i'm around, i promise! meanwhile, come check out my new blog: http://illusionsofme.wordpress .com
i'm around, i promise! meanwhile, come check out my new blog: http://illusionsofme.wordpress .com
Member since:09.06.2004
Reviews:66
Members who trust:22
Update:
November 2005:
I got my computer back from the Apple Repair shop only to discover that it froze each time I plugged it in to charge it up and run it simultaneously. Went back to the shop, they had no idea what was wrong, so I decided to wait until I reached the US, by which time the problem appeared to have sorted itself out. A few weeks passed without incident, when my computer began freezing sporadically again. I took it in to my school's computer shop, where it was run off a clean drive and still froze, indicating a hardware problem. Still, I needed the computer, so I stuck it out and decided to wait before sending it off again. Then it began to freeze on startup, at which point I called Apple. After speaking with a technical representative who tried in vain to solve my issues through troubleshooting, I was connected to a very pleasant, more advanced technical specialist who listened to my description of the problem, and agreed it was most likely a hardware problem. I then asked her if there was anything they could do for me, at which point she pulled up my repair history and informed me that as this would be my third major repair, I was entitled to receive a new machine. I was given an option between staying with the iBook (albeit with a faster processer and a combo drive vs. the super drive that I currently have, and more RAM), or upgrading to the 12-inch Powerbook for $200. I opted to stay with the iBook, and am currently waiting for the necessary documents and labels to reach me so the exchange can proceed.
Apple's customer service gets high marks from me: they are competent, friendly, and not condescending in the least (compared to the Genius Bar guys I've encountered in the stores). The legal agreement was sent to me promptly, and I've had numerous followup phone calls from my service rep to make sure that I received and sent out the documents.
I suppose in the end, all's well that ends well, but it has been a year filled with heartbreak, data loss, and endless frustration. Here's to a fresh start. Maybe Apple will redeem itself, only time will tell. ------------------------------------------- ***FURTHER UPDATE*** (August 2005) As aforementioned, my hard-drive crashed in October, barely four months after buying the laptop. Then my keys began to chip. In early March, I sent my computer back to Apple to get the logic board replaced so I could have keys again, and also to get a faulty ethernet jack replaced, both of which were luckily covered under my warranty (my computer shop repairman told me that because replacing the ports on the computer is so expensive, Apple will frequently try to wriggle their way out of paying for the replacement (around $800).
Everything went fine from March to Monday night of last week, when my computer screen randomly froze up and then died. The most frequent cause of this happening is logicboard failure, which I don't believe I have, or a problem with the display card or screen wiring. However, I will mention that in researching what could be wrong with my computer screen (which has since just reverted to a lovely
shade of black), people reported increasingly common incidents of logicboard failure causing a screen death, and one person said they'd called Apple, and had a technician admit they're now getting 2-3 computers sent in per DAY for logic board replacements.
My computer is now with my local Apple repair shop to try and get its screen working again. It's not only a disappointing letdown from a manufacturer I chose mostly based on reputation, but extremely frustrating. Because my brother's former laptop has finally kicked it after four years of loyal service, our only computers in the house are the desktop, which resides in my brother's room, and my father's laptop, which I am currently using. You can imagine the headaches trying to sort out computer usage between me and my younger brother!
All said and done, for a $1,500 dollar machine ($2000 total with all the extras I purchased thrown in), and a $250 extended, global warranty, I have so far had over $1,000 of repairs done, and this is EXCLUDING the screen problems. Yet apparently, Apple would rather continually fix these problems under warranty even when they exceed the cost of a new machine several times over than give you a new machine (although some people reported that if you bully them long enough, they will succumb).
I am sad to report I am now sadly disillusioned with Apple. I don't know what they're trying to do, but my guess is cost-cutting, and as a result, they're using inferior manufacturing pieces. I bought this computer at the end of June. This is now the beginning of October. My hard drive crashed on me unexpectedly one morning about two weeks ago and had to be shipped to Apple for a new one. It was working fine one night, and then the next morning it made a bad noise and wouldn't start up. Upon doing online research, I found this is an all too common problem with Apple because they use a hard-drive manufacturer that is notorious for making faulty drivers, in the name of keeping down costs. Luckily the replacement was covered by my warranty. Secondly, the keys have chipped. I have no 'N' key left - it's just smooth and white, and the paint on the E, T, O, L, H, D, S, A, C, B, and M keys are chipping. In some cases, there's barely paint left on the keys, so it's only through the fact that I can touch type that I actually know which keys are which. ------------------------------------- ------ UPDATE ON BROTHER'S IPOD: (more Apple failures)
On an unrelated product note but still a vent against Apple, my brother bought an I-pod in June. He stepped on them and broke them, but they functioned well enough to be useable. Until we went to Italy. Just by SITTING in the car (he never left the i-pod in there, it was always on his person), the copper in the headphones MELTED. The headphones had to be tossed and replacements (non-Apple) had to be bought. A year later, his i-Pod has crashed repeatedly, deleting everything on it. Although he has managed to fix it enough to play SOME songs, it is still behaving badly, and is not back to normal. Again, this is a problem that is cropping up more and more these days on Apple forums online.
