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WinTroll · Oct 22, 2003, 08:31 PM

If I understood the press release, they should be available in Apple Stores now.

Would love to see some photos of someones OBE (Out of the Box Experience)!

songoku912 · Oct 22, 2003, 08:50 PM

I do, I got the stock 800 w/airport card. I'll be posting pics soon.

AssassyN · Oct 22, 2003, 08:59 PM

Originally posted by songoku912:
I do, I got the stock 800 w/airport card. I'll be posting pics soon.

The G4 iBook?

songoku912 · Oct 22, 2003, 09:07 PM

Yup, transferring files from my 500 as we speak, and draining the battery to be calibrated.

fibroptikl · Oct 22, 2003, 09:09 PM

Come on! Post some pictures.

Enjoy the iBook.

snowdropper · Oct 22, 2003, 09:12 PM

i'm thinking of getting one of these...

what is your primary use for this computer?

im a multimedia student, so the price and now the G4 chip make this sound like a winner for me.

let us know on performance, can you compare it to any other macs you have used?

have fun with your new 'book!

im_noahselby · Oct 22, 2003, 09:20 PM

songoku912,

Does the iBook have a new keyboard, similar to the one the 12" PB has? Also, is the Airport card and Ram still installed under the keyboard?

Thanks,
Noah

Mallrat · Oct 22, 2003, 09:25 PM

Originally posted by songoku912:
I do, I got the stock 800 w/airport card. I'll be posting pics soon.

congrats.

- Where did you get it?

- Besides pics, please tell us is it the silver/white of the 500 ibooks or the white look of the current ones

- Is the screen brighter or the same as your 500

-Does it get hot?

that's it. for now. take care and enjoy!

songoku912 · Oct 22, 2003, 09:26 PM

Here is a quick pic:

im_noahselby- I never tried the new kb on the powerbooks, but I can say the response I get from the 800 G4 iBook is way better than my 500mhz G3. The airport extreme card and ram is still installed underneath the keyboard.

snowdropper- I do a little bit of everything. Some photoshop, light video editing, ect. It feels far snappier than my 500mhz G3 iBook, the combo of the G4 and Panther is awesome. I can only compare it to my old iBook though, that was my first mac. UI responsiveness with Panther is great, really snappy. So far battery life is just as good as my old iBook, and it hasn't felt hot once either. I have 15% juice remaining and it's reporting 47 minutes left.

AssassyN · Oct 22, 2003, 09:28 PM

Whoa cool...you're probably one of the first to actually get Panther installed on their Mac (a legit copy).

More pics please!

songoku912 · Oct 22, 2003, 09:31 PM

More pics-

Mallrat · Oct 22, 2003, 09:33 PM

Originally posted by songoku912:
Here is a quick pic:

im_noahselby- I never tried the new kb on the powerbooks, but I can say the response I get from the 800 G4 iBook is way better than my 500mhz G3. The airport extreme card and ram is still installed underneath the keyboard.

snowdropper- I do a little bit of everything. Some photoshop, light video editing, ect. It feels far snappier than my 500mhz G3 iBook, the combo of the G4 and Panther is awesome. I can only compare it to my old iBook though, that was my first mac. UI responsiveness with Panther is great, really snappy. So far battery life is just as good as my old iBook, and it hasn't felt hot once either. I have 15% juice remaining and it's reporting 47 minutes left.

thanks man. Keep us updated. Post more pics if you can. Let us know on the heat issue and anything else.

enjoy it though.

Rumor Addict · Oct 22, 2003, 09:34 PM

So does it have that white plastic case around the keyboard like the last G3s did? Based on your side by side pic it appears to. Thanks and grats on your purchase!!!

superblue · Oct 22, 2003, 09:42 PM

songoku912, I'm jealous!!! Are there any differences between the 500 and 800 re: the exterior? (materials, finish etc). Also, are the 500's and 800's batteries swappable?

Mallrat · Oct 22, 2003, 09:42 PM

Originally posted by Rumor Addict:
So does it have that white plastic case around the keyboard like the last G3s did? Based on your side by side pic it appears to. Thanks and grats on your purchase!!!

