Hey all, just ordered ibook G4, few questions

first of all, first time mac user . secondly, im not a convert, main PC is still a PC (a64 4000+, 2gigs ram, 7800), this ibook (12.1inch) will be used for taking notes in clases, typing/email, and some WoW (awesome game) SO first of all, is there anything i need to know about macs? i have a few questions:

1. reliablity, how long will this guy last me? im pretty darn gentle with computer stuff, been building my own for about 6 years
2. what kind of battery life can i expect from this? is it better by alot if i turn down brightness?
3. my friend bought office 2k4 about a year ago, and has since had his lappy (g3 900) stolen, and so he gave me his office, as he no longer has use for it, is installing stuff pretty much the same as PC's?
4. how are the specs on this bad boy? i went with this over a much faster PC soley on the fact of battery life, and tiger looks cool. tis a 1.33G4, 512 ram, radeon 9550 32 megs (downclocked 9600) intergrated airport and combo drive

thanks for your time! Mike

Hey, man. Congrats on the iBook. I had one until I spilled a cup of ice water on it. It was darn good water too...

1. Mine was reliable for the 2 weeks I had it... lol It also was a little slow for my needs (CS2, FCP, etc.) But good for Mail, Safari, Office, etc.
2. Battery life is like 4 hours... I usually left mine plugged in. And I forget how long they last.
3. You usually drag and drop files into the Apps folder to install them, but sometimes there's an installer. (Office has an installer)
4.Mine was good for iChat, Safari, Mail, etc. but when I came time for GarageBand, FCP, CS2, it was not so good, part of the reason I moved up to a G5/iMac.

Anyway, have fun with it! It's a great little computer (I suggest a RAM upgrade too!)

1. macs are vey reliable...forget about viruses, spyware and that blue screen of death
2. battery lifes not bad...i've seen people get 6 or 7 hours...dont no if the brightness makes a difference (maybe 15 minutes or so)
3. software you buy (office, photoshop, etc.) usuallly have installers, but most freeware u just drag the downloaded folder into ur apps folder
4. while urs isnt top of the line or anything u'll still be surprised how fast it runs. u might want to get another 512 stick of ram to put in

1. A long-*** time.
2. I have 14-inch, and I get over 5 hours in classes when I've got Safari, Word, Adium, and Mail running. Yours is smaller, so you could expect even more battery life. You'll want brightness at full; it just looks better. Don't bother lowering it.
3. For MS products, it's pretty much identical. Many Mac-native programs don't have installers; you simply move the application file to the applications folder and you're done. MS products and some various others will have what's called a VISE installer, very similar to the Install Wizard on Windows.
4. Do NOT let "1.33 GHz" fool you. This outperforms Intels I've used up to 2.0 GHz (unless we're talking Pentium Ms. Those are pretty sweet processors). Also, get more RAM. Macs are much more RAM-hungry than PCs. I'd recommend 768; I personally have 1.28 GB, but I sometimes run ten programs at once including Photoshop. Also, it helps to have a gig or more for playing WoW. Since we only have 32 MB of video RAM, we have to keep the settings low to play it, and have a lot of memory. I never have problems (except in Ironforge, on occasion), but again, I cannot stress how important RAM is.

Overall, I hope you enjoy your iBook experience as much as I did. Good luck!

thanks for the input guys! i know alot about PC's, and the architecture of processors, the 1.33 doesn't fool me at all, but a 1.33Ghz Pm would beat it unfortunatly, which is why apple is going to intel for processors. the main reason i got this is for battery life, which sounds like it will be amazing, my longest lecture (this year) is 3 hours (it SUCKS, well, at least its interesting) so im really looking forward to taking notes on my mac, rather than trying to stay awake and write at the same time. our whole uni is wireless, so ill prob be surfin around also. its really nice that they changed the macs to 512 standard, so i can throw ina gig stick to make it 1.5 gigs, i might just end up pickin up a 512 stick tho, as they are sub 50 bux, and i might actually be able to afford that. this thing wasn't cheap, but i saw someone with one in class today messin around with the cool things you can do on a mac, and it reinforced my decision that i made a good one. so, anything else i should know about these guys? thanks, Mike.

They're the best?

haha, i do find that remark funny. i have no siding with either PCs or macs, other than the gaming aspect, and i dare anyone to find a match to my PC in a mac, as it can't be done... yet. but things get old, ect. and you want to try something new/fun, which is why i bought one! yay! :mac:

Yeah I agree, my friend Butros builds TIIIIIIIGHT Gaming PCs.

hey guys, im on the mac right now, using it in class for the first time, im wearing down the batt to zero, as it said to fully decharge before recharging it

congrats! How do you like it so far?

i am LOVING this little guy so far, after powering all the way down and charging, turning brightness down, battery life (on the meter thingy) says 6 hours! HOLY CRAP. i turned off wireless inet, and it went up to like 6:45!!!!! MY GOD. i know that isn't exactly right, but if im only doing typing ect, its close

Yes, It is great for note taking. Also, does your iBook have bluetooth? Turning this off when not in use can help the battery a little, as well as turning off the sound.

And, I'm not sure if you have tried it, but if you use Word for your notetaking, I would look at the Word Notebook feature. You can make an entire notebook into one file and organize with tabs and even do a voice recording of the lecture at the same time!

I hope that you enjoy your new Mac!!