------ CONCLUSION: Be warned, be careful, and do your research. I still think Apple products are wonderful despite my bad luck with them, but it's getting increasingly harder to remain so enthusiastic as I realize that my problems are not isolated, but instead part of a growing trend.
I have a faithful desktop sitting at home, it's an IBM. Our relationship is not what I'd describe as love, but rather a comfortable, understanding, if sometimes tempermental relationship. Still, it's flatscreen monitor does something to me still, after these last four years. However, now that I'm headed off to college, I've decided to make a change in my life. I'm having an affair - with my brand new, sexy, sleek, Apple iBook G4.
This is a relationship founded on an instant love for "my baby" as she has now been rechristened, and despite the fact that our affair is relatively new, I'm head over heels. So allow me to show her off to you! (Now I get why men go gaga over gadgets and gidgets!)
Appearance (exterior): ----------------- In a word: sexy. This word will come up a lot in this review, but it's the truth. Gone are the fruity flavors of the earlier iBooks, and in their stead has arisen a sleek, modern, all white exterior that says "adults only." The casing is entirely white, a sort of matte interior, not glossy, which to me enhances the adult feel of the laptop. The top is a shiny white, very glossy and reflects light. It also helps the translucent, frosted Apple in the middle of the top stand out more, letting everyone know that you are the proud owner of an Apple iBook. The overall feel is very modern - almost Scandanavian or Japanese in it's spare, white aesthetic feel, and I for one, really like the change.
Keyboard: -------------- I suppose the main difference for a former PC user is that rather than Ctrl + whatever running your commands for you, the Apple button carries out this function on a Mac. This has proven to be slightly annoying over the last few days, especially in terms of copying/pasting and saving things, but with time I'm sure I'll get used to it and reteach my fingers.
The keys themselves are smooth, but stick up just enough to make typing easy rather than a pain. They are also of the same matte white (actually more like a gray-white) as the inside frame. I must admit the contrast between the two shades is quite pleasing. Since this is a laptop keyboard and ergo smaller than a desktop, the arrow buttons are combined with the page up/down, home/end buttons in the right hand bottom corner of the screen, and the button to eject CDs is F12 in the upper right corner.
Hardware: -------------- My system is a little bit more juiced up than this one, but all the other features are the same. Memory capacities: 256 megabytes built-in memory 60 gigabyte hard drive Drives: Combination optical drive (burns cds and reads DVDs) Speed: 1.2 gHz speed processor operating system: Mac OSX 10.3.3 model: iBook G4 AirPort Extreme wireless networking pre-installed Cable and Modem connections 2 built in speakers
Software: --------------- My laptop came pre-installed with iMovie, iChat, iDVD, iCal, Appleworks, iTunes, Safari, and iPhoto. I had to pay extra for the Microsoft Office Suite for Mac, which includes Powerpoint, Word, Messenger, and some mail program I chose not to install.
A quick overview of each of the pre-installed programs:
iMovie: The software that, I believe, allows you to edit and view your digital movie clips on the computer.
iChat: The funky Mac messenging service that works in tandem with AOL's instant messenger. If you have iSight, this is what you connect to your friends over for video/audio chats. The layout of the chat windows is far more interesting than MSN - you can choose between a boring conversation or having your words displayed in a little bubble. Needless to say, I like the bubbles!
iDVD: Presumably the program through which you watch your DVDs. As I have none on hand, I cannnot really investigate, but I believe this to be the function. And if you have the super drive which also burns DVDs, this is the program for it.
iCal: The calendar program. I'm having a blast with this thing: inputing vacation dates, friends birthdays, appointments, etc. You can do schedules by day, week, or month to your convenience, and have the option of creating multiple calendars if you wish. It's a great way to keep organized.
Safari: The Apple browser. Has a built in popup blocker, easy to use, not cluttered like IE and Netscape have the tendency to be.
iPhoto: Allows you to organize your digtal photos, put them in albums, print, and send them off to people. Can be used in conjunction with your digital camera.
