I’m tired of hearing this
At the risk of igniting a PC vs. Mac “flame war”, I for one am tired of hearing about how much more expensive Macs are when compared to PCs. I read slashdot and poke through usenet all the time and I keep running across these kinds of statements. I hear my PC toting buddies repeating the mantra as well, I even heard my buddy Todd say he could get “more bang for the buck” with a PC. Since my only experience with a Mac has been my 2002.05 iBook (thats a year.month, not a price!) which is decidedly my most favourite computer of all time (so far), I decided to do my own real world comparison by configuring a Mac powerbook (which I hope will take the iBook’s place one day) and comparing it to what I think is a reasonably comparable Dell Laptop using the online configurator each company provides on it’s website. Apples and Oranges?
I realize its difficult if not impossible to compare a Mac to a PC in any quantitative way when the hardware is so very different. (You can’t configure a Mac to use the same processor or graphics card as the Dell laptop). There’s been a “megahertz war” (now “gigahertz war”) which clearly Apple/Motorola lost to Intel, but like Saddam, they stare right in your face and say “you might have thought we lost since our processor speeds are clearly much lower, but those numbers aren’t the whole picture and really all they add up to is a lot of unwanted heat which will fry your computer faster anyway.” Certainly a good point, but armed with my Dec 2003 copy of Macworld its obvious that all those cycles do really add up to snappier performance. On the other hand, except for one or two graphically intense games which ran juusst a little too slow for my liking, I’ve been pretty well satisfied with the 700MHz iBook for most tasks. Other considerations include the operating system which comes with the machine and any special hardware or software features which may make improve useability for me specifically given peripherals I may already own and what I plan to use the machine to do.
Pricing out the machines
15″ PowerBook
I decided to look at laptops since the iBook totally redefined how I use a computer (and how comfortable I can be using it). My G3 700MHz iBook has a 12″ screen (which sounds really small, but its really very useable and it made the iBook quite a bit lighter and smaller). However, there have been times when I needed more real estate and so I decided to look at 15″ laptops, so that narrowed it down a bit. The same issue of Macworld points out that the 15″ version is new and they had several QC issues with the batch they got in for testing, but I will overlook this as I’m sure the bumps will get smoothed out long before I could actually save up enough dough for one of these babys! Apple has two basic lines of portables, the low end iBooks and the higher end powerbooks. I decided to dream big and configure a powerbook. The powerbook line varies by screen size and has pricing which currently ranges from $1,600 to $3,000 before options and this 15″ guy is a middle of the road size.
Here are the basic specs on a powerbook you get for $1,999.00
- 15.2-inch TFT Display
- 1280×854 resolution
- 1GHz PowerPC G4 w/512K L2 cache
- 256MB DDR333 SDRAM
- 60GB Ultra ATA/100 4200rpm (slow)*
- 64Mb DDR ATI Mobility Radeon 9600
- Full size keyboard
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Audio in and headphone jack - (believe it or not, my iBook has no aud in!)
- Illuminated backlit keyboard (sweet)
- FireWire 400 & 800 (I have a Firewire Hard Drive for backups)
- Dual Usb 2.0
- Built-in BlueTooth (I have a Bluetooth phone which I can sync)
- DVI & S-Video out
- Mac OS X 10.3 Panther - basically BSD unix with an awesome GUI
- weight: 4.6 pounds
I bumped the Ram up to 512Mb, selected an optical drive and took the optional wireless card. I also realized that Dell’s 3 year warranty (after configuring the system below) would have to be balanced by Apple’s AppleCare Plan. Also, after reviewing the Dell system I noticed that the slowest hard drive they offered was a 5400rpm and knowing how important that speed is to performace, I came back here and selected a faster drive.
- 512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 2×256 SO-DIMMs
- Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
- AirPort Extreme Card (I already own an ‘Extreme’ base station)
- AppleCare 3 Year protection plan
- 80GB Ultra ATA drive @ 5400 rpm
Total: $2,747.00
Having configured a powerbook with all the bells and whistles I would like to use and seeing what it cost, the next task is to configure a Dell with the same stuff and see how much I can save, right?
