[jmscartho]

Hi there,
I have decided that I need a new laptop, and that it will be an Apple iBook G4 with a 14" screen.

However, having read many articles on this forum from unhappy users of the new iBook that have encountered many technical problems, in particular the Audio CD issue, I am now wondering if I should wait a few months before Apple addresses these problems by correcting them on all new dispatches of the iBook.

I would like to know if Apple are likely to do this, and also if you think I should take a risk and buy it now?

I live in the UK. I would like to buy from the Apple store online, as I would like it to add more memory and an airport extreme card, however I have read many nightmare stories about orders with the Apple store taking weeks to arrive. Do you think I should still go ahead and place my order with them?

Another question I have is: Is Appleworks good, or should I go for Microsoft Office?

Thanks in advance!

[discotronic]

Check out the string:
Poll: ibook G4 which application is best.

It is on this forum right now and talks about AppleWorks and Office.

[mgl]

Originally posted by jmscartho:
Hi there,
I have decided that I need a new laptop, and that it will be an Apple iBook G4 with a 14" screen.

However, having read many articles on this forum from unhappy users of the new iBook that have encountered many technical problems, in particular the Audio CD issue, I am now wondering if I should wait a few months before Apple addresses these problems by correcting them on all new dispatches of the iBook.

I would like to know if Apple are likely to do this, and also if you think I should take a risk and buy it now?

I live in the UK. I would like to buy from the Apple store online, as I would like it to add more memory and an airport extreme card, however I have read many nightmare stories about orders with the Apple store taking weeks to arrive. Do you think I should still go ahead and place my order with them?

Another question I have is: Is Appleworks good, or should I go for Microsoft Office?

Thanks in advance!

You can buy it now. Do not install the 10.3.1 upgrade if it reads audio CDs out of the box. If it doesn't, re-install 10.3 before you do anything else and then you should be fine. This is a brute force way to fix it, but none of the other suggestions (deleting prefs) makes a difference. Yes, not a great ouf of the box experience, but once you've done it, it works fine. I'm using 10.3 quite happily now, while waiting for 10.3.2.

Get MS Office if you need Office compatibility or the full power of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. For home users, Entourage is overkill and you can get by quite handily on the included apps. AppleWorks isn't great and is badly in need of an update.