Apple iBook Key Lime Special Edition 12.1 in. (M8245LL/A) Mac Notebook

I remember the night I received my first iBook (the blueberry variety) in October of 1999, it was an exciting evening, I remember even hugging the courier because I was so excited to see him walking up my steps with not 1 but 2 boxes from Apple (we ordered 2). The novelty of a new computer wore off quickly for my husband that evening, I sat there mouth agape as he put his neatly away around 9pm. I knew I had hours more of fun ahead of me, downloading, networking, updating, installing, etc... you know all the fun one has when they get a new system. Well he soon quickly became tired of my obsession and went to bed alone. I went to bed with a new friend in the guest room, I wanted to be cozy (not some compu-pervert). So I sat up for hours in the guest room with my new iBook propped on my lap, tweaking and configuring my new system just how I wanted it. I remember him coming in about 1 am and quickly hiding my little buddy under the comforter.. thank goodness for down. He stood there with his little bid legs peaking from his boxers, "You aren't still messing with that frigging thing are you?" Well of course I was, but I was getting tired and I realized that when you are having to hide your new computer under the covers maybe you do have a little addiction problem going. So after he stomped off back to bed, I decided to start a big download and returned to our room, without my new friend.

My husband in the years since, has come to realize that with every new bundle of joy that arrives in our home with the Apple name on the box, he will not be seeing me for many hours and the prospect of me cooking dinner will simply vanish. Apple products should just ship with a domino's or pizza hut coupon so you can order out and not neglect your family on the day of the new arrival.

So here I sit playing with my latest new friend Apple's 500 MHz, 1.5" thick, glistening new iBook. I ordered, I waiting and now I'm more than satisfied. Like my first iBook, I never saw a demo in a store or laid eyes on one until I tore open the box on my doorstep. The new iBook didn't leave me disappointed or wanting in anyway. I ordered my new iBook from Apple's website, which is a snap to use and almost idiot proof. You can customize your purchase to get just the machine you want and that's exactly what I did, and here's the low-down on what arrived...

When I opened the box I found my precious new bundle felt remotely similar to the old book, a soft rubbery feel, similar to the button on my cell phone for example. But the color was beautiful, a translucent milky white looking color is the best way for me to describe it. The book has an internal magnesium frame that makes it as sturdy as it's predecessor while it looks much sleeker and slimmer. But don't be fooled, the iBook hasn't shrunk in screen size, just trimmed off some extra pounds of plastic. The monitor/screen is a 12.1" TFT XGA active matrix display with 1024x768 resolution for very sharp images. The new book weighs in at just under 5 lbs., so it is a little lighter than my old friend. Opening the unit up is as easy as it was before, which is to say it's a snap. No pun intended. There are little tabs at the top of the keyboard which slide down and the keyboard lifts right up for easy installation of additional ram or lets say an airport card. Also lurking somewhere below the keyboard is what's really important:

A 500 MHz Power PC G3 processor w/ a 256K on-chip level 2 cache that will easily give any 750 MHz lap top a run for it's money. This baby is fast, don't be fooled by the numbers.

An ATI Rage 3D graphics accelerator with 8 MB's of Video memory. Makes my addiction to SIMM City much more fun and better looking!

The iBook ships with a standard 64 MBs of SDRAM, but I choose to spend a little extra here and kicked mine up a notch to 192 MB. Apple was nice enough to give me a little discount here and I saved $50 on my SDRAM. Thanks Apple. We noticed with all our units that 64 MB's just doesn't cut the mustard with anything anymore, so we always upgrade to at least 128 MBs and since I'm going to be running several design (RAM HOG) programs, I wanted at least 196 and may upgrade again later to 256. But that's simply a personal preference and if you don't use 4 or 5 programs simultaneously, you may not want to spend your extra cash beyond 128 MB. Apple foresaw the need for speed and greed however and the unit is expandable up to 5o12 MB's, but to my understanding there is only one slot, so buy as much as you can when you order!