Dell M60
I’m very familiar with the Dell website, having configured many of the 38 machines at work using it over the years, but this time I was in for a surprise! Here’s my thinking: Dell has three basic laptop lines. The Inspiron is aimed at home users and generally offers higher end graphics cards with offerings in the range of from $700 to $1,400. The Latitude is aimed at business users and packs the machine with stuff the average sales guy on the road looks for at prices of from $900 to $1,500. The Precision is the “desktop replacement” line, (which I always found to be laughable since by the time I get around to buying a new computer, my old one is slower than just about anything you can buy anyway.) I was intruiged. How expensive would a comparably equipped version go for? The base price is listed as $1,800. When you start to configure it, you’re presented with a screen that shows an “optimized” setup for $2,100. Choosing that, Configuring that so that the system has 512Mb RAM, a combo drive and a 60Gig (albeit faster) hard-drive, the final price was $2,546.00
- Pentium� M Processor 1.40GHz
- 15.4 WUXGA Display
- NVIDIA� QuadroTM FX Go700 graphics engine with 128MB of DDR memory
- 1920×1200 resolution (incredible! and incredibily hard to read on a 15″ screen)
- Microsoft� Windows� XP Professional, SP1 with Media and NTFS (OS X wins here)
- 512MB, DDR SDRAM Memory (2 DIMMS)
- DVD+RW/+R
- 10/100/1000 Ethernet
- Dell Truemobile wireless
- Internal 56K Modem
- Microsoft Office Basic Edition 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 6.0
- Integrated SmartCard Reader (Dubious usefulness to me)
- 3 years parts and labor (Nice!)
- weight: 7.0 pounds
Suspicious of the “optimized” version, I went back, started again and configured the system manually to the specs above except that I chose
- Intel� PRO/Wireless 2100 WLAN (802.11b,11Mbps) miniPCI Card
- Floppy Drive, Internal/External
Total for Dell M60: $2,633.00
Dell Latitude M800
Unconvinced that I had made a good comparison by choosing the highest end Dell on their site, I decided to step down to the Latitudes. Cathy has a latitude and although its still running, lets just say we’re very lucky we had a three year warranty on it. Again I’ll pick the slowest processor available (although we haven’t touched Centrino models yet which might be a better speed comparison to the G4, I dunno)
- Pentium� M Processor 1.40GHz 15.4 WXGA Display
- Microsoft� Windows� XP Professional, SP1, with media (well, I should hope so)
- 512MB,DDR SDRAM,2 DIMMS
- Hey wait: FREE Upgrade! 512MB, DDR SDRAM (2×256mb) for the price of 256MB!! [subtract $50] Special Offer - Gotta love these cheezy tricks they play, makes up for sending all the support jobs to India? no.
- 8-24-10-24X SWDVD/CDRW Combo Drive
- 60GB,HD,9.5MM,5400RPM (only bigger hard drive is slower)
- Intel� PRO/Wireless 2100 WLAN (802.11b,11Mbps) miniPCI Card
- Microsoft Office Small Business with Adobe Acrobat 6.0
- NYLON DELUXE CASE
- Dual USB 2.0
- Firewire (unclear as to speed)
- Audio in and headphone jack
- Infrared (cool, but never got it to work to the palm!)
- Parallel and serial ports (macs don’t have ‘em)
- 9 CELL PRIMARY BATTERY,
- Floppy Drive, Internal/External [add $49 or $1/month1]
- NVIDIA� GeForce4 4200 Go� 4XAGP graphics w/64MB DDR Video Memory
- 2048×1536 resolution - Holy moley. Perhaps you might actually be able to use that kind of res if you had another screen attached to this thing, but its incredible either way.
