[P1] Query about 14" iBooks

[Tom Burke]

I bought a 12" PB in the summer because I wanted two things - a) the 
12" size (I work in a very cluttered office at home) and b) the ability 
to connect to a monitor and use different resolutions when I needed 
something better than 1024 x 768. Previously I had 14" Pismo Powerbook.

I love the small size of the 12" machine. It isn't *that* much smaller 
in reality, but it feels a whole more so. In fact the reduction in size 
does seem to make it much handier - I can pop the 12" machine into all 
sorts of easy hold-alls (protected, of course - I use one of the Tucano 
neoprene sleeves) that the 14" PB simply wouldn't go into. I actually 
carry the 12" around a lot more than I ever did the 14". I often pop it 
into a bag with a digital camera & lenses, and the whole thing is 
manageable for quite a long while - I went to Mac Expo in London just 
last week equipped just so.

And there's one other thing - the (in)famous 'Open Firmware Display 
Hack' for recent (ATI Radeon-equipped) iBooks. It seems that in fact 
these recent iBooks can do monitor spanning, not just mirroring, when 
you connect an external monitor, but it's disabled in firmware. The OF 
Hack reverses that disabling, giving the iBooks the same 
monitor-spanning capability as Powerbooks. I'm certain that if I was 
buying now I would get a 12" iBook instead of the 12" PB, at a saving 
of some £450.....

Oh, the 12" PB is quite noticeably lighter than my old Pismo.

On Tuesday, November 25, 2003, at 03:10  pm, Mike Wallinga wrote:

> Hello to the list!
>
> I am considering purchasing a new iBook G4.  I've always been a fan of 
> small, super-portable laptops (my current laptop is a 12" 600 MHz G3 
> iBook), so I am automatically drawn to the 12" model.  But, the 933 
> MHz G4 in the 14" model sounds pretty attractive when compared to the 
> 800 MHz chip in the 12" one.  So, I am torn between portability and 
> power.

Tom Burke