[mdc]

ok i have been wondering about buying an iBook for a long while now. i am so very close to getting the money and buying the iBook 800 with maxed ram. and the office deal.

i am a college student and this is what i need it for. office, some photoshop for my website, some webdesign (mainly a text editor), internet, email, watching dvds, mp3s.

i am not crazy about playing games on pc anyway. i got an xbox so playing games on it is not an issue.

i know the g3 is getting old now, but do you think the 800 will be fine for everything?

this is all about $1500 or so. the 12" pb is around $400+ more and i can not afford that.

ok for me?
mike


---edit---
just read that they come with appleworks. and that appleworks can save as and open word documents. how well does this work? or is it worth me getting office?
---/edit---

[sniffer]

Originally posted by mdc:
ok i have been wondering about buying an iBook for a long while now. i am so very close to getting the money and buying the iBook 800 with maxed ram. and the office deal.

i am a college student and this is what i need it for. office, some photoshop for my website, some webdesign (mainly a text editor), internet, email, watching dvds, mp3s.

i am not crazy about playing games on pc anyway. i got an xbox so playing games on it is not an issue.

i know the g3 is getting old now, but do you think the 800 will be fine for everything?

this is all about $1500 or so. the 12" pb is around $400+ more and i can not afford that.

ok for me?
mike

G3 or not, the 800 is fast. Having it maxed out helps a lot. Heck, a coworker of mine bought one around christmas, maxed out the ram, and leaved my no-QE supported 600 mhz iBook in the dust litterary.
If you can afford it, max out the ram and go for the 800. Just my two �.

[biposto]

Go get your iBook N.O.W lol and start enjoying it

[xtal]

Ditto here. The iBook will fit your needs perfectly, especially with the RAM maxed out.

Have fun!

P.S. Get a nice case and some accessories...

[olli2]

Originally posted by mdc:
ok i have been wondering about buying an iBook for a long while now. i am so very close to getting the money and buying the iBook 800 with maxed ram. and the office deal.

i am a college student and this is what i need it for. office, some photoshop for my website, some webdesign (mainly a text editor), internet, email, watching dvds, mp3s.

i am not crazy about playing games on pc anyway. i got an xbox so playing games on it is not an issue.

i know the g3 is getting old now, but do you think the 800 will be fine for everything?

this is all about $1500 or so. the 12" pb is around $400+ more and i can not afford that.

ok for me?
mike


---edit---
just read that they come with appleworks. and that appleworks can save as and open word documents. how well does this work? or is it worth me getting office?
---/edit---

From macspeedzone tests, a G3 800 iBook outperforms easily a last year PowerBook G4 550 in nearly all apsects. The only way the PB G4550 comes close or wins if you do fractal tests alone (without multitasking, etc.). Even in enconding music and such, the iBook wins over it.

The G3 800 MHz, with 512 kbyte L2 cache, the Ati Radeon 7500 and 32 MB VRam _is_ very strong. You also get 30 GB, CD-RW with DVD-Rom, it is really all you might wish for now for performance. The iBook 700 is another stroy, however, with less Vram, lower MHz, no CD-rw. I wish I had the money for the iBook 800.

[mdc]

a few more questions.

sorry about all the questions, i really want to be sure of what to get when i go to the apple store soon.

here is the deal. it will be the ibook 800.
here is the problem. i have heard so many things about more ram, so i decided to just get the extra 512.
i main use for this laptop is college and all the college papers, etc, that i have to write.
should i get the office x deal for $200 or just use appleworks. all i would use in office is just word. iCal will work fine for my caldendar.

if i were to have to save documents in a word format how well would appleworks be able to do that. i read somewhere about a update for appleworks eventually to replace office?

the thing i worry about is will i ever need word. can you buy word sepratly for a cheap price?

the reason for this problem is that i would really like to keep the price around $1500

thanks

[Applefreak01]

Get Office X. Appleworks does allow you to save and edit Word documents, but sometimes I've found that a file I created in Office XP will loose some of it's formating when opened in AppleWorks. Or if you want to save $200 you can always download Open Office from www.openoffice.org for Mac OS X.

[sillyrabbitt]

i bought the 800 with maxed out ram in dec. and i use it SO much and love it my hands hurt!!!

it is such a sweet machine.

ENJOY!!

[ncsuphil]

Yes, I'm almost positive you can get Word separately for ~$100.

You may want to consider buying your 512 ram from a source other than Apple. I saved quite a bit by ordering from OWC (macsales.com).

[mdc]

the idea of buying ram elsewhere seems pretty good.

i found this at the site you recommended.
http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_It...WC100SO512328L
it's 512 for $108. good ram? ok for the ibook? etc? etc?

ok i am fully tech-savy in the ways of a pc. a mac, this is the first i will own. how difficult is it to install the memory in it?

sorry for all the questions.

[Applefreak01]

Installing RAM in the iBook couldn't be easier. Just lift up the keyboard and you have access to the RAM slot. Your iBook will include a step by step picture guide on how to install memory.

