On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 04:06:29PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > My sister may be interested in migrating from Microshaft to > Apple. (Linux would be out of the question. She worships > Gates.) She hasn't decided between laptop and desktop. But > both are likely. The daughters may need laptops when they go > off to college. > > Any recommendations? Likes? Dislikes?
Can't go wrong with a laptop for getting work done if you don't know explicitly that you want a desktop machine. Plus, Larry's vintage of iBook notwithstanding, the iBook is a great machine. It's a bit more rugged than something like my Powerbook and comes standard with WiFi and Bluetooth at this point. Any but the most casual user will want an upgrade in the RAM department. RAM is cheap if you're not buying it from Apple you can get a pretty good deal on memory from Crucial that is warrantied forever and guaranteed to work if you're using the stuff they say works in your system. Since you mention daughters going to college, the UO bookstore basically has the best student pricing you'll get anywhere in town for daughters going to college. (Need to prove you're a college student somewhere to buy computers there. Or if you say you're alumni, they'll sell certain academic products including Macs to you, and they basically take your word/signature for it in that case..) A Gates worshipper will want Office. The academic version sold there installs on three computers, legally. You probably have to prove you're a student to buy that, though, and possibly even a UO student specifically. Powerbooks have sexy shiny metal going for them, but they tend to feel a little warm to the touch because the case conducts heat from the parts to your hands so efficiently. ;p Also, my Powerbook developed a very slight dent because I literally just toss it in my bag with books and stuff--the iBook is made for that kind of abuse, but not the Powerbook. Powerbooks offer DVI for use with Apple's fancy LCD panels, iBook has only analog 15 pin. Powerbooks will also let you show different things on your laptop screen and external video. The iBook uses a less expensive video chipset that technically can't do that--though it actually can (but NVidia and ATI want you to pay extra for the feature) with an unauthorized driver patch. ;) You can usually get a bigger HD in a Powerbook than the iBook. All Macs burn CDs nowadays, but it's all but standard that a Powerbook will burn DVDs as well. I find upgrading the Powerbook generally easier than the iBook, but I'm guessing she doesn't care about that. In an academic setting (which obviously I am), I recommend iBooks to students and Powerbooks to professors who want to use Keynote and Powerpoint. iBooks have the lower cost and are a little tougher, and Powerbooks are classier, more featureful, and more expensive. If you want a desktop buy also don't want to have to =) with it too much you can get an iMac. The 17" version can be carried when needed with a CaseAce LCD carrier pretty easily, and is pretty light. Plug it in, add keyboard and rodent, and you're good to go. Not the most upgradable thing in the world, but takes typical DDR400 unbuffered RAM and SATA hard drives, which are the two things you're most likely to be upgrading anyway. It's also student-sized if the student doesn't plan to take the thing to class. Apple's other desktop offerings have various drawbacks. The eMac is sortof Apple's redheaded stepchild Mac. I think they sell them only because schools want a computer with a cheaper, more kidproof CRT. 17" gumdrop shaped thing. It's just not as nice as the iMac and it's still a G4 processor. The Mac mini is also a G4, and the cheapest of all provided you've got a spare USB keyboard, mouse, and display (or a reasonable KVM facsimilie) to feed it. It's really a barebones Mac that can't be upgraded much (and what upgrades exist are expensive!) The most like a typical PC is the PowerMac G5, affectionately known as the cheesegrater. =) It is the only thing Apple's got that looks like a normal computer to a PC user, but it's priced like a reasonably high end workstation. That's because that's what Apple intends it to be. They get used mostly for video and high-end graphics stuff, are more often than not SMP machines, can take an insane amount of RAM for desktop users, and can be ordered stock with 500GB worth of drives. You don't need that kind of setup for office/ type work unless you're running Windows Vista. ;) _______________________________________________ EUGLUG mailing list euglug@euglug.org http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
