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moberry

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Hello all, I am in the market for an Apple Laptop. I am seriously considering the ibbok 12''. But wonder if the screen is too small, or just fine. I am a college student that will mostly instant message, email, type papers, write C++, and JAVA. I am wondering a few things.

  1. Power Book, or iBook
  2. Screen Size
  3. Does the iBook, or Power book have a docking station
  4. is MS office for apple a good product
  5. Many new laptops have a very shiny mirror like screen. Are any apple screens like this?
  6. Anything else helpful
  7. Cheap ram works fine for me, anyone had issues with apples and cheap ram
  8. I can get a decent price on a 100gb laptopt HD at my job with my discount (Best Buy) Are hard drives easily upgradable in these things.

Sorry for the questions, i know about all ther is to know about x86 hardware, but nothing about macs.
 
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i2oadi2unnei2

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It's all about personal preference when comes to questions like yours. Now I'll answer your questions as if I were in your shoe:

  1. Power Book, or iBook (more power more better for me, so a PB will do. Of course it depends how much I'm willing to spend)
  2. Screen Size (12" too small for me, 17" defeats the purpose of a laptop for me, so 15" is best suited for this situation)
  3. Does the iBook, or Power book have a docking station (since I'm a newbie, I don't know this answer <grin>)
  4. is MS office for apple a good product (well, its a M$ product, what else can I say? So far I like it, hasn't crashed on me yet hehe)
  5. Many new laptops have a very shiny mirror like screen. Are any apple screens like this? (I believe there were a posting regarding this under the "power book" heading and they mentioned something about X-brite. As far as ibook and PB, what you see is what you get.)
  6. Anything else helpful (read this forums for more info regarding personal experiences)
  7. Cheap ram works fine for me, anyone had issues with apples and cheap ram (errr you get what you pay for? <grin>)
  8. I can get a decent price on a 100gb laptopt HD at my job with my discount (Best Buy) Are hard drives easily upgradable in these things.(once again, I'm still a newbie and 80GB seems suffice for me for the time being, but I've read somewhere that others says its not hard but again, bringing it to an authorize apple dealer/seller is a better way to go)
Hope this helps and good luck!

Cheers,

RR
 
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moberry

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Screen

What i meant by the screen is is it hard to look into a 12'' screen for over an hour at a clip. And by cheap ram i mean, i bought cheap ram for my desktop, and have never had a problem with it. have any of you people had problems?
 
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meltbanana314

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1. I'd go with the PowerBook, but that's just personal preference.
2. Screen size is fine. My old 14" Compaq's screen is way inferior to the 12" on my PB. I don't know why anyone would carry around anything larger than a 12" laptop anyway.
3. No docking station, but you really don't need one anyway.
4. In my opinion, no. I hate all Microsoft products (except for the Xbox, but even that has its own problems.) If you are going to do spreadsheets, then go with Office because it has Excel. But if you aren't, then get Apple's iWork because from what I've seen, it's superior in a lot of ways.
5. It's not mirror like, at least not to me. I don't get a lot of glare when using it.
6. Apple has a very good Java and C++ IDE called XCode, try it out.
7. Buying cheap RAM anywhere is risky. I'd go for the good stuff like Crucial, Apples seem to like that best. Some people have reported problems with cheaper RAM in PBs and iBooks.
8. I don't know, because I can't even fill up my 60GB drive, and I think that's extreme overkill.
 
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meltbanana314

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moberry said:
What i meant by the screen is is it hard to look into a 12'' screen for over an hour at a clip. And by cheap ram i mean, i bought cheap ram for my desktop, and have never had a problem with it. have any of you people had problems?

I've been looking at this screen since 6 this morning. It's very easy on the eyes even when dimmed.
 
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1.) Powerbook
2.) 15"
3.) No
4.) MS Office is the best office suite available on the Mac platform. Open office is good, but you get what you pay for. iWork is good as well, but it isn't as feature rich as MS Word.
5.) No
 
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moberry

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Docking Station

I found a docking stations Here

Docking Stations are helpful because i can look at my nice 21'' crt instead of a 12'' lcd when I am at my desk.
 
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moberry said:
I found a docking stations Here

Docking Stations are helpful because i can look at my nice 21'' crt instead of a 12'' lcd when I am at my desk.
Apple doesn't make docking stations, but you may be able to find them from 3rd party vendors. You don't need a docking station to use your CRT. Just plug it into the port on the back of the laptop.
 
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meltbanana314

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Avid6eek said:
4.) MS Office is the best office suite available on the Mac platform. Open office is good, but you get what you pay for. iWork is good as well, but it isn't as feature rich as MS Word.

Do you use every single feature?

Didn't think so.

For 95% of people, applications like Keynote and Pages get everything users need done. The other 5% of people are the kind who depend on Word macros and version history and project collaboration and whatnot. It's really overkill in most situations, and not worth the extra money.
 
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meltbanana314 said:
Do you use every single feature?

Didn't think so.

For 95% of people, applications like Keynote and Pages get everything users need done. The other 5% of people are the kind who depend on Word macros and version history and project collaboration and whatnot. It's really overkill in most situations, and not worth the extra money.
Oh ****. Why do I get a defensive response to something that was bashing anyone? Who does use every feature of Word? It does more than anyone really needs, but that isn't a fault. It still is the best Word Processor available. That, and the fact that it is bundled with Excel, Powerpoint, and Entourage makes it well worth the $149 pricetag.
 
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falltime

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iWork is garbage.

Go with Office.

There is list of issues already in the thousands on iWork in the call center, its also atrociously sluggish compared to Office. Don't bother. Apple basically just made a few more "iPhotos" (I know there are people out there that know what I'm talking about).
 