I also knew that I couldn't really be happy with the standard 10 GB hard drive so I threw down an extra $200 and upgraded to a 20 GB ULTRA ATA drive.
Those MP3's do take up space after all!

Now came the tricky part for me and where I really needed to do some math, figure out my personal priorities and decide what kind of CD/DVD/CDRW I was going to go with. The iBook comes standard (at $1299) with a CD Rom and 64 MBs of SDRAM. I knew I wanted the $1499 model, which comes with DVD and 128 as the standard, but did I really want the DVD or a combo drive with CD-RW. I already have an external CD-RW which is why I debated on this subject. If I wanted to combo it would set me back another $300, so I had to decided if it was worth $300 to not have to drag around another external device in my laptop case. I decided it was not worth it, I need the exercise anyway and I could use that $300 somewhere else in my life. So I stuck with the DVD player and will have to do my burning externally. I don't think the $300 price tag for the combo drive is unreasonable, and if I didn't already have a firewire CD-RW I probably would have gone with the upgrade. Your choices in this arena include: 1) 24x CD-ROM 2) 8x DVD-ROM and 24x CD ROM or 3) 8x4x24x CD-RW / DVD.

Other extras you can order are an airport card ($99) for wireless surfing, an extra AC adaptor ($69), an extra battery ($129) and Apple Care (3 years/$249). I did go ahead as always and get the Apple Care, it always pays for itself and buy the extra battery.
a
All models come with 2 USB ports, a FireWire port, 10/100 BaseT ethernet, a 56K modem and now an RGB video output. I love the video output, so when I'm at home I can plug into my 17" monitor if I want to see the bigger picture!

Apple says you can expect to get 5 hours between charges on your lithium-ion battery but I've found it to be more like 4 and so I went ahead and got the extra. This again is strictly personal, and I would ask myself this before buying, "How often will I be without a charging source for more than 4 or 5 hours?" If you think that scenario may occur frequently, then I would suggest buying the extra battery, if not, save your money!

The iBook comes with a decent amount of software already loaded, I always wish there was more, but what it comes with is quite adequate and here's the details on that.

Mac OS - Models shipping now come with a 9.1 and OS X combination, so you can get your hands on X!
iTunes - enables you to make your own CD's (legal ones of course), and enables you to do most of your musical type activities, converting MP3's, audio CD's, internet radio, etc.
Internet access - Apple is still offering it's 30 days free Earthlink deal, which if you're familiar with any of my writings around here, you'll know I hate Earthlink, so yes you can be up and online in 10 minutes like Apple promises because all your internet software is already installed, but for God's sake please choose another ISP than Earthlink.

iMovie2 - an application to bring out the Spielberg in you. You can import your digital video and submit your next film in time for next year's Academy Awards!
Games - Bugdom, Nanosaur & Cro-Mag Rally are mildly entertaining, but hey they're included so I'm not complaining!
FAXstf - your own laptop fax machine!
AppleWorks 6 - is Apple's version of Microsoft Office like applications that I seldom use because, yes I'll admit it, I do use Microsoft Office. But AppleWorks 6 is a powerful suite of applications to meet all your spreadsheet, drawing and word pressing needs.

Last but not least, I have found a little flaw... nothing in life is perfect after all and this is just a personal thing that may bug only me. I am used to touching the CD/DVD drive to eject my CD's. It's habit okay... so today I sat and stared at the drawer and realized there was no little ejection button for my drive... after pondering this scenario I found on the keyboard my EJECT button and after 2 attempts did get the machine to return my CD to me! I'm just not programmed to go searching for eject buttons, and this to me was weird!

The iBook is the perfect alternative for those who don't want to spend the cash for a G4 PowerBook, this machine will not disappoint and definitely has all the bells, whistles, and guts I need or even want in a lap top. It would also make an awesome off to college gift for someone! If you haven't been able to get your hands on one of these new babies, run on down to your local CompUsa and check one out. I think you'll find you won't look at the plain gray laptops the same way again! So for now I'll close my first epinion written on my newest addition and bid all a good night!