That is a bit disappointing. is it the same as the old one or a bit different?

songoku912 · Oct 22, 2003, 09:47 PM

It actually is more of a gray than a white. It looks like a blend of the 2 previous iBook generations.

snowdropper · Oct 22, 2003, 10:11 PM

songoku912:
thanks for the reply. how is the size and weight? looks nice in the pics.

me thinks im sold. now to find out who has them in melbourne.

thanks again for letting us all know about your new toy!

powertoburn · Oct 22, 2003, 10:15 PM

Can you please post a picture of the charger that came with the iBook? I am wondering if it's the same that shipped with the new PowerBook G4

Difference should be thicker cord - and better reinforcement where the cord comes out of charger

Jerman · Oct 22, 2003, 10:17 PM

Well, someone's gotta ask this.... Does the monitor hack work? (Assuming you are willing to try it lol....)

songoku912 · Oct 22, 2003, 10:30 PM

daredevil- Sorry I didn't see your questions earlier. I got it from Apple Store SoHo, and it hasn't gotten hot once. I currently have it charging now.

powertoburn- I will once I'm done with the charge.

It's an awesome machine, no regrets.

fraeone · Oct 22, 2003, 11:30 PM

Yeah, I'm dying to find out if the dual monitor hack works too.

songoku912 · Oct 22, 2003, 11:37 PM

lol I haven't tried the dual monitor hack yet.

WizOSX · Oct 22, 2003, 11:42 PM

songoku912--

Did the machine come with OS9 like all previous iBooks or with Panther only? Is OS9 just about gone?

Thanks for the pics and info!!

WizOSX · Oct 22, 2003, 11:43 PM

songoku912--

Sorry, I guess I'm really wondering whether it will boot in OS9.

powertoburn · Oct 22, 2003, 11:59 PM

I was thinking of ordering one: student store $1200 customized with 60gig harddrive, airport extreme, bluetooth.The 12" one

I have the 17" PowerBook but sometimes it gets too much attention in public with it. So, I want something more conservative on the go.

I had the iBook combo drive 500Mhz and I like the color and feel of it. I traded it towards the 17" PowerBook.

Anyone know if the BT module is internal or a USB adapte like D-Link?

songoku912 · Oct 23, 2003, 12:02 AM

Wiz, startup disk only shows OS 10.3. OS9 booting looks to be gone.

d4nth3m4n · Oct 23, 2003, 12:19 AM

can you do me a favor? go into the system profiler and see what build of panther you have... just to dispell all the talk about whether 7b85 is the gm or not...

enjoy the new comp.
thanks
Dan.

TheIceMan · Oct 23, 2003, 12:19 AM

songoku912:
What is the casing like on the new iBook and also how does the keyboard compare to the old iBooks? Thanks and congrats on being one of the first to own the NEW iBooks.

songoku912 · Oct 23, 2003, 12:25 AM

d4nth3m4n- GM build is indeed 7B85

Iceman- The casing seems to be a blend of the clear plastic case and the white snow case. The inside is a grey color. The keyboard is improved, at least from my old 500mhz G3 iBook. I have no idea how it stacks up to the 12in aibook keyboard though. I do prefer this kb to my old 500mhz iBook.

The dvd/cd-rw combo drive is a Matshita CD-RW CW-8123. Not sure if there is a region hack or anything though. Going to turn in for the night, tomorrow is the big field test

Lizard7 · Oct 23, 2003, 12:28 AM

Ooooh, does it have a Motorola or IBM chip? There have been some interesting rumors flying around about that today...

TheIceMan · Oct 23, 2003, 12:31 AM

songoku912: Thanks, have a good night. I'm looking forward to your "field test" tomorrow.

d4nth3m4n · Oct 23, 2003, 12:40 AM

Originally posted by TheIceMan:
songoku912: Thanks, have a good night. I'm looking forward to your "field test" tomorrow.

yeah, seriously, thanks for being so open to all of us prodding you with a billion questions.

try run xbench for me.... if you get the time.

thanks again.
Dan.

nagromme · 01:21 AM

Thanks for the pictures! What do you mean by the white shell being in between the clear and opaque whites of past iBook shells? It's a third style of white shell?

Oh... and how is UT2k3

(Or any 3D games... I'm hoping this iBook will outperform my eMac/700's GeForce 2 MX, since the 12" PowerBook seems to, and according to MOSR, the new 12" PowerBook's GPU is nearly identical in performance to the new iBooks--excluding the effect of the CPU.)

d4nth3m4n · Oct 23, 2003, 01:25 AM

Originally posted by nagromme:
[B]Thanks for the pictures! What do you mean by the white shell being in between the clear and opaque whites of past iBook shells? It's a third style of white shell?

i think hes talking about the inside top, like the part with the trackpad, not the back of the screen or the bottom (where the battery is). from what i can tell, it looks grey to me, not silver like it was up until the 800s and not white like it was after that.

nagromme · Oct 23, 2003, 01:33 AM

I understand the grey--and I like it!

It almost sounded like she/he was saying the white, too, was in-between. Probably not what she/he meant.