[SeSawaya]

my 700 ibook with only 384 megs of ram runs fantastic. You'll be happy!

[Peter]

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
my 700 ibook with only 384 megs of ram runs fantastic. You'll be happy!

whats it like with office v.x?

[mdc]

just incase anyone wanted to know. ok i lie, i had to tell someone. i just got the go ahead to buy it from my family back in south africa (i am a student in florida,usa). they are transfering the money.

i am sooo excited

this week i will buy it.

thank you all for the help. i will report what i think of it as soon as i get it.

[Colonel Panic]

i recently got an ibook 800 and am pleased with performance and LOVE the form-factor, sturdiness and quiet operation. this is no hoover-fan machine like my "work-machine" - a pb 667 (non-DVI). it performs about as well if not better than the 667 (non-dvi) in all areas except altivec-specific apps (duh) and scrolling. for whatever reason scrolling is a little choppier. you feel this a bit with office v.x, which is a slow-scroller to begin with. that said, it is very much useable with Office. it seems to handle quake much better than the 667, for whatever reason, and does it without 300 decibels of fan noise and a baking case...

i'm REALLY happy with the 800.

[skipjack]

Originally posted by mdc:

should i get the office x deal for $200 or just use appleworks.

Don't buy Office X until you check with your college bookstore and see if they have a Microsoft agreement to "rent" the software. At my school, the cost is $25.00 for two installations. If your school doesn't have this option, you may be able to go to any major college with such an agreement and with your student ID you may still be able to get it.

As for rental, you get the installation disk for two weeks, except that some disks do not have to be returned. I suspect Office X is one of those where you get to keep the disk, since my school does not require a deposit for Office X, whereas they do for some of the developers' tools.

If you want to spend even less, it is possible that the bookstore will have old rental software at a discount. For example, Office 98 for the Mac is $9.

[xtal]

Originally posted by mdc:
i main use for this laptop is college and all the college papers, etc, that i have to write.
should i get the office x deal for $200 or just use appleworks. all i would use in office is just word. iCal will work fine for my caldendar.

Although I bought Office, I don't use it much anymore since I started using LaTeX. TeXShop for OS X is a fantastic typesetting tool, and it outputs your document in PDF format, which is great, b/c anybody can view it. You should look into this option. Although the learning curve is a bit steep, you'll find yourself being a convert in a couple of weeks time. It's a very elegant solution.

[mdc]

Want to share your AppleWorks document with the world and have them see it just as you intended? Or for them to view it without changing the file? Thanks to the advanced Quartz graphics system in Mac OS X, simply save the print preview and you automatically create a document in PDF format. Then anyone with Adobe Acrobat Reader � or Mac OS X � can view what you made.

got that off the appleworks website. your idea of .pdf documents does make sense.
any one used this appleworks feature?

[skipjack]

Originally posted by mdc:
got that off the appleworks website. your idea of .pdf documents does make sense.
any one used this appleworks feature?

It is not just an AppleWorks feature. Using the print option in OS X with every application I've seen gives you the choices, "Preview, Save as PDF, Cancel, and Print"

However, the pdf documents cannot be edited; so, you cannot create a document in AppleWorks, save it as a pdf, import it into MS Word, and be able to change it.

[jaske]

Typing this from my iBook 800 . . . first, it's a wonderful machine, the first G3 model (I believe) to run OS X well, largely due to the 32 megs of vram, the amount necessary for true Quartz Extreme acceleration.

MS has negotiated a deal with most universities whereby students can purcahse a "Student Select" version of Office X. This allows you to buy the software, depending on the terms of the contract, from $25 to $100. The only difference between the student select and the retail/academic version is the lack of manuals and a "proper" cd case: it ships in a vanilla cd wrapper. The student select version should be your first option. If your college does not have such a deal, compare Academic prices (just search via Google). . . these are less expensive that Office via the Promo. That should be your last option.

Anyway, purchase the iBook. It's the first Mac I've owned since the advent of OS X that I haven't wanted to replace as soon as a smaller, faster model was released.

[milhouse]

Congratulations. It's a great little machine.

[tycheung]

The G3 800 is a IBM PPC 750fx, i believe - it's fast, has copper SOI interconnects, and according to some site, (forget which), benches about the same as 1.5 gHz P4 or something like that. It's plenty fast for what you are probably going to use it for.

Only deal is that no Altivec simd instruction set, meaning iDVD might be a little slow, which is moot since there is no DVD burner on the machine...

[Applefreak01]

Originally posted by tycheung:
The G3 800 is a IBM PPC 750fx, i believe - it's fast, has copper SOI interconnects, and according to some site, (forget which), benches about the same as 1.5 gHz P4 or something like that. It's plenty fast for what you are probably going to use it for.

Only deal is that no Altivec simd instruction set, meaning iDVD might be a little slow, which is moot since there is no DVD burner on the machine...

That's pretty good if true, a 800MHz G3 the same as a 1.5GHz P4... the iBook looks even better to me now.