My screen is 14 inches, and it's the perfect size. It's big enough that I don't feel as though I have to squint to write papers, and also to give me enough of a sense of space when I've got a lot of windows open. The images are crystal clear and sharp, and the color palette is truly subtle, picking up the smallest color changes within a single tone. The 12-inch was cheaper, but I saw myself going nuts if I had to stare at it for a long time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cool little sidebits:
Unlike the Windows taskbar, the iBook has a dock that can be anchored to the sides or the bottom of your screen. You have the option of having it disappear (which I tried) until you wave your mouse over it, or you can have it permanently anchored. I tried both, and have found the latter to be less frustrating.
You can minimize windows, but it becomes a pain to keep them all on a dock that's already stretched to maximum capacity. Therefore, there's this nifty feature that allows you to choose a certain corner to display all windows within a given program. So, for example, if I am on MSN Messenger with five convos going, all I need to do is wave my mouse over the corner and they all appear in a neat, easy to see format, in miniature version so I can see which convo I want to go to.
The Apple is all about personalization, and you truly can customize just about everything on this computer, whether it be your background, display, program taskbars, color of labels, minimzing style, etc. It's great to know that I can have as much fun as I want with the machine rather than being constrained to the same boring format as every other PC notebook on the market. I can even customize my very own font color in MSN messenger! How cool :D ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Annoyances:
Sadly, this machine isn't flawless. There are a few things that annoy me already.
Perhaps most importantly, all of the ports for the computer are located on the left hand side. This means that my mouse, my network cable, and anything else I might want to have plugged in all go on the left side. Perfect if you're a lefty, not so great if you're right handed like myself. I bought a mouse with a retractable cord, so I'm able to stretch the mouse over to the right hand side to use it, and if all else fails, I use the touchpad. Still, it's a design consideration that wasn't paid much attention to. The least they could have done would be to put ports either in the back or along the right hand side so users can choose. I'm a bit dismayed at Apple for this.
The other thing I've noticed is that there's a lot of space between the edge of the keypad area and the actual keys. I have small hands, which means that I have to stretch my wrist out further and have more of my forearm on the laptop in order to type. This causes some problems after a while, because it means that my wrists start to get a very sharp pain if they're pressed into the machine for too long, and I've noticed my shoulders are beginning to ache as well. A related note is that the machine seems to heat up quite quickly, so the area under my left hand wrist is nearly always warm.
The battery is also a bit of an annoyance. While it does have a long life of about 5 hours, the cord is rather short, which means your desk has to be located relatively near to a plug outlet or you're going to have to move the desk or the computer location.
Other than that, I haven't encountered issues so far, but if they crop up I'll update this section. So far though, I'm still head over heels for this beauty.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Purchased from the Apple Store with an educational discount: 1 iBook, 1 iSight, 1 MS office suite for Mac, 1 Apple protection plan: just about $2000. I chose not to have Keynote (the Mac PowerPoint) installed for an extra $60. For most normal people though, I'm estimating the cost would be higher, because I had a total of almost $200 in discounts as a student.
I chose a Mac not only for the discounts, but also for the fact that they're immune to most viruses, they're not owned by Bill Gates, and they're funky yet sophisticated enough - perfect for your college-bound reviewer. I'll let you know how my affair turns out, but it looks as if I'm in this for the long run ;)
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
(+) cool and quite robust trackpad, good display,64-bit windows 7 (-) few connectors,dell drivers only, not realy for gameing (most models), finger print prone!
Fashion over form. Shame really..... Good review. P x
tomseear 24.04.2005 21:52
hi, i liked your review. but i would just like to say that i think you should look at apple computers again. For instance i own an imac for which i paid half as much as you did. It has the style you were looking for with the whole computer being flat screen and wireless keyboards ect, with all the pros you talked about OSX panter, has never crashed, i have a gig memory and 250 gig hard drive. i realise that you were refering to laptops but consider their desktops.
Advantages: Beautiful design; Great operating system; Combo drive is useful; Excellent software Disadvantages: Lots of software to install after opening the box
rachelrhia 04.10.2002 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Apple iBook G4
Advantages: Easy to maintain, cheap, good support, well featured, stable, user friendly, good battery life it works! Disadvantages: Already replaced, quite heavy despite size, not as flexible or as well supported as a PC, not that expandable
chris_ah1 14.05.2004 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Apple iBook G4
Jul 1st, 2004
(Nov 29th, 2005)
exceptional by (5%):
very helpful by (90%):
helpful by (5%):
