My new ibook arrived & a question

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Hi Mac Friends,



Well, today my first and very own mac arrived! My ibook G4 12" 1ghz machine was shipped from Taiwan on Friday, and it arrived today (Monday) at about 10:30am on the west coast of the United States.



Wow. I opened it, being careful not to damage the box. I pulled out the manuals, all packaged nicely. I then found the ibook itself. Wow. Small, clean, neat, and light. I quickly it took it to my kitchen counter where I always work on computers. The height is right, and there is no carpet to create static. I removed the keyboard, the wireless card, and the ram shield. I quickly installed my 512MB stick from Crucial. The only tricky part was getting the keyboard put back in place. The first time I got it wrong, but I got everything back together in just a few minutes.



Next, I plugged it, and I turned it on. Wow. I thought the screen looked mediocre compared to my PC notebook and LCD monitor. However, I was still excited. I quickly went through all the sign-up procedures. I was now able to play around with Mac OS X, but I couldn't get access to my wireless network. I tried and tried for about five hours. It worked with WEP turned off, but not with it on. I read on the apple.com forums of other people who have had this issue with my particular router, so I ran out and got myself a brand-new g router. Now my wireless network is faster! The encryption worked immediately with the new router. Problem solved, but hours wasted.



Furthermore, during this time I had hooked the ibook up at my desk. My PC keyboard, mouse, and printer all worked great right out of the box. However, when I connected to my LCD monitor, I noticed the same unimpressive quality that I had seen on the ibook's own LCD screen.



That leads me to my question for everyone: Why does everything seemed "toned down" and "washed out" to me on the ibook? I'm talking about its 12 inch screen, and the same when I connect to my monitor. My PC looks brilliant on both the notebook's LCD and external monitor, but the ibook looks lackluster on both. Why?



However, I already love OS X. It is simple, and I can do anything I want already. I'm installing programs I need, removing the language files I don't need, etc. It is great. The speed is so-so, but not too bad. I did the Xbench tests, and my results were 104. The slow hard drive really hurts the results.



Expose is really nice. I'm transferring my music files from my PC right now, so I keep hitting expose to see how much time is left on the transfer. haha. 29 minutes right now.



The quality of the ibook seems so-so. My PC notebook feels like a nicer piece of equipment to be honest. The ibook just feels a little delicate, but I love the size and weight. It is great! I don't really like the looks of the ipod when the screen is open either, but it looks good from the back with the lighted apple logo.



Overall, I am pleased with the ibook and Mac OS X. I am sure I am going to be using this computer quite a lot, but I have no plan to abandon my PCs altogether. Still, I'm very excited about being a part of the Mac world.



My G4 20 gig ipod is going to ship soon. I'm looking forward to that. I thank everyone for your help when I asked about what notebook I should get. I will probably think at times "I should have got the Powerbook," but I am very happy with the ibook. Plus, there is always the future (at least a couple years mind you).



Next thing I'll add to my ibook is likely to be Office 2004.



I would appreciate your views on my question above regarding why things don't look as brilliant on the mac. I feel like there is a filter of charcoal or something. When on my PC, I feel like I could step through the screen.



Thanks again!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    try changing colorsync profiles or calibrating it yourself in the monitors control panel.





    despite that, I have always found apple's portable displays a bit dissapointing and washed out.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    gsxrboygsxrboy Posts: 565member
    Go and do the calibrate setup in system prefs--->monitors--->colors



    You will get a much nicer looking display.. also in system prefs--->universal access you could bump up the contrast slider to the 'L' on normal that gives it a little xtra oomph.. some like it some dont.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    londorlondor Posts: 258member
    Use SuperCal to calibrate your display.



    http://www.bergdesign.com/supercal/
  • Reply 4 of 6
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    Just do a custom profile. No 3rd party apps needed.



    Use the PC gamma (2.1). Why Apple ships using the Mac gamma anymore is beyond me.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    ibook911ibook911 Posts: 607member
    Thanks for the tips. It made my external LCD a lot better. The notebook's screen is still just so-so, I guess that is how it is.



    The contrast slider was a good move too. I didn't go quite all the way to the l, but it really helped. Thanks.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    randycat99randycat99 Posts: 1,919member
    Doing your own custom calibration profile is definitely a must, and your choice of gamma setting will make a striking difference to match up with what you feel is most natural, but also consider tweaking the angle of the LCD display as a minor adjustment. If you are viewing at too extreme an angle either from above or below, that can make things look a bit funky. Personally, I don't really see the point of worrying about the nth degree of accuracy on an LCD panel, since all those settings pretty much go out the window once you are more than a few degrees off the optimal viewing angle.
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