[kdixey]

Now that I am pretty much decided on the 933 ibook I just wanted to know how current owners of 14" ibook G4's like their machines.

Good or bad.

[Forte]

Originally posted by kdixey:
Now that I am pretty much decided on the 933 ibook I just wanted to know how current owners of 14" ibook G4's like their machines.

Good or bad.

Excellent, couldn't be happier. Best computer I've ever owned. Just make sure you max out the RAM, it does make a difference.

[rixter55]

I love mine, though for portability, the 12 inch would be better. I went for the 14 inch because of the screen size. The 933 is great, with max RAM. It's a little big for use on a plane tray table, but for me that's not a big issue.

I recommend MacSkinz to protect the top of your iBook from scratches, but the website is currently down. (It has been for a few months now, but they claim to be readying a release of new products soon.) Airport Extreme card is a must for me, so I can enjoy the many wireless hotspots here in Seattle. Go for the Bluetooth option if you can, as this will be of greater use in the near future, I believe, and it can only be added later by using an external Bluetooth USB dongle.

I've had no problems with dead or stuck pixels, no hint of logic board problems, no serious heat issues (though, it gets toasty when sitting on my lap, but in a nice way ). The slot loading drive is great, though it takes some getting used to. It makes some disconcerting noises when loading a disk, but it's normal, I'm told.

GarageBand doesn't run terribly well when playing back multi-track files, because of the slow processor speed. The screen is a bit disappointing in my opinion, mainly because it has such a narrow viewing angle. The built in speakers are not so hot. I would recommend a set of compact speakers or nice headphones if you intend to enjoy DVDs or CDs on your iBook.

This may sound like a mixed review, but it's not really. It's a wonderful machine with a few lackluster features. For the money, you get a whole lotta Mac!

Enjoy your new machine!!!

[grand mufti]

just got the same ibook. love it! screen size is perfect for me and works in all tight places. i didnt get max ram from apple becasue of price ( check ramseeker.com ) but my order is in the mail saved me a ton. hope your happy with it if you get you own.

[gonadman]

I've had 2 12"ers and now have the 1GHz 14". I must say I was fairly skeptical at first about the aesthetic appearance of the 14", but it's turned out to be much better than I thought. The bigger screen is better for my poor eyes than the 12", although I certainly never could complain about the 12" screen quality.

All in all I'm very happy with the 14" and can heartily recommend it.

[darcybaston]

This 14" 933Mhz that I got last November is WONDERFUL! Highlights:

-14" screen : bright, crisp, great for movies, for use at a slight distance on a table for music composition, hours upon hours of writing. I haven't experienced any viewing angle problems. It acts as a DVD player for two people and we can see just fine compared to a Compaq Presario laptop we have which doesn't allow side viewing at all.

-space beside keyboard : perfect for gripping. If you want to quickly move it or lift it, the gaps beside the keyboard are perfect.

-speakers: suck. But headphones are so frequently used, I hardly notice.

-keyboard : the up arrow and right shift key are placed in just the right way that my pinky is all too frequently hitting the shift key and up arrow one after the other. When typing really fast (which I do), that means i frequently accidentally highlight a line of text and lose it hte moment I type the next letter I shifted for. It also doesn't always go back in straight when you take it out for the first time. I just can't seem to get the volume down and eject key to stop rubbing against the case right above them. The keyboard does NOT touch the screen.

-power connector: love it. It comes with a very neat transformer where you can snap in the power prong to go into the oulet (and the slim design lets it fit in a powerbar setup perfectly), or you can snap in a nice supple cord which gives it plenty of length.

-heat: if you run SETI @ home, the left palm rest can get warm, but not hot. The hottest spot on the iBook G4 if above the keyboard, dead center near the vents.

-staining: That slight elevation of heat on the left causes some sweat off the palm to get into the porous plastic and within 4 months, you've got a yellowish palm print. I wash my hands religiously before I touch the iBook, and I still can't get those darn palm prints off. Someone suggested a Mr. Clean pad of some kind, but I'm in Canada and can't find anything like that. I feel stuck.

-rubber, feet, latch, etc. : the rubber feet are very slide-proof. Awesome. The lid closing latch is magnetic so you can see the arm come out no problem to latch on.

