[orlando12]

Ok,

So I am new to this forum and although a month ago I bought a dell laptop, I am now considering selling it for a new ibook(w/the student discount and 25$ off coupon, it's not too expensive anymore).However, I was wondering If I would be giving any sort of power up by selling it, and if it would be worth it.

Daily applications include web surfing, word, excel, aim, watching dvd's, and photoshop, occasionally.


My current dell specs are as follows:

Inspiron 1100, 2.2ghz celeron, 512 ram, combo drive, 15 in. screen, 30 gig hd...

Now the reason I am thinking of switching is because a. I have had some hardware problems, b. Am intersted in starting to edit video, and c. The screens on all the apple's I have ever seen look quite sharper than pc...

If I were to go with the ibook g4 12in, and max out the ram, would I notice any improvements, or lags???


Thanks for any help or suggestions you can offer up...

-orlando12

[rlane]

I went from an Apple to a Dell 5100 laptop. The quality of the Dell is not an issue for me, the operating system (XP Pro) is. The stability and ease of use of Mac O/S makes any short coming an iBook or other Mac system may have.

I went to look at the new iBook G4 and was not too impressed by the design....it looked a little on the cheap side; however, the iBook was intended to be rugged - and it appears that it is. Despite how it looks, an iBook is more functional due to the O/S. And that makes all of the difference.

[bradbissell]

I have both a Dell Inspiron 5100 and a 800Mhz iBook G4. I really prefer the ibook over the Dell. Actually, this is my first apple and I'm amazed at the quality of the ibook. Yes, it is made of plastic, but so is the Dell. I have never had a problem with wireless on the ibook, but have constant dropouts on the Dell.

As far as everyday tasks are concerned, my two machines are equal in speed and reliability, however, I prefer working in OSX. I never thought I would say that since I have been a PC zelot all my life. OSX is much nicer and friendlier than WindowsXP or 2000. Oh, and expose is perhaps the best feature of any operating system to date. Another perk of OSX.

Good luck with your choice, but I would say get the ibook. You'll be happier.

[webcookie]

I have a G4 iBook and a Dell Inspiron (specs are in my signature). I prefer the iBook to the Dell. The Dell is constantly having issues. If you read the Dell support forums, you'll see that all their laptops have issues, and it doesn't affect just a few people; there are literally hundreds of posts by different people describing the same issue. -insert angry rant about Dell here- Dell's tech support sucks, too. I think you should definately get the iBook; I'm really glad I did.

[Krusty]

Well, not to play Dell's advocate .. but the hardware problems you've had are a remote possibility with any system (even the new iBook). I recently saw a survey of 39,000 computer purchasers in 2002 from Consumer Reports (read: NOT an organization that will be biased toward a particular platform) which showed Apple just edging out Dell for reliability and by a pretty hefty margin for quality of tech support. BUT .. both Apple and Dell were really in a league of their own .. far ahead of the rest of the pack. My point: don't do it JUST for hardware reliability ... its about the same for both companies.

Having said that, I'll echo what the other two poster's said. OS X will make the switch worthwhile. XP is FAR BETTER than previous versions of Windows (especially at the home user level), IMHO ... but still seems like a hack job compared to OS X. Some people say that OS X is "easier" ... in my book, the fact that you can do the same things while learning fewer "rules" means that it was better designed.

[nvaughan3]

Originally posted by webcookie:
I have a G4 iBook and a Dell Inspiron (specs are in my signature). I prefer the iBook to the Dell. The Dell is constantly having issues. If you read the Dell support forums, you'll see that all their laptops have issues, and it doesn't affect just a few people; there are literally hundreds of posts by different people describing the same issue. -insert angry rant about Dell here- Dell's tech support sucks, too. I think you should definately get the iBook; I'm really glad I did.

It's not shocking that company leading in market share selling tens of millions of computers yearly might have <gasp> even thousands of complaints. You see it here too on a smaller scale.

[orlando12]

I appreciate the input from everyone...

