Apple iBook Laptop 12.1" M9164LL/A (800-MHz PowerPC G4, 256 MB RAM, 30 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive)

Keep looking and accept nothing less than a fast G5.

However, Apple needs to get their hardware out of the stone-age. The iBook is a toy, and a 800mhz processor *is indeed* slow. Mac Zealots will tell you otherwise, that the G4 platform is more efficient than x86, etc. This may have been true five years ago, when the G4 was first introduced and comparable to the then-current Pentium IV. But x86 has come a long way since then (Athlon64 anyone?), and the G4 is very, very slow in comparison. Think of the specs... 133mhz bus. 0.8GHZ processor, 256mb RAM, 30GB HD. The LCD is only capable of 1024x768, and is extremely dim and slow.

I could reccomend this notebook to students who need something simple to get their work done, home users that surf the internet wirelessly throughout the house... or a second computer in homes already with a powerful desktop (like a G5...!) who would like roaming wireless capabilities. This isn't a primary machine for a moderate user who demands even a little power for applications.

Pros: Looks nice, feels good, fun to use and look at. Runs OSX, which is great.

Cons: Wimpy little toy under the hood. Don't expect much. The Powerbooks are a better choice for power-users, but Apple needs to bring the G5 to their laptop line soon.

And a side note...multiple users posted reviews about how old and outdated an 800mhz processor is; one thing these people don't know is that it's not x86. Anything non-x86 (POWER, PowerPC, SPARC, MIPS, Alpha, etc) is much better than anything x86. One number I've heard is that in the days of 100mhz, anything non-x86 was 2 to 2.5 times the speed (100mhz Alpha = 200, 250mhz x86).