12-13-2005, 07:57 AM

i have been thinking of buying a laptop for a while and after using a mac yesterday i have been thinking of buying a ibook g4. as i will be using it for, photos, videos, music, games and essays as well i was wonderiung if anyne had any advice for me. also i study media and photography at college.

12-13-2005, 08:08 AM

The only advice I have for you is to fill it full of RAM.
Personally I prefer the 14" for doing work on because I find it more comfortable than the 12".

Hope this helps
Paul

12-13-2005, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by pphking

The only advice I have for you is to fill it full of RAM.
Personally I prefer the 14" for doing work on because I find it more comfortable than the 12".

Hope this helps
Paul

are macs easy to use and quick to learn

12-13-2005, 08:28 AM

Originally Posted by manuleigh

are macs easy to use and quick to learn

Yes very much so. In fact if you have a question you can ACTUALLY use the mac help. It works.........unlike those "other guys"
Ive had my ibook for three months, I maxed out the RAM, learned most keyboard shortcuts , and last weekend I bought an iMac CRT.
ONCE YOU GO MAC YOU NEVER GO BACK:mac:

12-13-2005, 10:57 AM

Yes, Macs are a dream to use.
Very intuitive, rarely crash and at present are virus, spyware and adware free.

It's really a no brainer using a Mac for me ( plus I hate using Microsucks)

Hope this helps
Paul

12-13-2005, 07:09 PM

nothing but love for my 14in ibook. seems like it should fit your needs nicely. as stated earlier, get as much ram as you can afford; preferably 768 or higher. addressing the gaming issue though, don't expect to be playing any of the newer releases; you may have to stick with a few older titles, ex. diablo II, warcraftIII.

i actually had a blast learning to use my mac; everything is a pleasant change over from the pc world.

12-13-2005, 10:00 PM

If you are buying from the online apple store, do not buy your memory from them. You can get a better deal on any number of internet memory sellers. But do get more than 512MB, IMHO you'll be glad you did three years from now.

12-14-2005, 04:11 AM

Originally Posted by radarbob

If you are buying from the online apple store, do not buy your memory from them. You can get a better deal on any number of internet memory sellers. But do get more than 512MB, IMHO you'll be glad you did three years from now.

has anyone got any tips of where to buy it

12-14-2005, 04:29 AM

Well since you are a student - I'd go for Apple's online education store: You get price reductions on all apple products through there.

12-14-2005, 05:14 AM

yea and if you do it while at your university you might get an even bigger discount than normal if you institute has an agreement with apple

12-14-2005, 05:28 AM

Originally Posted by inflexion

yea and if you do it while at your university you might get an even bigger discount than normal if you institute has an agreement with apple

wot word proccesing stuff does it come with?

12-14-2005, 07:44 AM

With the iBook you get:

- Apple Works 6
- iWork '05 Demo
- and (don't laugh) Text Edit.

Apple Works is a bit dated now but it has some basic compatibility with MS Office, and can insert images, tables, type-styles and so forth, it's OK but not amazing. The iWork Demo which you can upgrade from comes with Pages which is a cross between a word processor and a page-layout app. It may seem a bit odd at first as it's very simple but can get some really nice results.

Finally TextEdit. It's a bit like Windows Write (or is it Word Pad now?) -- it can load Word files (not flawlessly but it can), insert images, typestyles, bulleted lists, tables, basic stylesheets and so forth, it's pretty basic but for your average work such as a quick letter or memo it's more suited than loading the mammoth that is Microsoft Word, which is available for the Mac, along with Excel and PowerPoint.

Apple presently have a great offer on MS Office presently -- may be worth investigating and the 2004 version, is not actually all that bad, I quite like using it.

Free options also exist such as Open Office.org and Neo Office/J (a native Mac OS X version of Open Office) for you also to try. If you want to get real hardcore for typing articles, reports, studies, essays and books, you can get deep down and dirty with TeX/LaTeX -- which are also well supported on Mac OS X.

So really, you get a good amount of word processing options in the box.

Plus you will get iLife for managing your photos, creating movies and DVDs, composing your own music -- it's simply fab and all comes free. Macs really do come with the best software packages, instead of a dull driver CD :flower:

Vicky

12-15-2005, 08:29 PM

Originally Posted by manuleigh

has anyone got any tips of where to buy it

Lot's of folks swear by Crucial.com (spelling?)

I bought mine from 4AllMemory.com. I liked that I tell them what computer I have and they display all the RAM that works w/ that model.

I did a lot of business over the years at macmall.com and macwarehouse.com.

IMHO as long as you get the right memory for your computer model, it's all basically the same.

12-15-2005, 09:32 PM

depending on how often, where and when yoyu use the ibook, you will want to decide on which to get: the 14 inch or the 12 inch.

At the momnet (last time I checked) they still had the same screen resolution, so its not like with the 14 inch your going to have any more room on the screen than you do with the 14 inch. The 12 inch i probably the best for a student, u can take it around to different classes, and it is much easier to move around.

I think that the 12 inch would be the best for portability options.

12-16-2005, 09:22 AM

I have the 12 inch and love the portability factor BUT....

the 14 inch has the same screen resolution but everything is bigger which is easier on the eyes if you wear glasses like me. i find i have to stare closer at the screen sometimes and if i magnify everything the screen looks too full. another plus about the 14 inch is better battery life and a bigger keyboard space to type. i sometimes find it a bit cramped. but whatever you choose u will be happy with.

"once u go mac, u don't go bac"