I’m still writing this on this old thing, but an order is placed already for an almost bottom-of-the-barrel MacBook. (1.83GHz, 1GB RAM (up 0.5 from standard), 80GB HD (up 20GB from standard).)
Things I’ll miss a bit, but not horrifyingly so:
- The SuperDrive DVD+-RW facilities.
- The backlit keyboard.
- The video ports.
- The built-in modem.
Things I won’t miss:
- The AC adapter connector.
- The gaps where things can actually get underneath the keyboard.
The old iBook was a joke. When Steve Jobs introduced the first white G3 iBook and called it the second fastest laptop in the world (second to the PowerBook only, of course), he wasn’t fooling anyone. iBooks have since gotten acceptable, but they have never truly left crippleware. The Intel-based tangent off of the old iBook plan would have been a Core Solo machine with a spongy keyboard, but the MacBook isn’t it. The MacBook is close enough to prime time that I can safely transition to it and still get insanely much more done, and I’m very happy for that.
First impressions will arrive as the white wonder itself does.
“The old iBook was a joke”
A bit exaggerated according to me. I used an iBook G3/G4 during college (Graphic Digital Design) and it still was faster than all the PCs out there (even the brand new ones). You only had to max it out on RAM and you had a pretty reasonable machine.
I now have a PowerBook for my work and a MacBook Pro for my band and I sure can tell you: the PowerBook almost equals the iBook (even with 2GB RAM and a higher CPU speed).
But you’re right about the Intel processors: they are pretty darn fast and they give you the feeling that G4s are pieces of crap :-)
By TriangleJuice · 2006.06.23 10:36
Your opinion is certainly reasonable, but I take issue with it anyway, since my experience is different, and my experience is what I base my remark on.
I almost never got the PowerBook in the first place since the G4 was so overmilked and underpowered. The front side bus was very confining and the CPU speed very flat (it only ever got 0.17 GHz faster after my purchase - it felt like driving on a highway and seeing an upcoming merge to a one-lane gravel path). And the iBook was worse.
The PowerBook did get noticeably faster with more memory, as would the iBook, I’m sure. I’m not contesting that. But it’s nowhere near the improvement that going from a single-core G4 to a dual-core Core Duo, and this is relative. Relatively, G4s are pieces of crap; if we’re not judging relatively, are we supposed to be happy knowing that it outperforms a hundred Z80s? :)
By Jesper · 2006.07.02 23:06