Updated 12-inch iBook a rugged machine in a compact body
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jan 20, 2005 at 12:20am
So there I was at last week’s Macworld Conference & Expo, exiled to the “hinterlands.” That’s the nickname we members of the press gave to the room holding those of us poor wretches not blessed with actually getting into the keynote hall where Apple CEO Steve Jobs spoke. I was using my new 12-inch iBook when I discovered that I could log onto the AirPort network set up for the conference speakers. Apparently, no members of the press using a PowerBook were able to do so; I suspect that I “lucked out” because iBooks seem to have better AirPort connectivity than their pro level big brothers.
That was just one of the advantages I found in having the iBook with me to cover Macworld San Francisco 2005. It was a darn-near perfect companion for a journalist always on the move.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the PowerBook line and am the owner of a 15-inch PB. But for down-and-dirty, on-the-fly basic computing tasks, it’s hard to beat the small iBook (which weighs under five pounds). It doesn’t have the punch of the PowerBook (hard core gamers just laugh at their ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 graphics with 32MB of dedicated DDR), but it’s tougher (thanks to its polycarbonate plastic enclosure) and has a longer battery life than the PB. If I drop and damage a US$1,000 iBook, I’ll have a mild heart attack; whereas if I dropped and damaged a PB costing twice that, I’d have a MAJOR heart attack.
You’re not going to want to use the iBook (any iBook) for serious gaming or videography work. But for word processing, e-mail, Web browsing the iBook G4 has more than enough oomph. It’s also a fine portable DVD player, a feature I occasionally took advantage of last week LATE at night when I “crashed” after a day of journalism work.
The iBook has always been a fine little consumer portable. But the latest rev (announced on Oct. 19) makes it an even better buy. The update added built-in AirPort Extreme 54 Mbps 802.11g wireless networking across the line and prices starting at just $999. The iBook line includes PowerPC G4 processors running up to 1.33 GHz and an available slot-load SuperDrive for burning DVDs, as well as Apple’s iLife suite for managing digital music and photos, making movies and music and creating DVDs.
The iBooks also offer better performance than their predecessors, with either a 1.2GHz or 1.33GHz PowerPC G4 processor (my 12-incher has the former). Apple claims they offer up to six hours of battery life. I couldn’t get that much, but I could squeeze out slightly over five hours if I wasn’t using AirPort (when I was, the battery life dropped to just over three hours).
All iBook G4 models sport FireWire 400, USB 2.0, a built-in 56K v.92 modem and Ethernet (10/100BASE-T). They also come with a great assortment of software, including iLife, AppleWorks, Mail, Address Book, Quicken 2005, WorldBook Encyclopedia 2004 Edition, Marble Blast Gold, Nanosaur 2 and more.
My biggest complaint with the iBook is that it comes with a paltry 256MB of RAM; Apple should include twice that. The 12-inch model can get a bit tiring after long-term use, but for everyday computing tasks in a small, tough package, this is one sweet laptop.
Macsimum rating: 8 out of 10.
Have a product you’d like us to review? Write dsellers@macsimumnews.com
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Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