[mdc]

Originally posted by jaske:
MS has negotiated a deal with most universities whereby students can purcahse a "Student Select" version of Office X. This allows you to buy the software, depending on the terms of the contract, from $25 to $100. The only difference between the student select and the retail/academic version is the lack of manuals and a "proper" cd case: it ships in a vanilla cd wrapper. The student select version should be your first option. If your college does not have such a deal, compare Academic prices (just search via Google). . . these are less expensive that Office via the Promo. That should be your last option.

i checked and my college is an AER on the microsoft site. Authorized Education Reseller. so whether they sell the academic version of office for around $200 (seems the be the cheapest i can find for the academic version) or if they sell the student select version is beyond me.
i will go check it out tomorrow. hopefully they sell the student select version. my wallet will be all that much more pleased with me.

[jaske]

Originally posted by mdc:
i checked and my college is an AER on the microsoft site. Authorized Education Reseller. so whether they sell the academic version of office for around $200 (seems the be the cheapest i can find for the academic version) or if they sell the student select version is beyond me.
i will go check it out tomorrow. hopefully they sell the student select version. my wallet will be all that much more pleased with me.

Well, my school didn't advertise the student select version for the first year it was available. You were informed about the option by the cashier. So, ask around, and good luck.

[Griggsy]

so is a maxed out 800 be a better day to day bet than a base pb 12"? I would be using it for the same thing the only thing extra would be some dweaver and a bit of lwave.

Can hack to do the second monitor , which would miss out on the external extra screen res, but could live with it for extra RAM and an external drive for same money as base pb

[tycheung]

Originally posted by Applefreak01:
That's pretty good if true, a 800MHz G3 the same as a 1.5GHz P4... the iBook looks even better to me now.

Keep in mind your mileage may vary, depending on what you are doing with the computer, and what sort of benches you are comparing it to. The original article is here, if you want to take a look:

http://www.macnn.com/news.php?id=18094

[tycheung]

Originally posted by Griggsy:
so is a maxed out 800 be a better day to day bet than a base pb 12"? I would be using it for the same thing the only thing extra would be some dweaver and a bit of lwave.

Can hack to do the second monitor , which would miss out on the external extra screen res, but could live with it for extra RAM and an external drive for same money as base pb

hmm...i dunno. The only advantage of the PBG4 12" is the Altivec SIMD instructions and the DDR ram....which normally wouldn't matter unless you were using lightwave, i think - does anyone know for sure? If you were doing any sort of video editing, I'd bet the PBG4 would be the way to go, otherwise, I'd go for the iBook, but personally, I'm biased towards the iBook.

Also, the GeForceGo 420 might be a hair faster than a 7500, but I'm not sure about that either. There were preliminary benches taken at MacWorld, albeit with a early beta of XBench available at barefeats.com which showed the iBook running neck and neck with the PBG4 except where memory bandwidth was concerned, and graphics perf. was about equal (iBook faster in 2D, PBG4 a hair faster in 3D).

It'd be interesting to see how the casing is on the PBG4, tho - the metal might not be as susceptible to mold warp/cheap taiwanese plastic as the iBook's...

[tycheung]

btw, if you want to max out the 800, just max the HD. You can get good ram for a lot cheaper than Apple at other places - OWC (eshop.macsales.com) is one with excellent customer support, and newegg.com is another.

[tycheung]

Originally posted by mdc:
the idea of buying ram elsewhere seems pretty good.

i found this at the site you recommended.
http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_It...WC100SO512328L
it's 512 for $108. good ram? ok for the ibook? etc? etc?

ok i am fully tech-savy in the ways of a pc. a mac, this is the first i will own. how difficult is it to install the memory in it?

sorry for all the questions.

memory looks good - I think the PC100 Cl2 or the PC133 CL3 or better should work.

It's fairly easy - you will need a small size phillips screwdriver (a #0...or was it a #1...), available a radioshack or so. There should be directions available on the web or at apple's site. Just involves popping the latches off the keyboard, unscrewing a removable metal plate, and popping the ram into the socket, then putting everything together.

As opposed to a HD upgrade which requires complete disassembly...

[Griggsy]

well i have a choice an ibook with aport a st load of Ram and an airprt setup or external hd or a bse pb hmmm, you gotta wonder interesting stats that the ibook nay be a smidge faster in 2d

[arclight]

Originally posted by Griggsy:
well i have a choice an ibook with aport a st load of Ram and an airprt setup...

I side for the 12" PB over the ibook. I have an 800 with maxed RAM and it's damn cool BUT. After using the little aluminum PB for fifteen minutes I found it to be faster in almost every respect than my ibook. Benchmarks aside, photoshop ran faster, I could switch between apps faster, the whole experience appeared to be more fluid.

Ironically, this PB belongs to a friend who felt the same way and bought it to replace his brand new 800. Both machines have maxed RAM.

my three cents

[GeneShifter]

Are you sure that Office v.X academic price is $200? That sounds high. With my school (Univ of Texas), we get Office v.X for $7