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iBook verses Inspiron 600m

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peterasmith

Junior Member
I am looking for a new lap top in the $1200 range. I am going to grad school and can use the apple student discount, so that puts a 14.1 inch iBook just in my range. I was also looking at a dell inspiron 600m. Which often drop into the $1000 range after rebates and coupon codes.

My two main concerns with the iBook are its speed and screen resolution.

My main concerns with the inspiron are the battery life and the build quality.

My main use for the machines will be MS office apps and the occasional 3D rendering programs used to view molecular structures... I would like it to be relatively quick in these tasks but I don't plan on gaming. I have had plenty of experience with OS 9.1 and limited with OSX, but wouldn't mind learning.

Any comments from owners of either of these two models would be appreciated.
 
Because of the concerns you've listed, might I suggest an IBM T series? IBM offers significant student discounts with their notebook computers, somewhere up to 35% depending on where you look. I just spec'ed one out for you and I see a T40 for 1233 with similar specs to the Dell. However it comes with a 3 year warranty, XP professional, and a 40GB HDD instead. It addresses all your concerns as it is fast, has the best build quality, and has a good amount of battery life.
 
iBook Speed:
From experience, my school's Biology lab is equipped with many Apple iMacs (the 20" hemisphere models). Being that these PCs share the G4 processor line with the new iBooks, my opinion is that they'll be more than fast enough to handle what you're into doing. They display MDL CHIME renders without a hitch, although they are likely equipped with GeForce FX 5200 Ultras. While these aren't exactly cream of the crop nowadays, they are easily capable of getting the job done. I'd say the performance of a Mobility Radeon 9200 shouldn't be *too* far off that of a 5200 Ultra, so you won't likely have issues viewing molecular renders.

iBook resolutiion:
The iBook's 1024x768 resolution could be an issue though. (I have a 15" 1024x768 LCD and everything looks entirely too big for me. Then again, I'm purchasing a 20" 1600x1200 LCD this summer because I'm partial to hi-res resolutions...) This is something only you can properly judge. If you can, walk into an Apple store and play with a 14" iBook yourself.

Dell battery:
Any Pentium M powered laptop will provide you with great battery life. The 600m is equipped with one in its base configuration, so it shouldn't be an issue for you.

Dell build quality:
I'm servicing older laptops from Dell's lattitude line this summer, and can tell you that lattitude build quality isn't generally poor for an average user. The primary difference, AFAIK, between Lattitudes and Inspirons are target customers and aesthetics. I wouldn't expect any Inspiron to be shoddily constructed.

In short, unless you want to actually design molecules (in which case I'd recommend a desktop), you're really fine with either laptop. Just consider price and your happiness with either purchase in the end.
 
I described my experience with my 600M in another thread a while ago.

I love mine, it has a 1.3Ghz pentium M, centrino wireless, 30g hard drive(4200 rpm), 32MB M9 graphics, and sxga+ screen. I use the machine mainly for programming and school work. The sxga+ (1400x1050) screen is great, some might say the text is a little small, but they're probably blind. It only weighs about 5lb, so it's not hard to carry back and forth from class every day. I don't have much to say about windows, other than the default setting likes to use dynamic cpu scaling, even when plugged in. Also, the 2 games I have on there (ut2003 and gta:vc) both run fine. Performance is sub-desktop, but playable at 1024x768. I use linux most of the time, and aside from having to patch my kernel to support the alps touchpad (just to enable edge scrolling, otherwise is works as a standard ps/2 device), it was very easy to set up. I'm using linuxant driverloader for the wireless, but will switch to native intel drivers as soon as they are done.

Build Quality: Here's the downside with this laptop. I used to have a vpr matrix 180b5 that was stolen, and the cheapo best-buy brand beat out the dell in materials and build. The inspiron has a plastic lid, and the back is pretty thin (vpr was magnesium). If you press on it with the display on, you can see is "bubble" under the pressure. If you adjust the screen angle by using the top edge, there is no problem. The rest of the case is plastic, but that is not as vital as the screen back imho. With that said, I've carried this laptop in my backpack, and haven't had any problems with it being bashed with textbooks. So the lid is tougher than it lets on. The battery wiggles in its socked a little, but this seems normal (and only by a very small fraction of an inch) and is in no danger of falling out. The power button is really stiff, and feels broken (it's not).
Click to expand...

Since then I've switched to intel's ipw2100 driver for wireless support. In addition to being open source, it has the added bonus of not locking the kernel up when I try to unload the module.

Anyway, I've encountered ibooks at work. They're nice, but I can't stand low resolution screens. The build quality is definitely superior to the dell. The only downside I can thik of is you'll have a much more difficult time if you want to play with linux later on. That and the single mouse button (mac's support pretty any usb mice though).
 
The 14" and 12" iBooks have the same display resolution (1024x768). Given your situation and budget, I'd go for a 12" iBook (more portable) and use the money saved to buy more RAM. OS X and your 3D rendering programs would benefit more from the extra memory than anything else.

I own a 12" PowerBook and don't have any problems with the display size. OS X has this handy tool called Expose - http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/expose/ - that lets you quickly see all your windows or the desktop.
 
Jeffbui,

I browsed the IBM site and can't seem to nail down the configuration that you listed for the price you indicated. For that matter I can't seem to do much significant customizing while operating through the educational discount page. Am I missing something?

Also did the configuration that you refered to have a 1400x1050 display. If it does an I can reproduce your price, it sounds like the best option.


Thanks
 
Just picked up a D600 Dell, Pentium M 1.4, 512 megs of RAM, Combo drive, XP Pro, 3 years mail in service for 1399.00 after rebates. It's a very nice machine. The display is a bright 14.1" and it has a higher res than 1024x768.

oh yeah, it has the 54 Mbps integrated wireless too. Suweeeet.
 
The only downside I can thik of is you'll have a much more difficult time if you want to play with linux later on.

There are many reasons OS X laptops have caught on with so many *nix admins and the OSS community. This statement is odd because you've OOTB got you're 8nix enviroment that can also run Office and Photoshop. Cool stuff! But if you want you can put Debian, Yellow Dog or Gentoo on your Mac.

- - -

Also did the configuration that you refered to have a 1400x1050 display.

Try, try, try a high res display before you buy one. Been there, returned that.
 
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