- Buy 3Yrs NBD+CompleteCare Get Gold Tech Support FREE via Rebate
- weight: 7.0 pounds
Total for Dell M800: $2,760.00
Conclusions
If the only consideration is price, then you’re going to end up paying a lot of money for the priveledge of running around with one of these super powered portables whether you choose to go PC or Mac. The prices are pretty much the same. But what counts for me is ease of use, simplicity of design, build quality, availability of software solutions and portability (size). OS X wins the ease of use thing hands down, I dare you to argue that one, and don’t tell me “but I’m used to Windows, so that will be easier” ‘cuz so was I, and Fatal Exceptions and mysterious hangs and wasting all day trying to fix something that shouldn’t have broke in the first place is not easier, believe me. My favorite thing is shutting the lid and being able to open it up and work immediately - no stupid Windows message telling me its preparing to hibernate when I open the case for 2 minutes while I stare at the screen and hope it doesn’t actually power down. The Macs are elegantly designed, no stupid plastic clips that break off, and hings that allow the screen to get messed up from the torsion of opening it. The plugs are on the side where you can access them not on the rear where you have to basically lunge over the thing to plug stuff in and then you end up bending the connector or worse, breaking it off. and PCMCIA be damned! I hate those useless dongle things. The Macs are built better, face it. If they are a bit more money (which my investigation belies) they’re worth it. Yes, its nice when the Dell guy shows up to fix the problem on site 2 years later. No, I’d rather it never broke in the first place. Especially when it was the hard drive - that time stunk. Thanks for the new one Dell, good thing I do backups regular. Software! This is my favorite gripe of windows users. Yes, if you have a lot of windows software, thats an investment to consider. However, most folks I know stole all their expensive windows software from work including the damn OS disks, so maybe its time you bought something from an honest programmer for once in your life anyway! I’ve bought some software since I switched over, its true. Mostly its been shareware that is just plain incredibly elegant stuff that deserves to be supported, though. Most of the stuff I use if open source anyway now that Macs run BSD. You can get software to do just about anything FOR FREE! (assuming you have an internet account). Size: Macs win.
I think I could be happy with the Dell M800, which I’m sure is a kick butt machine but my experience with OS X so far would steer me to another, probably a bit faster next time, Mac. My quick (unscientific) investigation does NOT support the claim that PCs are a much better buy, at least for the type of gear (higher end laptops) that I’m interested in.
I’d be interested to see more comparisons on this general spec from other makers. I’d also like comments on the differences in the graphics cards which I didn’t have time to investigate.
Comment posted on 12-22-2003
I want a Mac. I\’ve considered my options and I will probably plunk down my dough on a new mac for my studio. My \’bang for the buck\’ theory falls apart when you factor in time as money (something I never did in my younger days). In my experience down-time on a PC is typically much higher than down-time on a mac. If getting stuff done on your computer is important to you, a mac is an intelligent choice. On the flip side I spent so much time trying to get damn PC\’s to work correctly I learned enough to become a computer tech, from there a \’web guy\’ and from there a programmer/tech/webguy type administrator.
If it weren\’t for the glitchy M$ systems I work on, I probably wouldn\’t earn enough money to buy a new mac.
Comment posted on 12-22-2003
Oh the irony of it all! You might, however, look at it a bit differently: It it weren\’t for all the downtime on the PCs forcing you to twiddle and click through countless pop up windows with inane configuration rules, you might have spent all that time learning more about programming or other web technologies and have gotten paid even more money.
Comment posted on 12-22-2003
I\’m not sure your comparisons are really very fair here.
I can go buy a 2.4Ghz, 15\", XGA, Compaq notebook for $799 most any day. A lot of what is bringing your quotes over the 2K mark are that you are looking at the cream of the crop of notebooks. Granted, the Powerbooks certainly fill this bill. I use them all the time and I love them dearly. They are my favortie computers in the whole world. I just don\’t think that \"bang for the buck\" can be calculated unless you hit the sweet spot on the P.C. side of the curve, as opposed to the high end.
Oh, and if you ever want to do sound recording on your iBook, you can get an external USB sound device, like the U24 from Ego Systems. The quality is fantastic too. 100dB on the A/D!
Comment posted on 12-23-2003
I was afraid someone might bring this up, not because I think you might be right, but rather because I knew I would have to go back to that bloody Dell site one more time to prove the point and its such a bother. Well, there’s nothing for it, so here it is: I have chosen Dell as the PC to compare against because frankly, its the first one everyone thinks of and I have alot of experience with their support services and they are at least comparable to Apple’s. I have set a base set of specs with the PB which I need to attempt to match as best as i can or saying “more bang for the buck” is a false statement.
