Aqua-Soft ForumsHey, i just started a summer job painting houses and im getting 10 bucks an hour and by august ill have enough money for a new 12 inch ibook with 768mb, 40 gig hard drive, and a isight. the only thing is, i dont want apple to come out with a new ibook the next week, were the ones that are out now released recently or should i wait for the newer ones, and also, i wanna make sure its compatable with tiger when that comes out.. does anyone think it will be? thanks :]
Ibook?
They prob won't come out with a new iBook, but I'll say this, if you want the new fancy effects in Tiger don't buy an iBook, because they simply dont work 
.
Also 12" is a small screen so try it before you buy it if possible.
weird i was just at apple looking at the ibook thinking. do i want to get one....
but tim, there really not worth it?
my roommate had a 12" and it was horribly small. i tried to use the damn thing and it was too hard. neways, i'd go for at LEAST 15 inches on ANY monitor/screen you buy. remember, you dont need a huge processor nowadaays, you need a decent one with a VERY GOOD VIDEO CARD and at LEAST 512 mb ram. but dont spend money pimpin out your processor. put it towards a vid card.
if you are seriously getting an apple notebook go for a bigger ibook.
I'm savin up for a lil 12" iBook. 
You'll go crazy with the small screen tho. You need another screen (A bigger one) to hook upto it when yr at home using it. I think that if you get a laptop you don't want to lug around a big thing, you want something tiny... anything above 15" is crazy to carry around...
Powerbook's are too $$$$.
I have a 12" iBook and I have found that the screen size is bearable. If the iBook put out a larger resolution than 1024x768 then I would be attaching it to an external monitor.
You'll find several 12" iBook owners on these forums, such as myself, who have no problem with the screen size (yes, we CHOSE the small screen, we LIKE the small screen, it's super-portable), nor the performance (yeah, barring video editing) which is adequate to say the least. I have at least a dozen apps, including Excel and Word, P2P software, iTunes, Safari, PS, Mail, IM, VLC, etc etc. open all the time, no problems whatsoever, machine runs well indeed. I hate people sniping the 12" iBook, it's a very reasonably priced ultraportable laptop, easily as powerful as (if not more than) any mid-market non-Apple laptop.
And it's bloody useful for doing unix and (hopefully) linux shell scripts.
Also useful for checking my website designs in Safari (for cross-browser compatibility and window size checking).
Originally posted by noefexx@Jul 1 2004, 05:23 AMmy roommate had a 12" and it was horribly small. i tried to use the damn thing and it was too hard. neways, i'd go for at LEAST 15 inches on ANY monitor/screen you buy. remember, you dont need a huge processor nowadaays, you need a decent one with a VERY GOOD VIDEO CARD and at LEAST 512 mb ram. but dont spend money pimpin out your processor. put it towards a vid card.
if you are seriously getting an apple notebook go for a bigger ibook.
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Can we please stop with the whole 'Putting-Mac-Stuff-Down' thing? Apple have a hard enough time keep/growing their marketshare without people stomping on them. <_<
Unless you severely need the extra CPU speed, then from what I've heard the 12" is fine. Many people I've spoken to say the 14" just 'feels like extra weight'. Make sure to max out your RAM, but 512mb is acceptable. I'm pretty sure any of the graphics cards are Quartz Extreme compatible so on-screen response should be much improved over a non-QE one.
As for Tiger stuff (namely Core Image); supposedly Core Image will scale-down to hardware that doesn't support it's hardware acceleration (and so will be done through software). So you should still get the nifty effects (I presume) but they won't be as smooth as they will on more powerful graphics cards.
I too have a 12" iBook. Have had it for more than a year and have never been so pleased with any other computer I've had. Personally, I find the screen size not to be a problem at all. I do hook it up to my 17" monitor from time to time and that is great too. My comment about the screen of the iBook is that it could be a bit brighter. I would recommend anyone who would like a Mac laptop to get an iBook.
But the advice about Tiger, given earlier, is good. Present iBooks will not be able to take full advantage of the capabilities of Tiger, because of their graphics card. This is definitely worth thinking about.
Good luck with your decision.
Tourmalet
but heres the question, will tiger work with the ibook if i get it now
Not sure whether you are asking me the question, nor that I completely understand it.
If you buy an iBook today, latest spec, it will not be able to run Tiger, when it comes out, fully. Some of the macboards suggest that you will lose some of the transitions and fancy effects that will come with Tiger. There also seems to be some doubt as to whether some of the filters that can be used with Coreimage will work at all.
This may not be a big issue for you. I don't know. For me, it's not overly inmportant, but I would still like a new Mac by the time Tiger hits the shelves. (No chance, unfortunately).
Tiger will work on today's iBook, but scaling down seems to mean that its graphic capabilities will be reduced to meet the capability of your graphics card.
Tourmalet
remember, when buying any computer nowadays, the graphics card is the key component. not so much processor. if you do video editing, you need a lot of ram AND a good vid card. if you constantly burn cds and are on a strict time schedule, then ok get your expensive processor. if you play games, well, that sort of speaks for itself [video card if you are dimwitted] with enough ram...sys specs dont require or recommend anything as high as 2.0 ghz yet, and thats "old", right? so basically, i could have a 2.6 ghz computer with 512 mb ram and spend the extra cash on a radeon 9800 xt...see my point?
neways, you are getting a notebook. the trick is that you MUST get a notebook with a good video card. a lot of the time, they dont advertise what the video card is to much because they put a crappy one in there to lower the price point a bit. you dont notice the crappy video card but you DO notice a lower notebook price and decide to buy it, only to find out.......
so make sure, whatever you get, PC or mac, that it comes with a decent video card.
and by todays standards, you will need either a radeon mobility 9700 pro turbo with 128 mb ram OR nvidia's go 5700.
all in all, remember, video card is key.
So it's a pretty safe bet that the 12 inch powerbook will be ok for Tiger?
Tiger works on the same hardware as Panther.
And Noefexx is right to some degree; Making sure you have a good graphics card on Panther is rather important for a snaggy interface (so that the CPU can do it's job and Quartz Extreme can lighten to load). But any iBook available is QE-enabled and should work fine with Tiger.