[mefogus]

I have a friend who is willing to sell me his 500MHz iBook with the 12.1" screen for a very good price. If someone could be so kind as to answer a couple questions for me, I would really appreciate it.

1) I do not need a powerhouse (I have my dual 1GHz for that). Sadly, with the specs as they are (500MHz, 128 MB RAM, ATI Mobile Radeon), I'm afraid that Jaguar would be a drag to use. I've recently had a New iMac 700MHz to play around with extensively and it was in fact very fast. However, if I understand it correctly, Jaguar is specially designed to use the graphics card in the iMac for speed, but not so in the iBook (please correct me if I'm wrong). I guess my question is; how fast is the 500MHz iBook compared to the 700MHz iMac?

2) I haven't had time to truely play with the iBook, but it seemed like the keys were very small. Does anyone have any problems with this? Is it possible to use an external keyboard?

Thanks in advance for any help.

-m

[mattl71]

I have 10.2 on my 500mhz Ibook. As far as speed, I think that it is entirely fine. Your not going to win a speed races, but as far as useablilty, its fine. I would suggest that you up the ram a bit before you accaully do put on 10.2. And of course you can plug in your own keyboard. I myself dont mind it but it does take a while to get used it it. And like most laptops (I think); you are going to be able to type faster on a "real" keyboard.

[funkboy]

Speed: The iMac G4 700 I just got to play around with a bit is definitely speedier than my iBook. You're correct that the new iMacs (any Mac with a graphics card better than a Rage 128, essentially) use the graphics card to speed up the overall user experience.

If you're used to OS X on a G4, the iBook may be a huge step down. I'm not sure, since I'm only acclimated to using my iBook 500. But hey, I've been using it for everyday work for 10 months now, and I love it. Not crashing, essentially ever, is worth it. You no longer need to fear losing your place while working, it's pure joy.

--
Keyboard: I like portable keyboards myself, the touch is lighter it seems to me. I don't think the keys are any smaller than a regular keyboard, though it probably seems that way from the iBook being small in size overall. My Dad got an iBook 14" and he thought the keyboard was physically bigger than my 12", but it was just perception. I believe it's a full-size keyboard, hough, and I like it a lot. Keys can pop off sometimes, but just be somewhat careful with it and you should have no problems. (One key has popped off for me in 14 months of using it)

[Justin W. Williams]

The 66MHz bus is b.s. It really slows the system IMO. Most things in OSX are slower than snot: especially Word & any browser other than Chimera.

[mefogus]

Thanks for the responses everyone, I appreciate it.

Just yesterday I played with a PowerBook Pismo (400MHz I believe, not sure of the RAM) with OS 10.1.4 installed on it and it seemed pretty slow to me. Has anyone played with a configuration like this as well as the iBook mentioned in the original post? Will the iBook be faster than the Pismo in general?

Thanks again.

-m

[pat++]

Originally posted by mefogus:
I have a friend who is willing to sell me his 500MHz iBook with the 12.1" screen for a very good price. If someone could be so kind as to answer a couple questions for me, I would really appreciate it.

1) I do not need a powerhouse (I have my dual 1GHz for that). Sadly, with the specs as they are (500MHz, 128 MB RAM, ATI Mobile Radeon), I'm afraid that Jaguar would be a drag to use. [...]

2) I haven't had time to truely play with the iBook, but it seemed like the keys were very small. Does anyone have any problems with this? Is it possible to use an external keyboard?

Thanks in advance for any help.

-m

1) I have a 500Mhz iBook, and I find it a bit slow. I tried the 700Mhz iBook and
it SO MUCH FASTER that you can't call both "iBook" I would say the 500Mhz is useable, but feels definitely slow (and I do not have an iMac to make the comparison).

The 500Mhz iBook under Jaguar is SLOWER than the 700Mhz under 10.1.
The main problem with faster iBook (700Mhz) is that the fan makes a lot of
noise and is ON often. My 500Mhz iBook doesn't make a single noise and
the fan NEVER goes ON.

2) Absolutely no problem with the keyboard size. After one or two days, you'll
find it very comfortable. I originally planed to buy a keyboard and use an external monitor, but I never did because the keyboard is very pleasant to use and the the screen is so good I never plug the iBook on my 17" Sony monitor.