[CS-FSLUG] Laptops and iBooks

[David Aikema]

On 7/22/05, Nathan T. <celerate at gmail.com> wrote:
>   - 12" iBooks are problematic, and have a reputation for being so.

I've got a 12" iBook (albeit a couple of years old, so it's an earlier
revision).  It was susceptible to those logic board problems that
Apple had a while back, although I think that applied to other models
at that point.

I did have an Airport (read: 802.11b) card die on me in it though.

>  - Apple is pretty bad for honouring warranties over issues that don't
> actually cripple the laptops and arise through wear and tear, even
> though the machines are still covered.

What sort of issues?

> it is the button ordering in Macs is backwards just like in Gnome
> compared to what I'm used to

Just give it a week or two and it'll seem perfectly normal.

, and I like KDE and am not about to give
> it up any time soon.

You could always install linux on the thing if you decide that you
don't like Mac OS.  I'm not 100% sure that all the iBook hardware is
supported though - you'd have to check around.

> I really think that an iBook is a huge investment, just taking the off
> the shelf configuration and increasing the ram to $512 MB cause the
> price for Canadian customers to jump to $1346. I don't know if I even

Try installing your own RAM.  Factory-installed RAM tends to be rather
pricey on Apple systems.

> have that much patience, and that's for something that has a small
> screen which may be hard to read at a 1024x768 resolution which by the
> way is what I've heard is the highest it'll support.

1024x768 is what my ibook's display tops out at.

small == portable

> I'm looking for something with a long battery life, a DVD drive in it,

Define DVD drive: DVD-ROM or DVD-RW?

> and at least 2 USB ports but I would prefer 4 or more. I want a laptop
> that doesn't weight a tonne, has a tiny screen which can't be read at
> a reasonable resolution (developers needs higher resolutions btw :-) )

Remember that there will always be tradeoffs that you'll have to make.

Developers don't "need" higher resolutions, although it can come in
rather handy (if I have my iBook hooked up to my KVM at home, then I'm
running it with a dual display ... the 12.1" laptop display and a 19"
LCD)

> there aren't any of those here or anywhere near here that I can get

Ah, yes .... (insert favourite joke about the population of Saskatchewan :-)

> to. Apple doesn't seem to offer any kind of in depth information on
> the OS, I'm a hands on kind of guy and all these reviews which I've

What on earth are you looking for in the way of info that you can't
seem to find?

> read aren't enough for me to base a decision on. I've considered
> running Mac OS X in PearPC before, but I don't have any way of getting
> Mac OS X without buying a Mac first.

I wouldn't reccomend basing a purchasing decision for something like
that on a test run with an emulator... it'll be slow

David