-portability: it may be because i've never tossed around a 12", but this thing slides in my backpack or fits in the hand/under arm just fine. If it's not as portable, I can't tell. I'm loving the portability of it. You can flip it open to work/watch movies in a car no problem.

This thing is well balanced. If you put your palm flat and support it underneat like a serving tray, it just doesn't wobble. You can toss this thing around very well and it doesn't feel awkward at all.

Speed: This is my first new Mac since a 400MHz iMac DV SE (graphite), and it's a screamer!
At least, most of the time.

Games:The 32 megs of vram drive all my games lightning quick. Quake III Arena and Warcraft III are especially nice to play. Slightly older games like Myst Exile, Pod Racer, The Sims, Diablo II LOD, run brilliantly too of course. I've tried a few different versions of the Unreal Tournament demos, and they're unplayable though, so don't think just *any* game will work well. Also, that Aspyr FPS StarWars game (not the one where you swing a light saber with a TombRaider view and level one has you in a port where you meet a wookie) wouldn't do anything speed related either. I couldn't play the demo at all.

Productivity: Appleworks, Word, and internet apps are super snappy.

Graphics: Get RAM. Max the RAM. Adobe's demos of Photoshop 7, GoLive 6, InDesign 2 or what have you take a while to load and each of them suck up intense amounts of RAM. You'll notice virtual ram at play when you use these apps and switch in between them. Unless you use Photoshop Elements (own that). It's nice and lean. The performance is great, but since I've never used these apps on an Apple tower of any kind, I can't say what that version of great is like. For me, compared to the old iMac, I'm in speedy-dream-land.

Music: Here's my favorite part!
Garageband:I don't know why people keep complaining about GarageBand. I frequently have 5+ tracks per song and I've never seen a hiccup. Maybe it's because I run it as the only app?

Reason Adaptive, screams. Really fast, zero latency with all tracks filled up.

Ableton's Live Delta (and its 3.03 demo) is very fast and responsive. I love it.

SoundStudio which comes standard with new iBooks has a funny speed glitch though. If you're running on battery power, and the CPU is set to 'automatic' speed, anytime you click on the batter power menu to have it pop up (I wasn't showing the time left and wanted to see the time left), a stutter gets inserted into it. Peak 4 doesn't seem to suffer from this annoyance.

Hard drive speed: I don't use filevault, but do burn CDs. When you're setting up a CD to burn, you drag files and folders onto its icon and they get copied to a temporary folder. For some reason, copying large 600 megabyte files takes forever. You can sit there and watch the counter go by megabyte by megabyte. It does several megabytes per second, but it seems really slow. I did a RAM disk once however and copied a file to RAM and it was a gazillion times quicker. So it obviously loads to RAM infinitely quicker than it does sector to sector copy. Not sure what that means except maybe the seek time sucks, but the raw burst reading is good.

Other notes: When the backlight has been off and is suddenly required to come on (ie: wake up from sleep, or from a timed screen shut off), it takes about 5 seconds to reach full brightness. It's like it gets there g-r-a-d-u-a-l-y. This is my first LCD so I don't know if that's normal. Doesn't bother me, but there it is.

Screen hinge: tight and stable. Love it. Hasn't loosened at all in the months I've had the laptop. Then again, I only close it when I'm packing it. I just set it to sleep with the lid open the rest of the time. I'm a little paranoid from previous iBook adventures I've heard about.

Battery: great life. Can watch full DVDs (movie plust additional content, more than 2hours)

I had also written a few more screen fulls of experience, but Safari crashed on me while I tried to do a CMD-X, and hit a succession of CMD-S and CMD-A instead. *sigh* Oh well, enjoy what I did manage to write.

You can check out some of the music I've done on this iBook here: http://www.icompositions.com/auditor...er=105&thumb=1 .

[vixi]

Originally posted by rixter55:
I recommend MacSkinz to protect the top of your iBook from scratches, but the website is currently down. (It has been for a few months now, but they claim to be readying a release of new products soon.)

There is a store on ebay that sells macskinz for ibooks. http://stores.ebay.com/MacSkinz

I haven't ordered from them. I was just browsing since I am getting my ibook this summer, and want to make it as pretty as possible. :>

- Victoria

[tekno_geek911]

I love mine...The only flaw is the sound quality from the speaker's but that can be fixed with an external set

[eyes on me]

yeah just expand the ram coz mine is 256 and always get low system memory (download a lot) and the speaker aint that good but other than that its alright

[MRTrauffer]

Originally posted by kdixey:
Now that I am pretty much decided on the 933 ibook I just wanted to know how current owners of 14" ibook G4's like their machines.

Good or bad.

Best computer I've ever owned. Definitely glad I made the switch.

[darcybaston]

MRTrauffer was one of the first people on MacNN and the Apple support forum to share photos of the new 14".

I love my 14"! And I love the phalic implications of it!

[kdixey]

It's been an interesting few days. I have been considering the 12" powerbook as well, but I can't shake the feeling that I get everytime I see a 12" powerbook, that I can't see the value in it given the extra money (at least for me). Also, (and maybe this is just me) but I don't find the screen quality on the powerbook to be as nice. I thought the 12" powerbook and ibook used the SAME screen (and the 14" was simply a variation by the same maufacturer) but the ibook screen to my eyes appear sharper and brighter.

Don't get me wrong, I think the powerbook is a terrific machine, but it just doesn't seem to do it for me. Now, the 15:" powerbook is another matter entirely, but that is DEFINITELY out of my budget.

Thanks.

[tekno_geek911]

I know what you mean about the screen quality...The iBook's display's are so much brighter. I dont think its worth the extra $4-500 at all for smaller size,DVI and a little faster CPU. The 15"/17" PowerBook's are definately a nice investment though,the features justify the cost.

[kdixey]

Yeah, that's the same conclusion I'm coming to, The ibooks are a great value and I don't see that differences in the 12" powerbook justifying the price. When I look at the 12" and the 15" powerbook side by side I'm really struck by how out of place the 12" powerbook seems in comparison.

I notice that many powerbook owners refer to them as "professional" machines. I find this kinda funny. I'm not looking to start a flame war, I can appreciate that powerbooks are really exceptional laptops but the term "professional" is not quite accurate either. A professional machine (to me) is anything I can make a living with. I find that a well equipped ibook is just as capable as a powerbook for the kind of design work that I do. I know quite a few designers that used their Pismos to make a living and the 14" ibook is easily as capable as a Pismo.

In fact, if you look at the current crop of powerbooks they have lost a few things that I would consider pro level features over the years. In fact, the Psimo was a lot more user serviceable and expandable than any powerbook or ibook currently on the market. Sure the powerbooks are faster than the ibooks, but I can tell you from experience that the computer spends more time waiting for me than I do waiting for it. Now if you are someone that NEEDS the most horsepower you can get then I agree completely that the powerbooks are the way to go (although I don't see their performance as THAT much better than the ibooks) and if you need the features they have then the choice is clear, but the ibook is a very capable machine despite its "consumer" heritage.

[David Lee]

I love my 933/60GBHD/640MB ram/Bluetooth iBook, until I have to haul it around. It is simply to heavy to take everywhere for me, but then I have a bad back to factor in. In conclusion, it has the best price-performace balance and value in Apple's entire history, but it is a lttle too heavy for carrying it around all day/everyday. If you are tougher than I am it may do, but if you need a lighter machine, go for the 12" or a Powerbook. IF not, you will love it, even the keyboard is good enough to work on all day!

(3 years ago I payed twice what the iBook cost me for half the performance - or less! - for a G3 tower)

[kdixey]

Have you ever used the 12" ibook (or powerbook for that matter)? I'm curious if its comfortable enough for doing a lot of typing?

[Ry�kan]

I've got a 12" iBook (G3, 500) and my daughter's got the 14" G-4. I'm pretty sure the keyboards are the same size, but the 12" feels cramped.

I type pretty fast, but I've never been fully comfortable with the notebook keyboards. Maybe it's because they're on a flat plane. And the arrow keys are small.

For work at home, I bought an external keyboard. Well worth the expense in my opinion. On the road, I just have gotten used to correcting a lot of mistakes.

The 14" iBook is definitely a cool machine, though. My daughter loves hers. My screen seems tiny after getting used to hers.

