Mac Forum / General / Portable Macs / September 2005

About 2 months before the letters start peeling off the keys.

The older G3s had a reputation for dodgy logic boards. Fingers crossed
they seem to have cured this on the G4s [1]. We've got probably a dozen
G4 iBooks now, oldest ones getting on for 2yrs old. So far the only
fault on any is a modem in one [2].

Keyboards have a reputation for wearing out the lettering on the keys
with certain typists, especially the females, mines fine but then 80% of
the time I use the iBook on a stand and external keyboard and mouse.
Trackpad, never ever had a problem with one. Battery if used on mains
most of the time it should last some time. Drain the battery regularly
and you won't get so much life.

HDs again out of all the G3 and G4 iBooks we've got I've had one failure
in 4yrs. New ones now come with a sudden motion sensor to park the heads
in case of any sudden movement.

Screens never had a problem unless you drop tea down the front, then
that blows the inverter. The inverter lead route on some early ones was
prone to breaking, a £35 part, a bitch to fit, but again I've only ever
done two, on the older G3s.

Filesystem integrity, pretty damned good, most of ours get installed,
sent out to the user and I never see them again for a few years. They
just run and run.

Any other weeknesses? Concrete, tea, they are a bitch to upgrade, unlike
a lot of pc laptops covered in various flaps for the HD and CD drive you
have to dissemble the iBook to get at them. If the off the shelf model
doesn't come with the HD you want etc, upgrade it at purchase time it
isn't too badly priced. Buy ram from crucial etc though as much cheaper
than Apple and that is easy to fit, just flip over keyboard, remove
airport card and cover, install ram, re-fit everything. Two minute job.

This post comes from a Jan 04 iBook 14", HD upgraded at time of purchase
(plus BT & Airport which are now standard). Used 5 days a week 9-5or6,
most nights for an hour or two here and there, most weekends, it never
gets turned off, just put sleep as finish work, slung in bag, into car
footwell, home, out carry on, in car work or other end of country
asleep, drag out, do some work, back away. I did have a sticky key (only
one I've seen ever) on it after 1yr, Apple sent me a free keyboard,
carry on working. Current uptime 9.5 days, my CEOs had 2months plus
uptime out of his. Only real fault in my eyes, it isn't a 15" Powerbook
as thats got a gorgeous screen.

[1] Though we've not had that many of the G3s fail of all ours.
[2] £45 + vat + fitting which as I'm comfortable stripping them down
(not that easy) I did myself.

On 22/9/05 15:44, in article ant2214311cbfNdQ@riscpc.jtnet, "James Taylor"
<spam-block-@-SEE-MY-SIG.com> wrote:

Depends how you type; other problem is the printing on the keys wears off.
The Powerbook keyboards are infinitely better.

They work.

Depends on how much use of the mains you do. My experience is they last 2-3
year before conking. I spend a lot of time on the battery.

Your guess is as good as any. They die. Some more than others and you find
out the duffers after they die, not when you buy.

Don't break it, it'll last 5+ years.

Jounaled disk, pretty reliable.

Historically the Powerbooks have had better reliability than the iBooks,
which did not shine.

Personally if I was you I'd get the Powerbook; simply because of the
keyboard. If you code, you'll want a comfy one. Its a beauty. There are
other reasons, but I won't bore you. Suffice to say, if you have the extra
cash, you won't regret it.

Had mine 3 years now no problems except for battery whose life was about
1 yr. Just replaced with a new one which seems much better than the
original.

I also upgraded the memory to 384 this took about 5 mins. This is the
only time I have opened the case.

Apart from wishing it had a G4 very happy with it.

-- tim

Mine is 4 years old. It looks a bit battered and worn, and had its logic
board replaced by Apple (there was a design fault and a product recall -
it's fixed now). The screen is starting to flicker a bit, but a new
backlight cable should fix that. It needs a new battery - currently gives me
less than 1 hour on a full charge, but the machine is still basically solid.

AIUI, the life expectency of a laptop in general is 2 years, so I reckon I'm
not doing too badly.

