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Some iPod Fans Dump PCs For Macs
dereklam writes "The popularity of the iPod could be boosting Macs' popularity as well. News.com reports that 6 percent of iPod users have made the switch from PCs to Macs. An additional 7 percent said they are planning to dump their old PC for an Apple machine, according to the survey." I wish the linked story had more details; it's not clear from the results mentioned whether there's a strong causal relationship here.
iBook, expensive?
Build a dell with the same amount of functionnalities (not the first entry-level $300 machine), add the software that's bundled with the iBook (I'll exempt you of finding a GarageBand alternative) and then compare the prices.
I own both an eMachines AMD64 notebook and 1.5Ghz G4 Powerbook.
:).
The eMachines notebook is very powerful, but heavy at 7.5lbs. It averaged about 2.5-3hrs of battery life. I lugged it around for a semester at college, but now I use it as a DTR only. It includes 54mbps wireless, plenty of usb ports, an excellent screen, firewire, etc.
At first I was concerned about reliablity from an eMachines product, but I've been pretty happy with the purchase thus far. Although, I have yet to take full advantage of the AMD64. XP64 is still in beta and not all drivers are available. 64bit linux kernels have become stable, but there are equal driver issues. For now, I have a dual boot with XP Pro and Mandrake 10.1 both 32bit.
I bought a new 15" Powerbook using Apple's Student ADC program ($2k) about 4-5 months after buying the eMachines notebook. I also bought an IPod as an accessory with it, or was it the otherway around
The Powerbook is much thinner and lighter. Its looks about 10x sleeker than the eMachines (thought the eMachines notebook does have some neat blue leds). It gets about 3 - 3.5hrs of battery life.
The Powerbooks power saving and management features are far superior. It can be put to sleep within a second and equally wake up just as fast. When you close the screen, it goes instantly to sleep. In the short time it takes to flip open the cover, it will be back on and your application are just as you left them. Although this is possible on a PC, it takes signicantly more time and has a hand full of compatibilty issues that may prevent it from working at all. Apple did an excellent job engineering their hardware and operating system to get the optimum performance. Its also pretty efficient in sleep mode. I've had my powerbook sleeping for a couple days, and when I woke it up, it was still at 99% charge.
Some other neat feature Powerbook include the back lit keyboard, built in mic, firewire 400/800, and bluetooth. It also has a sensor to detect ambient light. During low light situations, the screen will dim and the keyboard will light up automatically.
I primarly bought the Powerbook to play with OSX, and I've been extremely impressed with it. Its very stable, and I've rebooted only when forced to for software updates (uptimes usually span weeks). The UI in general just seems more refined. The dock and finder are just capable if not more than XP taskbar or KDE/Gnome eqivalents. I particularly like Expose (an extremely easy way to switch between open tasks). It also has a unix backend. You can open up a terminal and many familiar tools from *nix are available. Its also easy to develop crossplatform code for other unix like systems, which is something I've used for some of my computer science classes
After buying my Powerbook, I've definetely become a believer in Apple products and OS X. Though, I still wouldn't be able to make a complete switch. There are still many things you can still only do on a PC. For example, certain games are only developed for the PC. Though, there seems to be more and more games being released for both. Theres also some application that only work on PC. However, this is less of an issue since Microsoft has released Virtual PC for Mac. But what I'd probably miss the most is plethora of options/peripherals available and the resulting prices in the PC market.
I think you can defintely find better deals in the PC market because of the competition there. The 50% off Dell notebooks is a perfect example. You pay a premium for the Powerbook and Apple hardware in general, but I think its worth it. But if you're just looking for a notebook or computer that gets the job done, you can probably find PC that does it for less.