Dell Inspiron 5100
The lowest level Dell notebooks are the Inspiron series. As I have already specified that I want a 15″ screen, the cheapest such I can get is the Inspiron 5100 listed at $999.00. Sure, looks cheap enough. I begin to specify the least impressive system I can that still meets the bare minimum offered by the powerbook I chose as a base system.
Total: $2,037.00 which is clearly less money than the powerbook. However, a quick check on the internet for reviews pans the audio as substandard. Another review mentions the fact that the keyboard is smaller than full size. Also it weighs more than 2.5 pounds more than the PB, and I would have to use Windows! Mac OSX is just so much nicer than WinXP it has to count for something! Besides, no bluetooth. Conclusion: The low price laptop is not what we are comparing here really. For that, better to go against an ibook, but clearly you can get a pretty fearsome device for about $2,000 in the PC world where you’ll be paying $700 more for the Gold standard (or should I say Titanium standard!) Mac device. The OS clearly wins the day for the Mac even at that price, and the hardware is far superior. Again, my experience shows you’ll be needing to call the India-based Dell support person frequently, so make sure you take the longest support plan you can.
Comment posted on 12-23-2003
In the world of Perifferals, especially ones dealing with Pro-Audio….Manufacturers only have to adhere to and test on a limited number of available configurations that Apple produces. The hardware is nice and consistant. On the PC side, read the system requirments and you start finding stuff about Which chipsets work, which don\’t which might but would be unsupported. Bios versions… ASIO driver versions. Bus speeds etc. Because there a SO many manufacturers in the PC world it is tough to find a system that meets all these requirement, and when you do you notice they end up being the same price as a mac any way. The mac system requirements usually look like: G4 or G5 running OS 9.1 - OS X. and that it. You know it will work out of the box. There is something to be said for Apple keeping rigid control over their hardware achitecture.
Comment posted on 12-24-2003
I understand your point and I do agree. My point was a bit different from yours though.
If I only want to drop $800, I can still get a fairly kick ass machine in the PC world. Not a high end one, but it will run very fast and do everything most people want to do. I agree that the bang for the buck argument falls apart at ~$2K entirely. But if all you want is some decent bang and you are short on the buck, PC is where it makes more sense to be. (as in I only have $800).
(intentional poke coming here…)
The UI in OSX (Aqua) is SLOW. In my experience you really need a decent G4 as a minimum to run OSX reasonably, or just get used to it. Even on our dual G5 machine at work I get these weird pauses when pulling on scroll bars in file explorer windows and such. On my 12\" G4 Powerbook I often think I didn\’t actually click on something, because there is a 1/2 - 1 sec delay in it happening. I\’m not talking about in a running application, I\’m talking about navigating the OS. I think that Aqua and OSX are made to be pretty above being responsive. Panther has improved these problems noticably for me. Their Java implementation is now only slightly slow, easily a 10X speed improvement (probably a 20X) over their original Java 1.2 release for OSX. All of this really bothered me for quite a while, but I\’ve goten used to it. Given my choice now, I turn to my OSX machine to surf, write e-mail, or whatever. Most of it is because I like it sweet and pretty and clean and efficient, and I\’ve gotten accustomed to the lack of snappiness.
Also, in all honesty, my OSX machines crash much more than my WinXP machines do. Neither is frequent enough for me to realy care about though.
Comment posted on 12-25-2003
I have 38 PCs at work, many with WinXP. None of them are doing anything incredibly difficult. They all crash for one reason or another on a regular basis and generally never with a reason you can pinpoint in any case FAR more frequently than my OS X machine crashes. Maybe I am only lucky one? I run OSX on a G3 and although I do long for a faster machine (G4?) its responsiveness is generally quite good. Every so often I DO have a 1/2 pause when choosing a menu item, but once its gone, I usually don\’t see that happen again for a good long time. My WinXP Pro SP1 machine at work has odd network related pauses constantly, sometimes even leading to a whole crash of the OS. For what I do with the machines (web development, browsing, email, graphic work, composition, faxing, network management) I would much rather use my iBook (except for the tiny screen which is a bit of a pain)
Comment posted on 12-25-2003
If we are calling “Bang” sheer speed, the PB has no argument. I have seen PCs tromp all over macs. Wanna proove they are faster - run a benchmark!
