iBook or Windows Laptop?

[dannytzh]

Hi, I need some help over here.

Lately I've been eyeing on the new laptops by apple. The 'snowy' iBook is very enticing mostly due to its outer appearance. Performance wise, with that same price I think I could get a better Windows based laptop. Could any of the apple laptop users help me out with this decision making?

Some of the bad sides of iBook:
1. Short battery life (3 hours ++?)
2. Heats up pretty easily....
3. Expensive RAM expansion
4. Uncrisp font for size < 12pt.
5. Performance decreases with multi-tasking.

Are these true? Thanks!!

 

[RaPTuRe]

I personally would never get an Apple device other than the iPod, simply because they are expensive, incompatible, difficult to justify and not all that upgradable in comparison to x86 notebooks.

1. This all depends on the notebook, really. The average Pentium-M notebook will give you 4 hours of battery life, with two batteries, some will give you more than 10!

2. Also depends on what notebook you get. A Pentium 4 3.4GHz notebook will get as hot as hades, but the Pentium M is very cool running.

3. Everything from Apple is expensive, upgrading an x86 notebook depends on dealer/distributor pricing.

4. This sounds fishy. Font size changes depending on the zoom of the page, so this is just a myth. The higher the resolution of a display, they crisper the images, but the smaller the text tends to get, especially on a high resolution - small dimension panel.

5. This is true of all computers, even Hyperthreading makes little difference.

Regards,

RaPTuRe

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

 

[dannytzh]

Thanks for replying Rapture...

Your points are taken into account. If I would have to worry so much about changing to Apple machines, it's might as well that I stay with Windows laptops coz I'm so comfortable with it. Honestly, I wanted iBook just and only Just because of its look.

I'm going to try it out this Thursday so unless someone here could make me change my mind, we'll have to wait till Thursday for the ultimate challenge: Hands-on experience.

 

[Atolsammeek]

Main problem with Apple is the limited software support. And there only One OS you can use. Apples.

It not like PC computers or laptops Where you can pick Linux or Windows or both.

 

[dannytzh]

Agreed. Also I can't use Kazaa to get *ahem files even though I heard of a software called Poison which is like Kazaa.

Also I'm worried about its compatibility with some major softwares eg. Java, C++, VB coz I'll be taking up a Bachelor degree in Computer Science and I need this laptop for those assignments.

Guess there's no arguments about getting a Windows laptop then?

<b>My Blog</b>

 

[Atolsammeek]

Well best idea is go to a store Like walmart or k Mart something the sell everything. And look at the software. Yes some software they have it dual OS windows/Mac. Really it depends what you are going to do with the laptop.

What you are going to have to do is start asking your self all of this.

How much battery life do I want. Check centreno, Intel And Amd Moble and Apple Laptops. Then check the reviews of all of them.

How fast you want it? Speed well This is where it might be tricky. For you might have to use Desktop reviews. For I notice Toms site and others only do test on Amd and Intel Not Apple. A good place is PC mag. They do test on all three and on laptops. Http://www.pcmag.com

Then there Size. And how you want it to look. Well there 60 differnt types of laptop companys. From 6Lb to 11Lbs Mine about 10.5lb. But It dont feel heavy to me.

Then What do you want in the laptop. As you can see with me It a intel p4 3.4ee 1 meg of Ram. Two interal 80 gig hard drives and 256 meg ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON™ 9700 8X. 17in Wsxga. If Amd had a two bay hard drive laptop I would of look there.

Then there Ram. Right now there 172 Pin chips And 200 Pin chips for Laptops. A note on this if you have 1gb of ram. Make sure it one 1gb of ram chip. Not 2 512 Meg chips. So later when you want to buy Ram you just have to buy new chip 1gb ram chip. Not discard two 512 chips

Screen size and type of screen. It another part you want to look at. Size and type of screen Right now on 15in. xga, sxga, xga, wxga, sxga, uxga, qxga, Wsxga. The pick size is differnt on each. Like xga has 89per inch And wsxga like 140 per inch. It depends on the company that make the monitors.

Then there battery life. And types of batterys Like Mine on Reg 8 cell batterys with subwoofer or tvcard. would only last 1.5 Hours. But It supported 12 cell batterys Which last around 3 hours. But they take a little more space. So I could not get the subwoofer or tvcard. Which I might later to get the 8 cell and TV card. To watch tv on my 21inch Monitor.

A good place to get info on PC and Laptops is http://upgradingandrepairingpcs.com/

The Book upgrading and repairing Laptops. Is good detail. But Mostly on Amd and Intel. Nothing on Macs.

 

[dannytzh]

Wow. A very detailed reply!

Thanks. I will check the book out and if it's really good then I might buy it...

Your questions are just those I asked myself. I'll post them up later. Actually, I have 2 choices in my head already:

1. Apple PowerBookG4 15"
or
2. Acer Aspire 2012

In the mean time I'll check out the sites you mentioned.
Thanks a lot!

<b><A HREF="http://www.dannytan.com" target="_new">My Blog</A></b>

 

[Atolsammeek]

Well what I m getting from both laptops. Not sure if the ones you where looking at.
Aspire 2012WLMi Weight 6.6 lbs, Apple laptop 5.7 lbs
1.5 M chip Apple 1.5 But not sure on speed between both
Remember M chips with the cache onboard. ON mobil marks 2002scores 1.7ghz 195 Where a mobile pentium 4 2.4ghz scores where 197. So I m guessing it would be 170 in the score. Rangeing 2.0 to 2.2ghz. Not sure of Apple.