Luca Rescigno · Oct 23, 2003, 03:15 AM

From the pictures, it looks like it's the same type of finish as the later iBooks - the very consistent, almost bland matte finish - but with a gray color instead of a stark white one. The 500 MHz iBook in that picture definitely looks "shiny" compared to the G4 iBook.

nagromme · Oct 23, 2003, 04:12 AM

Would I be right to guess that it's actual grey plastic, and not just grey paint? (If you can tell?)

BTW... on the all-white iBooks, how the heck does the sleep-light shine through the front? (I always assumed the silver iBooks were clear plastic painted silver, so that I can understand.)

Lew · Oct 23, 2003, 07:27 AM

Originally posted by songoku912:

Could you post a larger version of this picture please, or take another closer side-by-side shot and post a large version of that?

songoku912 · Oct 23, 2003, 07:56 AM

Sure, here is an 8x6

d4nth3m4n- thank you for clarifying, that is exactly what I meant. It's the same finish as the latter iBooks, but instead of white, it is a grey color. It's very subtle though.

nagromme- I haven't played Ut2k3 yet, but I did try the Tony Hawk 4 demo that was installed on the machine. I was surprised at how well it ran it. I sucked with the kb though

d4nth3m4n · Oct 23, 2003, 12:35 PM

songoku912-

can you do me one more favor? try run this.

http://www.spiny.com/xbench/

im only really interested in the overall score. my score on this just about doubled one i put panther on my machine. so i dont know how applicable this is to panther. oh well, still fun tho, and total bragging rights

once again, thanks for being so open to all of us hassling you about every nicknoid thing about your new ibook. my hero!

songoku912 · 01:18 PM

Running it now..score in a few seconds...

Edit- Total score is 68.89

Here is the link to the full score

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc1=42473

Edit again- It is indeed a G4 processor, hopefully the link to xBench will put that to rest

d4nth3m4n · 01:38 PM

i pulled a 49 with my comp. i have no idea how scientific this is, but it is kinda fun to do this whole "ill show you mine... thing"

looks like i have 2/3 the mac you do :/

link

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge....setCookie=true

here are our 2 comps side by side

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge....473&doc2=42476

in my computers defense, i did have safari and itunes running. i tunes was paused though.

Dan.

fraeone · Oct 23, 2003, 01:39 PM

Hmm.. very interesting. The big suprise from those numbers is the disk performance from the new ibook g4. It is quite a bit
better than the G3 700.

The memory bandwith numbers show the boost from SDR->DDR, It's just too bad that the older system has 640 and the newer one is only equipped with 256M of RAM--it makes it a little more difficult to compare the two. I imagine sooner or later we'll have some controlled environment benchmarks from Macworld.

The cache difference seems to have a noticeable effect as well, with the G4 losing some of the cpu tests. Thanks for running these tests guys-there is much to be learned here. (ie final confirmation that the ibook g4 is a 7455)

d4nth3m4n · Oct 23, 2003, 01:45 PM

here is his comp against the 867 pb 12" (with 256 ram as well)

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge....473&doc2=39925

and against the 867 with panther.

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge....473&doc2=39531

this one might be the most convincing though. 800 g4 vs 800 g3. both on panther both with 256 ram.

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge....473&doc2=38257

Dan.

yah im bored

cenutrio · Oct 23, 2003, 02:08 PM

Very impressive.

The new G4 iBook 800 MHz had 256 MB RAM, while the old iBook 700 had 640 MB RAM.

We all know how essential RAM may be in OSX

Still, the G4 iMac beat it big time. These are good news, I would love to know about the new G4 iBook when loaded with RAM.

d4nth3m4n · Oct 23, 2003, 02:26 PM

this one might be the most convincing though. 800 g4 vs 800 g3. both on panther both with 256 ram.

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge....473&doc2=38257

Dan.

SeSawaya · Oct 23, 2003, 02:55 PM

just as a point of reference w/ other computers,
my 1 ghz 17" iMac with 768 ram scored a 91.57 overall. I havent checked my ibook 700 yet.

ae86_16v · Oct 23, 2003, 03:37 PM

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
just as a point of reference w/ other computers,
my 1 ghz 17" iMac with 768 ram scored a 91.57 overall. I havent checked my ibook 700 yet.

My Powerbook G4 @ 1.25GHz w/ 512MB of ram scored 103.84. (Complete test.)

nagromme · Oct 23, 2003, 03:43 PM

Why would the new and old iBooks get similar OpenGL scores? Isn't the new Radeon significantly faster?

I never know how much to trust xbench.

TheIceMan · Oct 23, 2003, 05:18 PM

Here are some more pics of the NEW G4 iBook from a SpyMac member. He said that the KEYBOARD feels more like the 12" PB than the old iBooks! Fantastic!!