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Something that I have noticed, when working with a small screen, if you are using many apps at once, it gets kind of annoying, when going back and forth between apps on a small screen. With the widescreen, you can evenly space things out and copy and paste stuff or whatever.
 
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meltbanana314

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Avid6eek said:
It does more than anyone really needs, but that isn't a fault.

Yes, it is. It's bloated with so many menus and buttons and half-working features and crap that it's not worth the money to buy.

Avid6eek said:
It still is the best Word Processor available.

At school, Office for Mac memory leaks so badly I have to save my work and log out of my account every few minutes so it doesn't crash and lose everything. Best word processor available? I think not.

Avid6eek said:
That, and the fact that it is bundled with Excel, Powerpoint, and Entourage makes it well worth the $149 pricetag.

I can see your point with Excel, but there's Keynote 2 (which is MUCH better than PowerPoint. PowerPoint presentations look fugly and bland, especially the animations and clip art.) and OS X already has an excellent set of PIM programs (Mail+iCal+Address Book) that make Entourage look like a piece of crapola, and not worth the $149.

Plus, is it really necessary to pay $300+ for Office if you aren't a student or teacher? No. iWork is affordable for everyone, and it gets the job done nicely.
 
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The program works great. If you are having memory issues, that is a problem on your system, because it is not a widespread problem. Your mention if it is the first time I've hard of it, and my job is to support Microsoft based products at work.

The only part that I actually agree with you on is Powerpoint isn't very good. One part I disagree with you on is the fact that Mac Mail is a POS. No better than Outlook Express.

In the future I would suggest you offer some more productive advice to people looking for information. I have found these forums to be very informative...the only real problem is the high number of severely Mac bias @ssholes in this place. You can be a Mac fan, and offer real advice at the same time.
 
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meltbanana314

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Avid6eek said:
The program works great. If you are having memory issues, that is a problem on your system, because it is not a widespread problem. Your mention if it is the first time I've hard of it, and my job is to support Microsoft based products at work.

There are about 30 Macs in the lab. All either eMacs or iMac G4s with 512MB RAM running 10.3. Repeat with 2 other tech classes I have/have had. They all have the same problem. Hardly a rare case in my view.

Avid6eek said:
The only part that I actually agree with you on is Powerpoint isn't very good. One part I disagree with you on is the fact that Mac Mail is a POS. No better than Outlook Express.

Well, Anand Shimpi seems to like it. (http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2232&p=11) If anyone is a 'power user' - it's him. He's head of freakin Anandtech! Outlook Express is a buggy, insecure piece of ****. OS X Mail ain't half bad.

Avid6eek said:
In the future I would suggest you offer some more productive advice to people looking for information. I have found these forums to be very informative...the only real problem is the high number of severely Mac bias @ssholes in this place. You can be a Mac fan, and offer real advice at the same time.

You support Microsoft-based software at work, right? I can call bias on you as easily as you can call bias on me, however odd or ridiculous that sounds. You (in a way) get your paycheck from Microsoft making software, so why shouldn't you praise it? I am offering real advice based off my experiences.

And, in my experience: anything with the name "Microsoft" attached to it should probably be avoided. The only exception I've found is the Xbox, but I've had some problems with Xbox Live registration systems, so that's not even all peachy.
 
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I support all types of software for my job...as I'm in the webhosting line of work. My paycheck don't come from Microsoft, but more as a result of Microsoft. Not all their products are great, and I'm willing to admit if they come up with something that is a POS. All their software isn't that way, and if they do make one product that really is better than the rest, In general, their office software cannot be beat. Whether it is on the PC, or Mac, Microsoft does make the best line of office software. Don't get my wrong...it's not perfect. Like you mentioned, Powerpoint is crap, and I think Access is equally as crappy. On the other hand, Word, Excel, and Outlook (Entourage) are the best products in their respective classes. You may disagree with me, but the majority of people will not.
 
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I'd like to say that I, being extremely dissatisfied with MS products en generale, think that Office for Mac is very well done. I find Outlook to be crap, personally, for the record. Entourage I haven't tried since when I installed Word and such, I already had Thunderbird in place. I've since ditched Thunderbird for its large size, and I'm liking Mac Mail. It has excellent UI. So I can't really comment on Entourage. I'll probably try it just for the heck of it. As for PowerPoint, I don't think PowerPoint's crap, but it's not that great. PowerPoint is only the industry standard because Word is. As for AppleWorks and iWork, I think they're nice suites, but when you need industry compatibility, you just need to get Office. It's just worth it. All of that having been said, to finish answering some of the original questions that I can of this poor poster whose topic has been hijacked by Apple-Microsoft debate wars that really don't amount to anything because I know that falltime, AvidGeek, and Meltbanana can all agree that they like Apple or they wouldn't be here.

I love my iBook to death. I love the way it operates, the way it looks, and everything. I don't personally see any need for me to get a Powerbook. I have enough RAM to where I can do anything I want except gaming (the video card is lacking, which brings me to the point of if you want to game at all, you should get the Powerbook with upgraded video RAM). On that memory note, stay away from cheap RAM for one thing. Macs are picky about it. Corsair and Crucial usually works without problems, and they are comparably usually a third of the price v. Apple/Samsung brand. They're cheapER, but not uber cheap. Apple does not make shiny screens. Sorry man. All those are as far as I know are covers that go on TOP of LCDs to protect them from getting scratched anyway. So all they'll do most likely is reduce the picture clarity in the long run. Thanks for your questions, and try not to get wrapped up in fights like we do so much. ;)
 

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