I have never used OSx, however, am eager to learn, and will base my decision after I have.


-orlando12

[wludavid]

Orlando12,
Did you post a similar question on any Dell or PC forums? I'd be interested in reading the responses. FWIW, I mostly use my 700 MHz iBook when I'm at home, although I do have a Dell box too. I prefer OS X, but WinXP is pretty usable.

D

[Lateralus]

orlando12:

The best way to pick would be to simply go into a CompUSA (if you have one) and test out the new iBook for yourself.

The opinions you will get here will be unfairly in favor of the iBook, just as the responses you would recieve on a PC message board would be unfairly in favor of the Dell.

The best way to make a real judgement is with first hand experience.

Whichever way you go, good luck.

[Hi I'm Ben]

I like PCs, but I've had the worst luck with Dell Laptops... nothing recent... but the ones I got about 3 years ago have gone 3 for 3 on crapping out in one way or another.

They are my only 3 computers to ever have hardware failures.

I think if I was going to get another PC laptop it would be Toshiba.

[si_lance]

Originally posted by Hi I'm Ben:
I think if I was going to get another PC laptop it would be Toshiba.

That's weird Ben I was going to say the reverse. I've had Toshibas crap out, but the Dell Inspiron 4000 has been flawless (in Win2k and RH Linux). Course they're gonna pale in comparison to my G4 iBook. I love this thing.

[Lateralus]

If I had to buy a PC lappy, I would buy a ThinkPad. Sure, they offer the least bang for the buck, but they last longer than most of the people that buy them.

[Link]

ditto, as far as I'm concerned thinkpads are tanks and I still have one from 1992 that works pretty nicely (and has been dropped more times then I can remember) <-- though it got a set of nasty cracks for that.

On the thought btw: OS X vs windows, windows is a nice OS, but the second you touch the internet you always have to be careful, defrag constantly, check for viruses, run scandisk weekly, etc. While I didn't do this often on my PCs I was a careless user and thus had to redo my HD every month.

On my g4 that isn't a problem, except the packrat I am, if I don't purge it every now and then I suck up every bit of my 80gb hard drive lol :shrug: OS X is like a rock, even compared to windows xp -- your OS will never go corrupt because you installed a driver wrong.

[mbryda]

Originally posted by orlando12:
[B]However, I was wondering If I would be giving any sort of power up by selling it, and if it would be worth it.

Daily applications include web surfing, word, excel, aim, watching dvd's, and photoshop, occasionally.


My current dell specs are as follows:

Inspiron 1100, 2.2ghz celeron, 512 ram, combo drive, 15 in. screen, 30 gig hd...

No way. The Celeron is a POS CPU and any recend iBook (esp. the G4) will run circles around it.


[quotte]Now the reason I am thinking of switching is because a. I have had some hardware problems, b. Am intersted in starting to edit video, and c. The screens on all the apple's I have ever seen look quite sharper than pc...

If I were to go with the ibook g4 12in, and max out the ram, would I notice any improvements, or lags???[/quote]

Should be fine. The wife's G3 iBook with 256MB can edit video fine. It gets a little laggy when we are both logged in (got to love FUS) and I fire up iPhoto and PS Elements, but all she needs is more RAM.

Just get the iBook and sell the POS Dell. It will be the best thing you do!

[klinux]

Originally posted by mbryda:
No way. The Celeron is a POS CPU and any recend iBook (esp. the G4) will run circles around it.

That is BS.

First, mbryda, based on your description, the iBook would be fine for your needs. Unless you do heavily CPU intensive work e.g. video encoding, a G3 or P3 will be more than enough do what you described.

Nevertheless, the Celeron 2.2 will be faster than the G4 1ghz. Don't believe me? Take a CD and rip it to WAV/AIFF file. Convert it to MP3 on your machine and take that file to an Apple store and convert it via iTunes and see how that fast and slow each processor is.

Sure, the G4 is more efficient and may be faster in some Photoshop actions but ask yourself: what is the CPU-intensive task you perform most often and benchmark the processor on that.