512MB same. Both can go up to 2gb.
DVD+ -RW DVD-R/CD-RW
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 Same
Monitor Apple laptop show a Little better on screen resolution then Aspire. But aspire has more colors 16.7M colors. Where apple just says Millons of colors.
battery life aspire 5 Hours Apple is 4.5. And what you run in the laptop depends the battery Life.
(One note on batterys check to see if aspire can use the 12cell batterys I dont think so but It a idea.)
Another thing is they both have Networking.

Really that would be a hard call. Most people on here would say Get a pc. But depends what you do with the laptop.
And I can understand why you would want a Apple due to the Case.
Here where I look at info
http://a1664.g.akamai.net/7/1664/51/b3a951350bc1de/www.apple.com/powerbook/pdf/PowerBookG4_TechOverview_04292004.pdf

Aspire 2012WLMi
http://shop.pcconnection.com/web/Shopping/Product.htm?MSCSProfile=&NRMODE=Published&NRORIGINALURL=/web/shopping/product.htm?product_id=347174&NRNODEGUID={C03E868D-1CEF-4F98-8F00-45BF12FCEA4E}&NRCACHEHINT=NoModifyGuest&product_id=5075802&SourceID=k15506&cookie_test=1

http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specs.html

 

[dannytzh]

Hi. Thanks alot for being so active in helping. Really appreciate it.

I've read the sites that you posted. Also I found out the price for the 1.25Ghz PowerBook (not 1.5) at http://www.macasia.com.my

The price for Aspire with the specs you stated is around $1470.00 while the PowerBook, according to MacAsia, is $2215.00 which is quite a big difference. For the price of Aspire, I could only get the 12" Combo PowerBook which is way lower in specifications:-

-------------
PowerBook
-------------
No Extreme Card,
256MB memory,
GeForce FXo5200,
12" Screen size,
40GB HD size,
???
----------------
1Ghz G4 proc,
Built-in BT
----------------
Elegant Case,
DVI out,
it's MAC!

---------
Aspire
----------
Built-in wifi,
512MB memory,
Radeon 9700,
15.4",
60GB HD size,
4-in-1 Card Reader.
-----------------
1.5ghz Centrino proc
Built-in BT
-----------------
Normal looking case,
VGA out,
The peasant-ly Windows

That's all I can find now. I'll check out the real stuff after 8th June due to exam.

BTW, this is something I got from another forum (forum.lowyat.net)

"If u can hold ur purchase, wait for Pentium-M 7x5, which would be about 2 months or so.
Apple will also be releasing updates to Mac OS X later."

Watcha think?

<b><A HREF="http://www.dannytan.com" target="_new">My Blog</A></b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by dannytzh on 05/25/04 12:07 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Atolsammeek]

Then what you should do it start at maucatur of Aspire http://www.acer.com.

Here why. Well sometimes A maufacture sells them cheaper or Gives you a list of Resaler. check here. http://www.acer.com/APP/AKC/INTERNET/AACPubli.nsf/AllDocs/RWP20519B40433679F888256A53006B5A99?OpenDocument

Or in may case . and selling it to Dell and Gateway. So it ended up being cheaper.

If your in a differnt country they have other area they sell to.

Oh one area to look at http://www.clevo.com.tw/. It a differnt type of laptop. And they might look more Like Ibook.

Like I seid earlire You have to go step by step. And work with what you want.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Atolsammeek on 05/26/04 03:33 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[peartree]

One last point to consider is the CPU. Not so much for the speed, but for the battery life. PowerBooks are powered by desktop CPU's and the laptop you're considering has a Pentium M processor. That means that in times of decreased load, it throttles down the speed, which saves battery life. Every plus counts.

<font color=green>****</font color=green> Never Assume <font color=red>ANYTHING</font color=red> <font color=green>****</font color=green>

 

[dannytzh]

@peartree: Point taken. That's why I wasn't very sure with the battery life of PowerBook. Thanks for the reminder.

@atolsammeek: Acer is the best PC Notebook choice for me right now, price wise and specs wise. Btw, I checked out the Clevo... you were referring to the M385C.. right? Well, to tell the truth, the top of it which says "NOTEBOOK" (swt) is already a NO NO to me... Sound so.. amateur if you get what I mean. I'm 19 and I want something with style.. even though it does look a bit like iBook ... FROM FAR lol..
Nothing, not even one PC notebook come close to PowerBook. Argh... why can't the PC notebook manufacturers hire designers with style????

Thanks anyways.

<b><A HREF="http://www.dannytan.com" target="_new">My Blog</A></b>

 

[RaPTuRe]

Problem with Acer is quality. I.e. Not very good in that dept. -Same with support, their support is quite shocking. As far as the Pentium-M 7x5 is concerned, the other guy's estimate was a bit off. Dell are already taking orders for their notebooks equiped with the Pentium-M Dothan Core.

RaPTuRe

P.S. Sorry about the rushed post.

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

 

[Atolsammeek]

Hay all I been trying to do is give info as I see it. And problem with computers desktops and Laptops. Its hard to get all the right stuff.