Laptops

Hiya.

I've had a couple of requests for more info about my laptop, so here it is. Sorry not to reply personally, but it was getting, well, a little long saying the same thing over and over.

Hubby is the tech buyer at our house so I had to ask him. He said, iBooks range from $1300 to $1800, depending on the drive. You can get cd rom, dvd, dc rom rewriteable (reads and burns cd's) or the combo drive which reads dvd's and reads and burns cd's, which is the one we have. You could also use a PowerBook but I don't the price range on those. The Airport base station runs about $300 and supports up to 10 computers, and each computer needs an Airport card which is about $100. The range is 150 feet, so about the length of a football field, in all directions from the base station. Even through different floors of a building, etc. I take mine outside to watch the kid, very cool.

Things to consider: The Airport is actually about average cost for that kind of thing, but being an Apple product, it won't work with wintel machines if that's what you use. We have 3 computers on the Airport, our two laptops and a desktop. If you have kids on iMacs plus mom and dad surf, this might be a good deal. Hubby is an early adopter and I personally believe in buying the top of the line but holding onto it forever, so he will resell his iBook for something else when it comes out and I will keep mine until it falls apart. Airport works in all the iBooks and in the desktops issued since 1999.

If you live near one, you could check it out at one of the new Apple stores. They're in Glendale, CA; Willow Bend Mall in Plano, TX; Mall of American in Minnesota; and two we can't remember, one in VA and one near Chicago. Or I suppose any computer convention in your area. Or you can order online at http://www.apple.com if you feel comfortable with that. Personally I like to try stuff out before giving out money, but hubby doesn't feel that way.

So, maybe costly to make the switch, but we love ours and I'd recommend the product if you can manage it.

Thank you so very much for your information on laptops!
The only Laptop I currently have is my himmy!

I would really like to pay no more than $300.00
and am waiting for years to pass so they will
drop in price (like most technological things do!).

I will visit that site and monitor the costs. It
would be so nice to have a laptop someday! I don't
like to have to sit at a computer station in my
home to be on the Boards. I hear a laptop is great
to have at a cat show too! Again, thanks for your
information!

Another good place to purchase is http://www.macwarehouse.com

They carry Apple and other equipment. Often they have great rebates, free memory upgrades, or free equipment (like printers) with purchase.

I bought my current iMac from them. I got a free printer and free 64mb memory upgrade at the time.

The iBook is a good laptop for surfing the net and stuff. If you need a computer for serious use, it's not the best choice.

whiskerkitty, I think you can get wintel machines for less, that is just what we paid because hubby had to have the latest & greatest Apple product. Daughter has a pc in her room, pentium, color printer, etc. and we paid $200 for the whole thing new. No internet tho'! She's too young for that on her own.

Deb, I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the iBook. It obviously lacks the computing power of our Cube, but in general laptops give up features for portability.

If you are comparing Apple with pc's, I think that is a common misconception. Apple is focussed on education and creative fields, IBM is focussed on business (that is their name, after all, Internation Business Machines). The software and features developed for the different operating systems reflect that. Tho' I'm not sure how much is IBM and how much is Microsoft these days.

Of course, I am not a Machead. I remember when computers were the size of a refrigerator and had to be kept at about 50F. The programs ran on paper or mag tapes and the data was on punch cards. I remember when Apple was the only personal computer, and when business concerns overtook the industry. Dad bought an Apple II in the 80's, I bought a 486 (top of the line at the time) in the 90's, and now hubby prefers Apple.

These days, for the things I do, I would have chosen Apple anyway because it is best suited to my interests. However, not all machines are suitable for all people. And lots of people are perfectly happy with used computers because it does everything they want it to and is inexpensive. Depends what you're looking for.

Right now I'm looking for one of the old text-only pagers that does nothing else, to participate in an art project. Think I can find it? Only fancy schmancy $100 cel phones where the text message service costs extra. Doesn't always have to be the latest and greatest to be the most appropriate . . .

sunlion:

The assessment of the iBook was given to me by a Mac dealership when I was considering its purchase. I wanted to be able to interface it with equipment at my university for the prupose of presentations and such. The guy told me that it wasn't going to be useful for that type of thing, and said that its usefulness was limited. I cannot remember his exact phrasing or reasoning at this point. I find that one of the limitations is that it doesn't have a disk drive.

I am a Mac person all the way. I use it mostly because it is what is available in my public school system. Since I do lesson plans and grades on the computer, I need a system that I can use at home and at school. But I have seen in other dealings that it is inconvenient in a Microsoft world. I had to buy Office for the Mac in order to be able to use stuff like Power Point. I also have to have Word and Excel because outside of my public school setting, these are the mainstays.

I do miss the disk drive, tho' most of what I want is on cd these days. And since I can also burn 'em, I could always save stuff that way. Other stuff goes on my iDrive. Did you know that you can go to the Apple site and register with them, and you get a free e-mail address and space on their server (iDrive) if you want to make a homepage? Microsoft doesn't do that at least not that I know of. I use it for storing stuff if I need to access it away from home. Otherwise, I have file sharing and through the airport I can get to stuff from our other computers. I haven't missed diskettes, but I wouldn't use them at this point anyway.

Hubby uses a pc emulator program called Virtual PC, but it's on the cube, I don't know if it would fit in the memory on an iBook. He is also running OS 9 and OS X simultaneously, so I know he's got some extra memory in there. We're upgrading mine this week too, when we get around to it.

But I understand, I bought the pc because it was compatible with my work and college. Now that I'm home, it isn't a concern, so as long as it does what I need it to do, I don't care much whose name is on the box.

BTW, I'm going to tell hubby about this thread, he might just show up here, he knows much more about this stuff than I do. I'm an Apple newbie these days. :tounge2: