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Rating: 
Summary: iBrilliant!
Review: Apple have really outdone themselves with this unit. It is about the most capable laptop i have seen in its price range or many ones above it!
The system runs SILENT. u cant even hear the harddrive at all
Panther, as expected from Mac, a rock solid OS and by far the best looking one out there
The 1.07GHz PPC processor rons at the equivalence of a 2.5-3GHz processor. The system plays UT2004 and Battlefield better than id imagine seeing on any laptop let alone one as small as this
i have dragged the system through so much abuse in my backpack but it remains to operate completely normally and quickly.
but the best thing of all, the BATTERY LIFE! it runs about 5 hours of photoshop, or enough to watch the Austin powers DVD twice with sum spare time for special features... i love it!
its simply the best laptop i have ever used and ever will for a long time
Rating:
Summary: Aesthetic Wonder
Review: I bought this laptop in May of 2004 to use in college. Before deciding upon on which computer, I researched for a very long time. I spent hours looking at the Gateway, Toshiba, Sony, Apple, and even Dell websites. It came down to an Apple iBook or a Gateway. I went with the iBook and I've never looked back.
I couldn't wait to get home and set it up, which was very simple to do: plug it into the wall and click a few buttons. That's it.
The first thing that astounded me was the bright screen and the aesthetics of it all (exterior, desktop, icons). It's beautiful. When I look at the other laptops my family has, they're all bulky looking, black, and with a rough-ish texture. My iBook is sleek, smooth, and white as ever. The Apple logo on the top lights up when it's turned on!
Mac OS X Panther is wonderful. It's so easy to use and navigate through. There is a dock on the bottom on my desktop (which can be hidden, minimized, enlarged, moved to left or right) that holds my most used applications and the ones I have minimized. The applications can be removed from the dock or added to it by click and drag. Apple makes it easy to locate files within the hard drive through a browser-like window. The first time I plugged in my digital camera, it automatically opened iPhoto and asked if I wanted to import the photographs. No software was necessary. iPhoto is a great, easy-to-use application alongside iChat, Mail, Safari, Stickies, iMovie, iCal, and Sherlock. With Mail, I have configured my .Mac account and school account so that when I open it, it checks both mailboxes for me. Safari surpasses Internet Explorer in unthinkable ways, notably it's bookmarking features and on-site Google search bar. Sherlock is an investigative program that I use to look up movie showtimes. I typed in my postal zip code and it listed the nearby theatres with the titles of movies playing and their showtimes. When I chose a film, it brought up a summary, rating, the poster, cast list, and most of the time the movie trailer. Sherlock also has an image search and eBay search. Also, and I use this a lot the F9 and F11 (by default) keys help you to see which windows you currently have opened and clear them from your view to make your desktop visible, which is a great feature when you have many applications running.
Because I run about three to four applications at a time, I upgraded the memory. It came with 256MB RAM, but I added a stick of 512 MB. I stronly recommend an upgrade of at least 256 MB.
I've been using iTunes like crazy. I have an iPod that I was first using with my old Windows PC, but when I plugged it into the iBook everything came up great. I had to find software to get the songs from my iPod to my iBook, but there are great freeware websites out there (Version Tracker). The speakers are okay, I actually have my old Boston speakers from the Windows PC hooked up, and volume control is made easy with the keyboard buttons.
One thing I absolutely love is the wireless feature. There is an integrated Airport card and I can walk throughout the house and be connected to the Internet. And what is great about using the iBook wirelessly is it's long battery life. I can use it for about six hours without getting out the power adapter.
I couldn't be happier with the iBook. I'm still learning new things, and continually being amazed.
Rating:
Summary: WONDERFUL!!
Review: I got this laptop two days ago and I cant get my hands off it. It has so many nifty and useful programs, its amazing. Truly I cant believe I didnt swtich from Windows to Mac sooner. It is so much more smoother, and truly a pleasent experiance. I have been a long Windows user, and I was a little skeptic of Macintoshs. I mean Macs arent the cheapest, and there are plenty of cheap Windows based laptops, but there is a reason why they are cheap! Because they are poorly made and run only average. While Macs are wonderfully built and run smooth. Its like a Ferrari compared to a Volkswagen. Its a wonderful working system. Not to mention sexy!!!
