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- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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14 out of 14 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"A great laptop, with a few downfalls"
Pros: Wireless, Full Keyboard, Simplicity and Elegance, Fully Loaded, Small and Light
Cons: Low screen resolution and brightness, low battery life.
Summary: Having been a windows user for many years, I simply got fed up with the constant array of glitches, hassles and inconsistencies that are native to the Windows platform. Thus, I decided to go out on a limb and buy a Mac. Being a student who happens to travel a lot, I decided to take advantage of my educational discount and buy a 12 inch powerbook with a superdrive. Besides the 200 dollar educational discount, I also received a 100 dollar rebate from the Apple Online store making the total discount 300 dollars. Even still, I was surprised at how expensive this small computer was. But, for excellent quality and a great OS, it is worth it. NOTE: Be prepared to fork out an extra 100 bucks for tax which you don?t know about until it is almost too late.
I have now had this computer for over a week and I love it. When my computer arrived, I was astounded by the totally awesome packaging! It just looks amazing. When you open up the box, the first thing you see is a pure white sheet that says ?Designed by Apple in California.? It just makes the unpacking a very pleasurable process.
The first time I plugged into an Internet jack, this PowerBook connected without any hassle! I was so excited! No messing with Internet connections or anything. It just works.
The Superdrive works fine. It seems a little slow, but for a laptop, not bad at all. It takes about a half hour to burn one DVD, including verification. The keyboard is also great. The keys are sturdy and feel solid.
It comes with a decent array of software, but is missing key components like a decent word processor and a slide program. I would like to see Apple include iWork. Otherwise, be prepared to spend another 150 dollars for Microsoft Office.
OSX Tiger is beautiful. Dashboard has really caught my imagination is is extremely useful! Also, I just love Spotlight! Instead of searching thru lists of documents, pictures, applications, etc?I just type in a few words and everything is listed in an orderly fashion. I find is so easy to find things. It is so much better than the Windows search function.
This laptop does, however, have two downfalls. First, the screen really isn?t all that great. It does not have a very high resolution and isn?t very bright. This laptop isn?t the best for watching DVDs, as everything is jagged. I also have a dead pixel in the upper right hand corner of the screen which is a slight bummer. At first I was very unhappy with the screen, but in System Preferences, I changed some setting which made the screen look a little more colorful and not so dull. The small size doesn?t bother me so much, but the low resolution does. But, it is not like it ruins the whole computer, it just lowers the overall wow factor.
The second downfall is the battery life. It is really not true that this thing gets five hours. I am lucky if I get 2 hours out of it. However, I am usually using the Superdrive, which sucks out the battery very quickly. I would expect 3 hours to be reasonable run time under normal circumstances, a far cry from the advertised 5. But again, this doesn?t ruin the computer, it just makes it a little more difficult for frequent travelers and students like me.
Overall, I really like this laptop and I look forward to using it for many years.
- 1 reply to this review
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You're tired of Windows issues and this laptop is great, but the screen is too dark, DVD's look bad, battery life sucks, no productivity software, dead pixels, low res, "kinda slow but not bad for a laptop" and at least $400 (before tax?????)more than a better equiped, faster, widescreen, hi res, wintel laptop. Great choice. Don't stay up too late installing the patches you'll get from Apple either. Nice review, glad I didn't want to buy one of these things, you just described everything you don't want in a laptop. Thanks. I don't imagine Apple marketing will be asking for your help anytime soon. Like Rodney Dangerfield once said, "looks good on you though!"
