Your Life. To Go. (Apple iBook 2001)

Member Name: jonny quest

Product:	Apple iBook 2001
Date:	28/12/01 (729 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Design, Ultra Portable, Fun to Use

Disadvantages: Expensive?, Easy to Scratch (if not looked after)

I read the early reviews. I saw the adverts on TV. I researched on the internet for as long as I could every day for a month, hunting down the best deal and the best configuration for me. Then I managed to convince my dad to buy one for me.

I'm still not exactly sure how that last part happened, and I'm equally unsure if he knows either, something about going to University next year and needing something more portable than my desktop.

Anyway, I finally ordered my iBook from The Apple Store, www.apple.com/uk/thestore as I'm not luck enough to have a bricks-and-mortar Apple Store near my home town and it wasn't any cheaper anywhere else on the net. I also figured that buying it direct from Apple would give me the best quality of service and give me better technical support in the future. The Apple Store offers you to customise your purchase, such as adding larger hard drives (as I did) or more memory. If you just want a standard model and want it quickly then shop around. Third party dealers may now be able to offer lower prices that Apple Stores.

The model which I ordered was the 600MHz, DVD-ROM, 128MB SDRAM, 20GB HD - £1,132.76 + VAT. I also ordered Microsoft Office and the Apple Pro Mouse, a groovy optical mouse with great features such as user-adjustable click tension and no buttons (not as we know them anyway). The body of the mouse pivots to act as a button, but that's another review.

Back to the iBook. The ordering process was very simple and straight forward. When you send items to your shopping basket Apple gives you an estimated build time for each item. This feature is very useful as it you can see how long it is likely to take for your order to be built and arrive. The build time for my order was 25 working days, it would have been 7 days except Microsoft Office was in hot demand and was likely to take a while to be available. Very quickly after the order I was sent a confirmation of my order by email
and I was also able to check the progress of my order online, from being reviewed to built and shipped.

I would check the progress of my order online every day from placing the order. I was very surprised to see that Apple had kept to their goals, of shipping all products within 14 days of order where is reasonably possible. I had expected my order to take the full 25 working days, but when I checked after only 14 I was delighted. Being the Christmas season, the order did take 8 days to arrive after it was shipped, but it came within the 25 working days which I had been quoted.

When the iBook arrived I was very pleased with its appearance, which was the first thing I noticed. It's small and beautifully designed body was simple, great for someone who loves minimalist design, and the white plastic made it stand out from the hordes of grey and black notebooks. The iBook had certainly changed from the previously colourful, clam-shaped style. The sleek new iBook looked like a younger brother to the titanium PowerBook G4. The iBook was thin, especially the screen, but did not seem fragile due to its excellent design and build. The hinge does not pivot in the same way as most notebooks. The pivot is lower down, moving the screen down and away as it is opened. This reveals a great keyboard, which is very comfortable to use, and the trackpad, which I have made little use of due to the very comfortable Pro Mouse but is still well balanced between speed and sensitivity. The two very compact speakers reside in the far corners. I was pleasantly surprised when I first started playing MP3s on the iBook. I was expecting tinny, low bass sounds but, although they do not match up to a set of Harman Kardon Soundsticks, performance is good enough not to warrant the extra £130, especially as you can select the small speakers option in the iTunes equaliser, which emphasises bass.

The iBook comes with the basic software such as Internet Explorer, as well as
QuickTime, iTunes, a great audio program (especially if you get an iPod MP3 player), iMovie 2, allowing you to edit movies from your DV video camera with some great effects, AppleWorks, make presentations, documents, spreadsheets and databases, and some fun games for those long journeys and boring lessons.

Along the right-hand side of the iBook is the optical drive, choose from CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, CD-RW or CD-RW DVD-ROM combo (in ascending price order). Apple are very excited about their combo drive, giving you the ability to watch DVDs or burn CDs in your lap. However the choice is very personal, with cost playing a large part in the decision for some. I decided the best option would be to buy the DVD-ROM, allowing me to read CDs and watch DVDs, and I am looking to buy an external CD-RW as I don't burn CDs very regularly.

The left-hand side is where the ports are located. There is a modem connector (for use with the internal 56k modem), 10/100 Ethernet (for Broadband and networking), 6-pin FireWire (for DV cameras, external hard drives etc.), two USB ports (for external peripherals, mice etc.), RGB Video Out (allowing connection to an external monitor through the included cable) and AV connector (for composite connection to TV and for use with headphones).

