I'm considering the iBook and Powerbook lines for when I go to college in the fall and was wondering about the durability of the case material.
I don't really mind scratches, it's the dents and cracks that would bug me. I will also be travelling a lot (on planes, etc.) so I need a laptop that can survive the rigors of an airport without suffering cosmetic and internal damage.
All of you, I never said we were saying it the "right" way or they were saying it the "wrong" way.
Don't worry, johnq. It's not your fault that those Americans still live in the dark ages of the Imperial system instead of using the Metric system like intellectually developed countries.
No big deal. After all, I could leave this country if I didn't like its spelling, units of measurement, or moronic president.
First...they need text formatting capabilities, cuz ^2 is ugly as sin, I hate doing stuff like that on my calculator let alone typing it.
Second, I assume it was almost 9.8 consistantly as I was REALLY hoping the chair wasn't higher than 9.8m. Fun with physics, how high is the chair we can find out how fast it REALLY fell
I tink any fall that might have dented the aluminium would have cracked the plastic. You say it fell so slowly, but sometimes an impact cannot be intuitively appreciated. Did something in the bag generate undue force at the point of impact, if only by putting more weight behind the fall? It could have fallen just so, on a weak point -- one that might not exist in a plastic case, but then again weak points may exist in the plastic that don't in the aluminium.
PS, ai-oi vey Amorph, all I remembered from our good buddy friend Rabelais was perhaps the funniest segment on toilet hygene ever written, never had any time to notice oi and ai's. I suggest you all read it. Downy geese... Ah, the classics.
Aluminium doesn't suck. You probably could get a dent on the ibooks case with a foot drop. You can even get a dent on any laptop. You should be feeliing lucky that your powerbok works. That kind of drop could of destroyed my brothers Dell.
I have found the aluminum case to be much more durable and scratch resistant than the soft polycarbonate shell of my old iBook (which would scratch horribly if you looked at it the wrong way). However, there have been some problems: The kensington lock slot is not sufficiently reinforced and, after daily use, has now bent out. I'm also having problems with corrosion/pitting on the right side of the palm rest, suggesting problems with the anodizing process. I plan to address the pitting issue when I take my Powerbook in for "white spot" service, though I have read that Apple has declined to address this with others who have raised the issue.
On the spelling issue: It is true that the Brits came up with the English language before the Yanks did. But I think it is a mistake to put a value on it as good and bad. Rather, it is an interesting thing about language that words and spellings evolve are are more dynamic than static.
In this case, a Brit is at fault for mucking it up because the man who named aluminum (Sir Humphry Davy) could not decide for himself how to spell it. He first used "aluminum" in 1807 and then later used "aluminium" in 1812, deciding it was better because it was much more like other elements that ended in "ium" such as potassium, sodium and magnesium. Thus the confusion. The Americans have spelled it the way they do since the 1870s. The spelling didn't really matter until the early part of the 20th Century because the process used to make it was so obscure and tricky, than it was a very rare compound and actually cost more than gold of equal weight.
A Dane (Hans Christian Oersted) actually isolated the element and the name is derived from the Latin "alumen". A Frenchman perfected the process for making aluminum easy to extract from its ores and it became more common. The "um" spelling was made official in the US in 1925 by the American Chemical Society.
well, same exact thing happened to my 15 - but it still works so am not gonna mess with it.
AL is pretty strong if its thick enough - I mean my mountain bike is made of AL and I hammer that thing. But when it's soda can thin... different story.
Comments
I don't really mind scratches, it's the dents and cracks that would bug me. I will also be travelling a lot (on planes, etc.) so I need a laptop that can survive the rigors of an airport without suffering cosmetic and internal damage.
Any ideas?
Originally posted by johnq
All of you, I never said we were saying it the "right" way or they were saying it the "wrong" way.
Don't worry, johnq. It's not your fault that those Americans still live in the dark ages of the Imperial system instead of using the Metric system like intellectually developed countries.
No big deal. After all, I could leave this country if I didn't like its spelling, units of measurement, or moronic president.
Escher
Originally posted by ast3r3x
Something stopped it from the average 9.8m/s?
hummmmm that gives me an idea, laptop drop censors and parachutes or air bags
Originally posted by Brad
I think you mean 9.8m/(s^2), smart guy.
First...they need text formatting capabilities, cuz ^2 is ugly as sin, I hate doing stuff like that on my calculator let alone typing it.
Second, I assume it was almost 9.8 consistantly as I was REALLY hoping the chair wasn't higher than 9.8m. Fun with physics, how high is the chair we can find out how fast it REALLY fell
Truely I tell you, I am the hated member
PS, ai-oi vey Amorph, all I remembered from our good buddy friend Rabelais was perhaps the funniest segment on toilet hygene ever written, never had any time to notice oi and ai's. I suggest you all read it. Downy geese... Ah, the classics.
On the spelling issue: It is true that the Brits came up with the English language before the Yanks did. But I think it is a mistake to put a value on it as good and bad. Rather, it is an interesting thing about language that words and spellings evolve are are more dynamic than static.
In this case, a Brit is at fault for mucking it up because the man who named aluminum (Sir Humphry Davy) could not decide for himself how to spell it. He first used "aluminum" in 1807 and then later used "aluminium" in 1812, deciding it was better because it was much more like other elements that ended in "ium" such as potassium, sodium and magnesium. Thus the confusion. The Americans have spelled it the way they do since the 1870s. The spelling didn't really matter until the early part of the 20th Century because the process used to make it was so obscure and tricky, than it was a very rare compound and actually cost more than gold of equal weight.
A Dane (Hans Christian Oersted) actually isolated the element and the name is derived from the Latin "alumen". A Frenchman perfected the process for making aluminum easy to extract from its ores and it became more common. The "um" spelling was made official in the US in 1925 by the American Chemical Society.
AL is pretty strong if its thick enough - I mean my mountain bike is made of AL and I hammer that thing. But when it's soda can thin... different story.