Want to Meet People? Take an iBook to the Park

Carrying an Apple iBook is kind of like holding a baby: Whether you're in an office or on the street, people stop to admire it. Its white-on-white case and diminutive size (1.35 inches thick and about an inch wider than a letter-size sheet of paper) make it hard to resist. But unlike the candy-colored first generation of iBooks, this notebook is packed with business-class hardware--it's not kid stuff anymore.

The model I tried comes with a combination 6X DVD and 4X/4X/24X CD-RW drive, a 500-MHz PowerPC G3 processor, a 10GB hard drive, and a price of $1799. Other models start at $1299; they differ mostly in optical drive options. It also comes with the newest Mac operating system, OS X, installed, although it starts up in OS 9.1.

Its processor and 128MB of RAM are more than enough to run general productivity apps such as those in Microsoft Office. And if you allocate enough RAM to graphics-intensive apps such as Adobe Photoshop Elements or Apple's iMovie, it's plenty to run those quickly, too. (Mac OS 9.1 still lets you allocate memory manually, although OS X manages memory automatically, just like Windows.)

To run your older applications, you open an "OS 9.1 window." The main drawback to this approach is waiting for the operating system to load, which takes about as long as restarting. A handful of OS X-native applications are available now.

The 128MB of RAM that comes installed is the minimum recommended amount to run OS X, but you can upgrade to as much as 640MB of RAM. The 10GB hard drive won't be enough to store many movie files, though--you'll have to burn them to CD or hook up an external drive via the integrated IEEE 1394 port or one of the two USB ports. DVD movies play smoothly, but the sound from the two small speakers above the keyboard is tinny and weak; you'll want to use headphones when listening to music or playing movies.

The 12.1-inch screen is quite usable, especially at its native 1024 by 768 resolution, although letters have softer edges than I'm used to, and the brightness has to be turned up quite high to make them look tolerably crisp. Despite the high burn rate, the lithium-ion battery lasted about 3 hours and 45 minutes, which is longer than the average life of batteries in PC notebooks we've tested recently.

The iBook has some graceful design touches that live up to Apple's reputation for elegance, such as the battery-life indicator on the back of the case and the AC adapter spool that somewhat minimizes cord clutter. But there were more details that tarnished that reputation--most notably the fragile-feeling keyboard, which lifts off so you can insert an optional AirPort wireless network card ($99) or additional RAM. In fact, typing too energetically caused the Delete key on our test unit to pop off. The key labeled Delete actually backspaces, and Function-delete actually forward-deletes, but that's not labeled on the key, as other functions are. And the first thing I noticed upon opening the notebook was that the hinge attaching the lid feels simultaneously stiff and insubstantial: The hinge's action isn't smooth, and the screen jiggles when you touch it. But when typing on a stable surface the screen mostly stays put.

Powering the iBook on and plugging in headphones for the first time was occasion for some head-scratching, because the power, headphone, and Apple RGB (monitor) ports are labeled with cryptic icons, and the headphone and power ports look very similar. The getting-started booklet clearly identifies them within the first three pages, but with a Mac, I expect not to need the manual.

Apple has finally created a portable that combines powerful components with a price well under $2000--and has wrapped it in a case that turns heads. Unless you're adamantly anti-Mac, it's a pretty irresistible package.