The iBook does not come with any PC card slots. Another missing element is a floppy drive. Apple seem to have omitted the floppy drive as it is becoming obsolete and this saves weight, size and battery life. For those of us who do not want to burn a CD or set up a network in order to transfer small files the only option is to buy an external USB floppy drive. I am currently purchasing a good model from VST which is powered through the USB port, so is easy to carry and connect when necessary and on-the-go.

The new iBook is 'AirPort' ready. For those who do not know about this new technology it is a wireless internet and networking system. The AirPort hub allows up to 50
Macs to be wirelessly networked up to 150 feet away from the hub at up to 11Mbps. The iBook requires an AirPort card to be inserted into the slot, located beneath the keyboard. I personally have not tried to do this as I do not have an AirPort card or hub, but other reviews suggest that the process is easy enough to complete, considering that the card rarely needs to be accessed once inserted.

Apple initially chose to put 500MHz processors in all models, running at a mere 66MHz system bus and with 64MB of RAM and a 10GB hard drive as standard. They have now beefed up the iBook, putting the 600MHz (100MHz system bus) processor in all models except the CD-ROM, 15GB hard drive (expandable to 20GB) and 128MB of RAM as standard in all models. These changes were definitely for the best, especially when the iBook is running OS X, so that the iBook can keep up to speed. My iBook is perfectly capable of running multiple programs, and quickly too! But for those who wish to run multiple, large programs or do lots of PhotoShop work on their iBooks I would suggest more RAM (expandable to 640MB).

The iBook is not designed to be a gaming machine, and the inclusion of the ATI RAGE Mobility 128 graphics accelerator with 8MB of SDRAM graphics memory illustrates this. The graphics card is chosen as a compromise between performance and battery consumption. The graphics are great for normal applications, but demanding games may suffer. Heavy gamers should look to a product which is aimed at, and designed for, their needs. The iBook is not.

The screen is 12.1 inches (diagonal) TFT XGA which runs at 1024 x 768 resolution, but supports 800 x 600 and 640 x 480, all with millions of colours. Squishing the same resolution as a 14 inch screen into 12.1 inches was a worry for some people, the display may be small and difficult to read. However I find the display very easy to read, the resolution giving excellent sharp detail, and is very easy on the eye. The older us
er may have problems, but there is always the option of switching to a lower resolution.

I have heard that the plastic case is easy to scratch so I keep my iBook in a 'JamBags iBook Sleeve', wrapped up in a towel just to make sure. The plastic (polycarbonate for those in the know) is supposed to have excellent impact resistance and the hard drive is rubber mounted in the magnesium frame for extra protection. Although I have not yet tested these features I feel assured that the iBook has been designed to cope with the bumps and knocks of typical student life (aside from skydiving and rock-climbing of course).

Battery life is quoted at 5 hours. I personally tend to get up to about 4 hours 25 mins, but with all the battery saving features in operation this should approach 5. The battery has a feature where four LEDs light up when a button on the battery is pressed to show battery life. This is a quirky feature which, although is not necessary for normal use, is great for checking charge on spare batteries. Charging the battery takes about 1 hour.

The iBook has a built in security slot (at the rear left) which is compatible with a number of Kensington and Noble Security cables and locks so you can secure your iBook to a desk or table etc.

The stability of UNIX means that the iBook's operating system is extremely reliable compared to Windows. My iBook has not yet crashed and I am not expecting it to.

The DVD-ROM drive is great for playing DVDs wherever you are and you can use headphones if you are on the train or plane. It is also useful to connect the iBook to a TV through the AV port to play movies and DVDs on a larger screen.

As for noise...what noise? The iBook is incredibly quiet. I have rarely heard my fan and the hard drive is barely noticable. When I use my PC now the fan seems like a jet engine in comparison.

Prices start at £1099 for CD-ROM and go up to £1499+ for Combo drive.

T
he iBook is the notebook to be seen with this year, the great design and simple but fun adverts with the quirky "Would you like that to go?" message captured me as I'm sure they did many others.

Overall the iBook is excellently designed and very well targeted at the student market and those who want an ultra-portable notebook. For the professional who demands a bit more the titanium PowerBook G4 is better (for Photoshop type applications). But for those of us who can't afford the extra £2000, don't want to carry around a large notebook and don't need the extra features, the iBook is a great cousin to the TiBook and doesn't come that far behind, and is more likely to turn heads.

www.apple.com - Check It Out

***One tip, your iBook may come with the keyboard locking screw (located between the F5 and F6 keys) unlocked. This is the default position but may make the keyboard seem a bit squidgy. Turning this screw to the locked position relieves the problem by stiffening up the keyboard.***

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