The Bottom Line: Operating system is great, and runs surprisingly well on this machine. Built-in Ethernet and FireWire and, as always, Apple quality

I own a new flat-panel iMac, and when my girlfriend was considering a new computer, she looked no further than the new iBook. I had second thoughts about the iBook simply because it employs a last-generation processor (G3), but after putting it through the paces at the Mac store in SoHo, New York, I changed my mind.

The iBook is surprisingly fast, even when tackling Photoshop Elements files or burning CDs. At first glance, the build quality and beauty of the machine are obvious. The case is built with polycarbonate plastic, and is perfectly smooth (nothing that can get snagged on anything). A great feature of the iBook is the "Sleep" mode, which allows a user to put the computer in a low-power state until you instantly "wake" it by opening the top. My girlfriend lets it sleep for two or three days at a time--without plugging it in, using very little battery life. Battery life is also excellent, usually sustaining the iBook for five hours of steady use.

The FireWire port also comes in handy; file sharing between machines is as simple as connecting them, then dragging and dropping files. I shared 6 hours of music from my computer in about five minutes. Although the specs suggest the iMac and iBook are equally fast (800MHZ), data-intensive tasks such as burning a CD or downloading large files from the internet are significantly faster on the G4 processor.

Customization is also a great feature of the iBook. You can choose between: 12- and 14-inch screens, 20- and 30GB hard drives, 700 and 800MHZ processors, 128 and 256MB of RAM. Virtually all of these features are interchangeable, you just have to ask a customer service representative. Instead of getting the 14-inch iBook, which would have cost $1799, my girlfriend opted for the 12-inch model with the 800MHZ processor. Furthermore, she upgraded the RAM to 256 for an insanely reasonable $50--it was installed in twenty minutes.

The iBook is not as fast as a Pentium 4 PC notebook, but the pre-installed software and operating system (Jaguar) are, in my opinion, superior--especially for a computer novice. The iBook is the perfect traveling and digital media companion. Besides, most PC notebooks have neither ethernet nor FireWire ports, although that is starting to change. If you can't justify spending more than a thousand additional dollars on a PowerBook G4, look no further than the 800MHZ iBook.