And going back to Celeron being a POS... mbryda, you know too little about x86 technology so please keep your opinion on that to the minimum! The current Celeron (130nm) is simply a P4 with less cache and provides a very good performance/value ratio. Go check out Tom's hardware 65 CPU roundup and pick your benchmark and you can see that the 130nm Celeron compares very favorably. Granted, with PC price so low the value proposition is of Celeron is greatly dimnished.

If any processor is POS, it is the Motorola G4. Both G3 and G5 were superior products that easily compares to their x86 counterparts. Seriously, if G4 has always been superior to Pentium in every way as claimed, there would not have been the loud cheer and reception (and relief) that accompanied the introduction of G5.

[microcars]

Originally posted by nvaughan3:
It's not shocking that company leading in market share selling tens of millions of computers yearly might have <gasp> even thousands of complaints. You see it here too on a smaller scale.

so exactly how many more laptops does DELL sell than APPLE?

references please?

I seem to recall reading (although I cannot cite a reference at the moment) that for actual sales of Laptops, Dell and Apple were about tied in marketshare.

DELL does not own the entire Laptop market for Windows Laptops, they share it with IBM, Gateway, Toshiba and dozens of other manufacturers.

if their marketshare are about the same and there are more complaints from DELL users, one would have surmise that either the DELL users are really picky whiney babies or -as a group- they really do have more problems with their hardware than APPLE users.

[g4baker]

I've used both (currently have an Inspiron 5100 P4 2.4 GHz, sold the iBook to buy it). I would try sticking with the Dell. The MacOS is great, but the hardware is horrible, unless you're getting either a high end PowerBook G4 or a PowerMac G5. The Dell will be much speedier than the iBook. It all depends on what OS you want to use.

[Lucky13]

..new member here. First post.

Anyway...

I recently purchased a Windows laptop to be shared with another person. It's a Toshiba...one of the Centrino based, wide screen models. The closest Apple choice would be the 15" Powerbook w/combo drive. The Toshiba has some definite advantages along with a much lower price tag.

From a hardware standpoint, I am quite pleased with this machine. The keyboard/trackpad design, in particular, is very good...full size dedicated page navigation keys, a dedicated key to bring up contextual menus, another one to call up the Start menu, a two-button trackpad with scrolling support...
Battery life has been solid, the screen is sharp and the built-in SD card slot matches the format used by my digital camera.

As for the software involved, things are different. The bundled extras are useful, but Windows XP doesn't quite match up with Mac OS X. Visually and aesthetically, XP is a bit of an eyesore. Also, the process of setting up the computer to our liking has been a chore. Much of the system has a clumsy, awkward design. In contrast, the System Preferences application in OS X is a joy to use.
One example...the laptop shipped with two different power saving utilities. One from Microsoft and the other from Toshiba. Each had different settings for the same usage and each insisted on adding its own battery meter to the Taskbar. I finally discovered that the Toshiba version was calling the shots.
Another hassle has been the tedious chore of protecting the system against viruses, worms, spyware, Microsoft come-ons, pop-up's, etc.

Once past the setup stage, I've found that actually using the Toshiba isn't all that bad. The Windows "experience" isn't as polished as with the Mac, but it's serviceable. I can still run iTunes, QuickTime Player, Mozilla, Quicken...along with the wide range of Windows-only titles. Word and Excel, for now at least, share essentially the same file format across platforms. The machine won't be used to edit video or audio or high-res photos. If it can handle my digitized Ramones collection, then I'll be happy

Had this computer been bought for my use only, I might well have gone with the 15" Powerbook (the iBook isn't quite enough). I'm not certain of that, though. It is a tough call.

[mbryda]

Originally posted by klinux:
[B]That is BS.

First, mbryda, based on your description, the iBook would be fine for your needs. Unless you do heavily CPU intensive work e.g. video encoding, a G3 or P3 will be more than enough do what you described.