Rating:
Summary: Windows user changes religions
Review: They are few, but express their happiness, their deep satisfaction, so well. They proselytize sometimes, not often, and it is with clear conviction. They often give off the aura of knowing something you don't know but could discover, if only you were brave enough to follow their narrower path.I have been listening to them off and on since I left the fold twenty years ago. I made a common choice, a change, when I felt abandoned, or rather shut out, from the fold. Recently, however, after years of aggravation along the path I'd been following, their words started to hit home. I started to long for their satisfaction, their joy, the ease with which they got things done. Lately I've been talking to them about their choice, asking questions, opening up about my fears and doubts, and, for the first time since leaving, began to think about joining once more. Yesterday, I visited, talked much more with them, and decided: yes, it was right to change religions, and I did it right there, right then. I bought a Mac, a 14-inch 1.25GHz G4 iBook. Here is what "changing religions" means for this once-upon-a-time Apple II user who has been working in the PC world since 1983 (I remember CP/M!). It's been less than 24 hours since I first opened the box, and in that interval, I've set up the iBook for Internet access, both for dialup and for a new wireless network, as I'd bought an AirPort Extreme Base, too, did laundry, surfed, retrieved and answered email, slept, made my 100-mile Monday commute, and worked a full day. And I'm typing this review in a word processing package I saw for the first time just minutes ago. Apple has done an excellent job of making it easy for someone to set up this computer, even someone who has spent 20+ years working with and on PCs of a different flavor. I woke up my 10-year-old son this morning by handing him the iBook, already on and connected through AirPort, with a cheery "Would you like to surf the Web in bed while I get my shower?" The iBook comes with a start-up guide which is clear, well-written, and easy to follow. All the information I needed to get to this point was within the first half of this very slim volume. I pulled the iBook and the start-up guide out of the box, and within literally 30 minutes, the iBook was set up and connected to the Web. It would have been faster, but I had to wait for the Dell laptop I use to boot up so I could get the phone number of my ISP. (Dinosaur that I am, yes, I do use dialup.) The keyboard is fullsize but not large; those with big hands and fingers might find the PowerBook a bit easier to use. That said, I've had no problem whatsoever typing on the keyboard, except to try to remember it's not Ctrl-C to cut and Ctrl-V to paste and that the delete key functions as a backspace and does not delete the letter to the right of the cursor. Tactile feedback is good and the keys are comfortable. Typed text is not as clear as on the Dell Inspiron 8100 I have been using (which has a brilliantly clear screen), but I suspect there is a setting I can adjust which will make the text sharper. It's perfectly legible even to my failing eyes, but not as clear as I would like. Icons and graphics are sharp and the screen is nice and bright. Adjustments for brightness are clearly marked on the keyboard. The software interface is outstanding. It's familiar enough to this Windows user to not cause disorientation, but looks fresher and cleaner. The Dock, a bar of applications icons, comes up along the bottom of the screen after first setting up the iBook, and has nearly everything on it you will first use and want to explore. The iBook comes with AppleWorks 6 (about which I know nothing, but which has a word processor that is obviously easy enough to use to type this review.... and play around with formatting, word count, text attributes, and so on; I expect the presentation and spreadsheet software are just as easy to use), a suite of tools for the "rest of your life" called iLife (which includes iChat, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iCal[endar] and Garage Band, a music sequencer that will likely take up the rest of my evening), and Safari, which is Apple's browser. And a host of other software, including an encyclopedia, games, and Quicken. I had compared this iBook with the next model down, the 14" 1 GHz iBook which falls in the middle of the three iBook offerings from Apple. I was all set to get the middle model, to which I would have added a 60 Gb drive (instead of the 40 Gb it came with), another 256 Mb SDRAM (to boost it to 512), and an AirPort Extreme card (so I could use wireless networking). But...with the price difference between the two models only $200 and the 1.2 GHz iBook already having the AirPort Extreme card and a 60 Gb hard drive, it didn't make financial sense to stay with the middle model. I still need to boost the memory -- 256 Mb is standard, with that on one chip which leaves the other slot open for another chip (unlike the middle model, which has two 128 Mb chips, requiring you to discard one to boost the memory, unless you buy the computer online rather than from an Apple store). I cannot abandon the Windows world, as I work in it, but to change computer religions and have Apple make it so easy to do so makes this former Apple II user happy indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: Faulty iBook
Review: This is my fifth Mac laptop and a problem that I had with the second one I owned has made a surprising comeback.