[darcybaston]

Same here. After a month or so on the 14", when I saw a 12" again, I couldn't believe how tiny and annoying it was. My choice for the 14" was validated all over.

I can sit this thing a few feet away from me while I compose music on my Roland synth or whatever, and still see measures and the like flying by without having to even try to read. Blam! Information on the screen is big and beautiful!

[SFZoll]

I was dinking around in the local Frys yesterday and had to look at the various Apple gear and I have to agree that the 12 inch powerbook looked very tiny not that I'm used to the 933 mhz 14 inch iBook.

Notes: I really need to upgrade the memory from the basic but even with just 256MB it runs very well. More will be sweet. I do think it is a sweet spot for power, price, etc as well. I would never have purchased it if the keyboard would have been the same as the earlier model. It isn't as nice as the Powerbook keyboards but is just a bit off that mark. If you have to type a lot, you'll find it great for that. Battery life has not been a let down at all. My employer has had various PC laptops and battery life was terrible--coming to an iBook was a breath of fresh air.

[Yana21rk]

I just bought a 14" ibook and i have to agree with most posts here. ILOVE IT> it has the power and the keyboad is great. Funny, i was looking at buying a 12" all along, but when it cam eto buying the machine, I realised that 12" was way to small to make me feel comfortable with it. So 14" ibook is a dream machine. all i now have to figure out is where to get expensive apple software for chaper - I mean Photoshop is almost $700!!! any leads?

[kdixey]

I agree, I think the 14" is a terrific machine. I think it is often ignored, bu I have found (in the last week of owning one) that is is a fast, capable machine with an excellent keyboard and a wonderful bright screen.

As far as getting software cheap...I found an old copy of Photoshop 4 at a used software store and noticed it still had the registration card in it (which is more common than you might think). I bought it for $50 and upgraded to the latest version for about $150. You could also try eBay, I found someone selling an unregistered copy of Final Cut Pro and saved about $400 by the time I had finished upgrading to the latest version. I also look in the want ads for people that are selling off software they may have gotten in a bundle deal with hardware (I got After Effects that way).

Those methods are good ways to get a break on software without doing anything dicey. It takes a bit of leg work and research, but it can pay off in the end.

[Mrjinglesusa]

I'll add one more pro 14" iBook post. I have a 17" iMac (800 MHz G4) my wife bought me and since I got the iBook (to replace a 500 MHz G3 Pismo my business took back when I left) I hardly use the iMac. Wireless internet in the living room is awesome! Our router (along with the iMac) are in the basement so using the iBook upstairs just rocks. GREAT computer. Can't recommend it enough.

[SirRuka]

Originally posted by darcybaston:
-staining: That slight elevation of heat on the left causes some sweat off the palm to get into the porous plastic and within 4 months, you've got a yellowish palm print. I wash my hands religiously before I touch the iBook, and I still can't get those darn palm prints off. Someone suggested a Mr. Clean pad of some kind, but I'm in Canada and can't find anything like that. I feel stuck.

I picked up a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser at my local Zher's. Check an upper shelf by the lysol and air fresheners.

[Randman]

The new G4s are a step up from the G3s and compare favorably with the PowerBooks. Keyboard feels more solid. The elimination of the CD tray was a great idea. Battery time is as good, or better (now I have a G4, 1 Ghz, used to have a G3 600 mhz). It gets a little warmer but nothing like some of the tiBooks when they're churning away. Airport Extreme works better on an iBook (alu dulls the signal a touch).

[selowitch]

I find myself hoping that in the next revision of the 14" iBook that they will put in a higher-resolution screen than the 12". 1024 x 768 resolution is so late nineties!

[HazelGirl]

I hope they add a backlit keybaord

[Cipher13]

I don't get it. What benefit does the 14" have over the 12"?

It's got the same screen resolution as the 12", so I only see it as being a reasonable choice if you are vision impaired.

[kdixey]

You don't have to be vision impaired to prefer the 14" screen. I just found the 12" screen too small to be comfortable, I didn't say I couldn't see the 12" screen. I do a lot of writing and the 14" screen is quite nice to use. If you find the 12" screen to be fine then more power to you, the smaller form factor is very convenient.