The Celeron is a stripped (early) Pee4, and we all know what a Dog the early P4's were, even getting their butts handed to them by the 1.1Ghz P3....

Actually, the iBook 800 and my iMac G4/800 (512MB) are quite fine for what I do, although they need more RAM (as I've upgraded my digicam). Other than that, I do everything I need to on my G4 iMac and it seems to bemore responsive than the IBM a30p 1.1Ghz P3 I'm typing this on.

And going back to Celeron being a POS... mbryda, you know too little about x86 technology so please keep your opinion on that to the minimum! The current Celeron (130nm) is simply a P4 with less cache and provides a very good performance/value ratio. Go check out Tom's hardware 65 CPU roundup and pick your benchmark and you can see that the 130nm Celeron compares very favorably. Granted, with PC price so low the value proposition is of Celeron is greatly dimnished.

That's HILARIOUS. Too bad I'm a PC Tech/Network admin by day and have been around the x86 for longer than I care to remember. I've forgotten more about x86/Windows than most know. Tellimg me I have little knowledge about x86 is funny.

Point is the Celeron is a POS. Plain and simple. For laptops at that price point, you'd be better off with the AthlonXP-M, which will give you much better performance (coming close to many Pee4's) and stay at that same price point. Only Intel fanboys (Dell) see this and still push outdated and POS Celeron solutions as the only low-end solution. The rest of the industry puts the Celeron and AMD CPUS in the price point, and the AMD Is selling quite well.

For desktops, there is no reason at all to use a de-Celeron when the Athlon provides superior performance to the P4 (depends on task) at a Celeron-level price.

If there is any IBM PC laptop that's moderately interesting it's eMachine's AMD 2.x 15" Widescreen. ~ $1200, widescreen, 512MB. Sure it's an eMachines, but get the 3 year warranty from Best Buy and don't worry about it.

If anything, Toms' has turned into more an Intel-fanboy site than anything. Ever since his farce "AMD Fire" thing with the Athlon where if you remove the heatsink the CPU will burn and possibly catch fire. In 10+ years of PC tech work, I have never seen a heatsink just "fall off" - usually user error.

But, if you insist on using Toms as a reference, I suggest you read his peice on OEM P4 systems (from around the time of the P4's intruduction) and you will note Dell was the SLOWEST of the bunch. Other, more recent benchmarks put Dell at the bottom middle of the pack in most speed things.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by g4baker:
I've used both (currently have an Inspiron 5100 P4 2.4 GHz, sold the iBook to buy it). I would try sticking with the Dell. The MacOS is great, but the hardware is horrible, unless you're getting either a high end PowerBook G4 or a PowerMac G5. The Dell will be much speedier than the iBook. It all depends on what OS you want to use.

Your 2.4GHz Pentium 4 hardly provides the same experience as Orlando12's 2.2GHz Celeron.

An iBook G4 933 would be an excellent choice and I would sincerely doubt that there would be any noticeable performance difference.
The Celeron, in every itteration, has consecutively remained the least impressive of any available x86 processors throughout it's lifetime.

More over, the inclusion of a graphics chip as good as the Radeon 9200 in the iBook makes up for much of the clock speed difference between the iBook and similarly equipped PC notebooks that have **** video.

[Link]

Except for putting faster ram and storage on the ibook, (ram not really being possible without modding the g4 controller), the ibook's already a very speedy little machine.

Your ~$1000 PC laptop is likely to either have a geforce 440go or intel intergrated (read: CRAP) graphics chipset, 40gb 4800rpm hard drive, sdram (or a very unefficient controller that's DDR purely for marketing purposes), an intel Celery� processor, and probably STILL run hotter and have crappier battery life.

The only PC laptops worth looking into are thinkpads with a pentium M (not 4M or celery M, just plain M) inside.

Having said that, there are few PC laptops that are also a 'nice mix' between desktop replacement and ultra portable.. so far either you get a really thin laptop that doesn't even have an optical drive, or you get a monster that has everything including a trailer hook and a front mounting bracket for pulling it out if it gets stuck in a ditch.

