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http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1719
Lindows Portables: A Threat to iBook or Dell?
By Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac
February 20th 2003
Budget-priced non-Windows notebook - and it's not a Mac.
12.1" TFT. 933MHz VIA chip. CardBus slot. FireWire. USB 2.0. Ethernet. 2.9 pounds. No
Windows. $799. Sound good?
It's Lindows' new Portable. Daringly, Lindows compares itself to the iBook in a
comparison table at its website (the fact that the iBook is first portable compared
it, perhaps, telling). Maybe PowerBook users wouldn't even turn their noses up to
sneer at it [I know I wouldn't], but how does it fare against the iBook on a
bang-for-buck basis?
Would "very well" surprise you?
It's thin, light and fairly inoffensive, judging by the pictures. I have no idea
whether the VIA chip is a silk purse or a sow's ear, but 933MHz, give or take, is
competitive in this price bracket. Someone should tell Lindows the iBook doesn't have
an 867MHz G4, however - luckily for them. Not yet, anyway. That Mac is called Mini-Me.
Nor does a stock iBook boast a 40 gig HD. But the 20GB Lindows supplies is on par with
the base $999 iBook, which is presumably what they're comparing it with.
Actually, the whole table is confusing, as Lindows' site lists the iBook at '$1,799.'
Apple doesn't sell such a machine. If it did, its screen would be 14.1". And if it's
the PowerBook-12, then (please) say so. Just as the Mac is not a typewriter, the
PowerBook is not an iBook.
Given the inaccuracy of the Mac 'Book stats, I'd be cautious about their
NEC/IBM/Toshiba specs as well. And it's curious that Dell and HP laptops aren't
mentioned major competition, surely?
A negative for the Portable [and how unfortunate a name is that? Will Apple sue?] is
the external drive. Fans of thin/light portables will argue that the CD or CDRW/DVD is
superfluous most of the time, but I'd argue the toss on that one.
Lindows also includes a CardBus slot, something I take major issue with as far as the
iBook/Mini-Me are concerned. But if I had to choose a trade-off between an internal
optical drive and no PC slot, I'd take the optical drive.
I can't comment on Lindows' functionality as a Windows alternative, but there's
certainly a market for it. Drop us a line if anyone or their office gets a box full of
these and give us your impressions.
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