The cursor jumps around the page while you are typing, so that you can be in the middle of the fourth line of text and all of sudden the cursor has 'jumped up to the middle of the secondline.
I'm a decent typist, but this is an impossible situation. I can't type more than aline or two without it happening, and as one can imagine, it's a huge pain. I'm not talking about a typo here there but an entire train of thought broken up and inserted into a previous line.
Don't buy this model until they fix it. You can get an idea about this from the Apple Support discussion pages. I'm not the only one this has happened to, and you'll be able to track what Apple is doing to address the issue through the discussions.
It's a wonderful product in general, but wait until this bug is fixed.
Rating:
Summary: Another great Apple computer!
Review: This is my third Mac and my first Mac laptop. Didn't need the muscle of the PowerBook, only interested in email, wireless web, iPhoto, Quicken, stuff like that. The fact that the this iBook includes an Airport card is a great bargain. Normally that would've cost an additional $100 or so. I had this set up with my Linksys 54g wireless router in about 2 minutes! Works perfectly with full WPA encryption and MAC address filtering (Airport card works better with Linksys router than the Linksys card in my Dell laptop, and Linksys doesn't officially support Macs, so go figure. Just shows how well Apple supports standards.) Battery lasts a long, long time (again, better than my Dell). CD burner works great. And my iSight camera works perfectly over the wireless network as well! Highly recommended, especially if you want to go wireless.
Rating:
Summary: Another great Apple computer!
Review: This is my third Mac and my first Mac laptop. Didn't need the muscle of the PowerBook, only interested in email, wireless web, iPhoto, Quicken, stuff like that. The fact that the this iBook includes an Airport card is a great bargain. Normally that would've cost an additional $100 or so. I had this set up with my Linksys 54g wireless router in about 2 minutes! Works perfectly with full WPA encryption and MAC address filtering (Airport card works better with Linksys router than the Linksys card in my Dell laptop, and Linksys doesn't officially support Macs, so go figure. Just shows how well Apple supports standards.) Battery lasts a long, long time (again, better than my Dell). CD burner works great. And my iSight camera works perfectly over the wireless network as well! Highly recommended, especially if you want to go wireless.
Rating: 
Summary: Graphics Great, Text Disappoints
Review: Well I bought into the hype and made the switch. A very expensive switch to the new 14" iBook 1.25 GHZ G4. Having worked on DOS and Windows based computers for years I was really looking forward to having a laptop computer with Apple's legendary graphics and ease-of-use. I ordered the laptop from Apple's web site without test driving one first. That was a big mistake! Had I given the thing a spin first I would have seen how poorly the text is rendered on the screen compared to Windows machines. This is a big deal to me because I use the computer for composing written material and researching on the net. I find that after using it for two hours I get a terrible eye strain headache. At first I thought something was wrong with the monitor but after some internet research I discovered that many others have the same problem with Apple. Apparently, they have an inferior "font smoothing" routine to the one that Microsoft uses in Windows. I have tried adjusting every conceivable setting on the display and in the operating system with little or no improvement. My advice, do your own research on the subject and test drive one before you buy. My only hope is that Apple will improve their font smoothing on future releases of the OS. Not recommended if you are doing anything that involves alot of reading.
Rating:
Summary: Graphics Great, Text Disappoints
Review: Well I bought into the hype and made the switch. A very expensive switch to the new 14" iBook 1.25 GHZ G4. Having worked on DOS and Windows based computers for years I was really looking forward to having a laptop computer with Apple's legendary graphics and ease-of-use. I ordered the laptop from Apple's web site without test driving one first. That was a big mistake! Had I given the thing a spin first I would have seen how poorly the text is rendered on the screen compared to Windows machines. This is a big deal to me because I use the computer for composing written material and researching on the net. I find that after using it for two hours I get a terrible eye strain headache. At first I thought something was wrong with the monitor but after some internet research I discovered that many others have the same problem with Apple. Apparently, they have an inferior "font smoothing" routine to the one that Microsoft uses in Windows. I have tried adjusting every conceivable setting on the display and in the operating system with little or no improvement. My advice, do your own research on the subject and test drive one before you buy. My only hope is that Apple will improve their font smoothing on future releases of the OS. Not recommended if you are doing anything that involves alot of reading.
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