[mbryda]

Originally posted by Link:
[B]Your ~$1000 PC laptop is likely to either have a geforce 440go or intel intergrated (read: CRAP) graphics chipset, 40gb 4800rpm hard drive, sdram (or a very unefficient controller that's DDR purely for marketing purposes), an intel Celery� processor, and probably STILL run hotter and have crappier battery life.

Even the Athlon-M's are coming with ATI Integrated/shared video now, too. But, they are at least putting 512MB on them so it isn't too bad.

But the Athlon-M makes a nice speedy laptop.

I typically don't reccomend/touch Intel with a 10 foot pole. The Peee4 is a joke and the De-Celeron is eve worse. The AMD solutions are much better for those wanting an IBM PC.

[g4baker]

Your 2.4GHz Pentium 4 hardly provides the same experience as Orlando12's 2.2GHz Celeron.

Not necessarily. The new Celeron processors are basically slightly lower versions of the Pentium 4. If I could find the link to the article for that...gives you a different insight on the Celeron processors.

An iBook G4 933 would be an excellent choice and I would sincerely doubt that there would be any noticeable performance difference.

Disagree. You will notice a speed difference, as I said before, the iBooks are slow. I've used the 800 MHz G4, 800 MHz G3, and they're both slow. Call me crazy, but I don't think that 133 MHz will make a huge difference.

But the Athlon-M makes a nice speedy laptop

Yes they do. By all means, if the prices are the same, I would spring for the Athlon XP over the Celeron. The eMachines laptop seems to be a very nice laptop. But if it's between an Athlon XP and a Pentium 4, I would have trouble deciding.


Fortunately, this site isn't as bad about flaming you every time you speak of a PC. However, the decision really boils down to which OS you want. I view the MacOS side with an excellent OS, but with slower hardware (with the exception of the G5). The Windows side: faster hardware, different OS. I personally like both, so I opted for the speed over the OS. But it's all up to you.

[sniffer]

Originally posted by mbryda:
The Celeron is a stripped (early) Pee4, and we all know what a Dog the early P4's were, even getting their butts handed to them by the 1.1Ghz P3....

Regarding the p4 CPU, technically it was much better than the obtained performance back then. It's just that the software side used a relative long couple - three years until the software and compilators matured enough to really take advantage of the P4 features.
Ironically the G5 is in the same situation now, but compared with the early P4s the G5 is today on pair with the best of the Intel world.
I am so thrilled about what will happen down the road.

[g4baker]

Ok...first off, how do you quote stuff and give the author the credit (that "Quoted by bla" thing)?

Regarding the p4 CPU, technically it was much better than the obtained performance back then. It's just that the software side used a relative long couple - three years until the software and compilators matured enough to really take advantage of the P4 features.

Yeah, I can see how people could say that the early P4's were significantly slower than the Pentium 3 processors, but they're totally different now. Still, the Athlon XP is a great processor (and they're almost always cheaper than Pentium 4's). Yeah I'm really looking forward to seeing where the G5 goes, especially after the 64-bit software is released.

[SFZoll]

I think it all gets back to what a user is doing. If a user mostly surfs the net, writes some stuff and all that, an iBook is plenty adequate and I sincerly scoff at the "iBook is slow" comments from up thread. Sure, we can base our arguments on factors that show it slow compared to x86 but again, for most users our mousing and typing skills as well as our pathetic internet connections will be the slow points of our machines: most of the time our computers probably sit there waiting for our input.

On the topic of Celeron processors I have to agree that one would be nuts to go Celeron over Athlon. I've built many AMD systems and they are stable, fast, and very affordable. Looking at "Intel Inside" as a requirement shouldn't be a consideration at all.

Merely my opinion.

[sniffer]

Originally posted by g4baker:
Ok...first off, how do you quote stuff and give the author the credit (that "Quoted by bla" thing)?

Click the reply button above the post you'd like to reply to.