That is exactly the choice I made a few years ago when I replaced my
beloved Risc PC and PC running Linux. I bought a 700Mhz G3 iBook which
successfully replaced both and is still going strong. The battery needs
replacing but everything else has been fine.

Of course, like RISC OS, OS X can become addictive, so I now have a
Dual G4 PowerMac at home and Dual G5 PowerMac at Work! OS X really is
like what RISC OS would have looked like if some artists had got a hand
in its development. It bares an uncanny resemblance to RISC OS.

SNIP

Our iBook is 6 months old and gets used 2 or 3 hours a day, 7 days a
week. The page down key is slightly worn but no other key shows signs
of wear. The page down key problem is my fault. I tend to rub it rather
than press it staight down. Of course new iBooks have the two-finger
scrolling trackpad so that would reduce use of the page down key!

MacOS is brilliant. No worries there. Its several years ahead of
windows. In fact its actually incredible how far ahead it is IMHO.

The iBook is reliable and robust. But what about you?! If you are using
it solidly every day then ANY laptop might not be ideal. Really you
want a full sized, quality keyboard. A very comfortable mouse and a
decent sized monitor. With a very comfy chair. Non glare lighting etc
etc...

Si

Viruses are a non-issue for the Mac and the moment, and have been for
some time. The weak component of a Macintosh in 2005 is the user.

My first Apple portable was a low-end G3 PowerBook that I got rid of
after 3.5 years without a single component failure. I got rid of it
mostly because I couldn't cope with the passive LCD on a machine I was
using as regularly as I ended up doing. I replaced it in late 2001 with
an iBook. I think the most failure prone part of any notebook is the
hard drive, and that's the only thing that's had trouble on my heavily
used 4-year old iBook. I'll have no qualms about getting another when my
needs outstrip this one.

Advice: Buy it configured with the internal hard drive you want.
Replacing the hard drive on an iBook is not trivial, even with the
service manual sitting right next to you. On the other hand, do not buy
any more RAM from Apple than you have to. That's very easy and much
cheaper to add afterwards.

I am typing this on an iBook G4 that I bought new in February 2004. It
is my main machine. I use it every day, many hours a day. I take it with
me everywhere I go, around the town, across the country, and on foreign
travel. Works great. For a while the track pad seemed a little erratic,
but not so bad I could not live with it, and that problem cured itself.
I use it for database design and development, data entry, word
processing, photos, music, email, web browsing, etc. The database work
involves a lot of continuous typing, day after day month after month. I
almost never turn the machine off. I put it to sleep to move it, then
wake it up again when I get ready to use it.

I always use the built-in keyboard and screen. The keyboard and screen
are now a little dusty but not so you'd notice it. The letters on the
keyboard look like new, and the display is still beautiful.

I get several hours of battery life, but of course the batteries do
ultimately fail; 3-4 years is probably about the maximum useful lifespan
for a laptop battery.

Of course the hard drive can fail, on any computer, and maybe laptop
hard drives are more prone to failure because they get moved around.
Apple uses stock hard drives from Toshiba, IBM, and other standard
manufacturers, so they are no better or worse than hard drives in any
other computer. I did buy the Applecare extended protection program,
which gives me a total of 3 years warranty coverage. Think that is good
insurance for a laptop. It pays to back up your data frequently to some
external medium. I do daily backups to an external Firewire hard drive,
and occasional backups to CD.

My main machine used to be a G3 Powerbook, which I used steadily from
1998 to 2004 -- again, using it for hours every day, taking it with me
everywhere I went, etc. It was -- and is -- a great machine, but I
decided it was time to modernize after 6 years. That old G3 Powerbook is
still working fine at 7 years of age, and my wife is using it.

