14" iBook has a low number of pixels (1024x768) in a rather large area. IOW, a lower dpi than (all?) other Macs, which would make it look less sharp. The 12" has the same number of pixels in a small area - so it has the highest dpi of Macs, so it'll look sharper. The PowerBooks are somewhere in between - probably best for many people.

Without going into details, AltiVec is similar to all the MMX/SSE/SSE2/3DNow! technologies in the PC world (but much better and useful). It's a technology that lets the processor do the same operation on more than one data element at the same time. It won't be a problem for most of your intended work not to have it.

I've had a iBook 500/12" for 2 years now. It's still a great machine. (But I do feel the need for something bigger/better/faster/more.) The iBooks are great, I'd go for the 12" though.

[peen]

Originally posted by gorgonzola:
Yeah, the iBook obviously has a worse graphics card

Not true.

The iBook has an ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 with 32MB of DDR RAM.

The PowerBook 12" has an NVIDIA GeForce4 420 Go with 32MB of DDR RAM.

I can't find benchmarks at hand, but I've read reports that show the ATI to outperform the GeForce. Does anyone have URLs to prove this?

This was one of the deciding factors for me of getting an iBook since I wanted to play games - I wanted the best graphics card and since not many games (if any?) are Altivec optimised, the 900mhz iBook is actually better for games than the PowerBook, IMHO.