OS X is terrific. I have been a Mac user for years. I thought the "old"
Mac OS was good, but OS X is really wonderful. It is rock solid, runs
for weeks, even months, continuously without trouble. It is very easy to
use, easy to network, easy to install new software, hook up different
external hardware, etc. The bundled applications that come with OS X are
darned good too -- Mail, Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, iCal, etc. Widgets,
that come as part of OS X 10.4, are fun and useful. Appleworks, which
comes installed on iBooks, is a very good productivity suite, that may
enable you to avoid the cost of MS Office -- though MS Office for the
Mac is very good.

I do appreciable computer work for clients who use Windows machines, so
I have a fair amount of experience with Windows. I am talking about all
the versions of Windows from 3.1 to XP. They are OK, but prone to
trouble and viruses that simply do not affect the Mac. I end up doing
most of my work on the Mac, including the work I do for my Windows-based
clients. I do my work on my Mac then transfer it to the client's Windows
machines. Makes my work a lot easier, the work I do is useful to the
clients, and they are quite happy. Sometimes I even get them to start
thinking about switching to Mac. However, they are afflicted by old
habits, fear of the unknown, and too many friends who only know about
Windows computers.

It pays to have a good carrying case for a laptop, and to always carry
it in the case when moving it. I have a very good Targus backpack with a
padded computer pocket and lots of auxiliary pockets. The case is useful
and easy to carry.

It is essential to keep liquids, food, etc, away from a laptop. Spill a
Coke on a separate keyboard, and you may end up losing the keyboard; run
over to the nearest office supply store and get a new keyboard for $50
or so. On the other hand, spill a Coke on your laptop, and the whole
computer will probably be ruined. For the same reason it is not good
practice to use a laptop in a place where someone walking by might spill
something on it.

And of course, laptop computers can grow legs and walk away. A security
cable is a good investment. Further, when I say I carry it everywhere, I
mean that. I take the backpack with the computer in it into stores,
restaurants, rest rooms, etc -- I don't leave it in the car or in the
hotel room. I never let it out of my sight, unless I know it is safe at
home.

Bill Collins

All hardware will fail eventually. How long YOUR iBook lasts depends on
how carefully you treat it. Portable computers of any type are prone to
more hardware problems than desktop machines. This is because portable
computers are typically moved around a lot and can be exposed to harsh
environmental conditions. For any laptop Apple makes, I suggest buying
an AppleCare policy on it. Apple has an excellent reputation for
supporting its products, esp. those that are under warranty. Apple is
also known as being first rate in terms of its products' reliability.

An iBook will last many years if well cared for, but you should also ask
yourself if you really need an Apple laptop as apposed to a desktop
system. Dollar for dollar, you get more computing power out of desktops
than laptops and desktops are more reliable.

That being said, you are looking at this from the wrong perspective.
What you should be looking at his how best to back up your data. As long
as you maintain good backups, a hardware failure will be fairly
inconsequential. You can replace hardware easily if it can't be fixed,
but what about your data? Regardless of which type of computer you use,
such as Dell, Apple, HP, home grown, you can assume that at some point,
you will have a hard disk failure, so be prepared for it.

I bought a 500 MHz iBook in 2000 or beginning of 2000.

It was still in good use until a couple weeks ago when someone
accidentally spilled a bottle of glue on it. It still would have worked
and been a useful machine if it weren't for that.

Keyboard - all the letters stayed on.

Trackpad - never failed to perform as new, but I also used a mouse for
most of the time.

Battery - lasted like new for the first couple of years. After that the
performance went way down. Ended up buying a new battery.

Hard disk - never had any problems.

Screen - received with 1 bad pixle, and lasted that way.

Filesystem integrity - never had to reinstall the OS, and never lost any files.

Weaknesses - only issue I had was the creaky hinge noise it made when
opening the screen.

I bought a 700 MHz iBook in October 2002.

Always performed, but the battery was about the same as the other ibook
- year and a half and it was only holding enough to last an hour to an
hour and a half use per charge.

It's still working great - I gave it to a friend. I just replaced it
with a new Powerbook a couple months ago. He uses it for his main
computer now.

BTW, the one with the glue still works... some keys are sticky and no
more ethernet internet. The X is the one who spilled the glue into it.

HTH