Here’s a cool one (as long as you have ssl installed). My iBook’s stats are reported below, which, if the benchmark means anything (probably not since most of the openssl is optimized for the x86) my G3 iBook is at least on par with the PIII 700MHz class machines. Bear in mind that other than my own, the stats given below were reported by other folks and I cannot verify them, and they may not have been using the same version of openssl as I.
OpenSSL Benchmark for Nate's 700MHz iBook OpenSSL 0.9.6i Feb 19 2003 sign verify sign/s verify/s rsa 512 bits 0.0044s 0.0004s 226.5 2252.7 rsa 1024 bits 0.0257s 0.0014s 38.9 712.2 rsa 2048 bits 0.1659s 0.0052s 6.0 191.9 rsa 4096 bits 1.1925s 0.0188s 0.8 53.2 sign verify sign/s verify/s dsa 512 bits 0.0041s 0.0051s 245.1 196.2 dsa 1024 bits 0.0146s 0.0166s 68.4 60.2 dsa 2048 bits 0.0491s 0.0645s 20.4 15.5for comparison, here’s a PIII, 733MHz Redhat 7.1:
sign verify sign/s verify/s rsa 512 bits 0.0037s 0.0004s 273.4 2591.4 rsa 1024 bits 0.0228s 0.0013s 43.9 772.0 rsa 2048 bits 0.1521s 0.0045s 6.6 220.0 rsa 4096 bits 1.0550s 0.0164s 0.9 60.9 sign verify sign/s verify/s dsa 512 bits 0.0040s 0.0050s 250.8 199.6 dsa 1024 bits 0.0132s 0.0163s 75.7 61.4 dsa 2048 bits 0.0448s 0.0553s 22.3 18.1another reported PIII 664MHz machine
sign verify sign/s verify/s rsa 512 bits 0.0039s 0.0003s 254.3 2881.8 rsa 1024 bits 0.0222s 0.0011s 45.1 895.4 rsa 2048 bits 0.1362s 0.0037s 7.3 267.8 rsa 4096 bits 0.8874s 0.0129s 1.1 77.8 sign verify sign/s verify/s dsa 512 bits 0.0037s 0.0044s 269.1 225.1 dsa 1024 bits 0.0114s 0.0137s 88.1 72.9 dsa 2048 bits 0.0371s 0.0461s 27.0 21.7Powerbook G4 1.25GHz
sign verify sign/s verify/s rsa 512 bits 0.0015s 0.0001s 687.9 6929.2 rsa 1024 bits 0.0078s 0.0004s 128.9 2317.7 rsa 2048 bits 0.0487s 0.0014s 20.5 722.8 rsa 4096 bits 0.3203s 0.0049s 3.1 203.6 sign verify sign/s verify/s dsa 512 bits 0.0013s 0.0016s 766.4 638.8 dsa 1024 bits 0.0039s 0.0048s 253.9 209.6 dsa 2048 bits 0.0134s 0.0165s 74.9 60.6Comment posted on 1-7-2004
Hey! I\’m now officially in the market for a notebook.
I\’m thinking about a Toshiba, 2.2Ghz mobile P4, Nvidia GeForce w/ 64mb, integrated 802.11b, 512Mb Ram, 40GBHD, UXGA screen (1600X1200) and all the other typical stuff. At ~$1,350 I\’m finding it hard to beat. It even has line in and mic in audio.
I have had a Toshiba that I practically live on for about 3 years now and it\’s been solid. I know a sample of one doesn\’t mean much, and milage can vary, but this thing has been great.
As far as audio quality goes out of the speakers, I don\’t think I\’ve ever heard one that sounds decent. The worst by far is the Titainium I-Book we have at work. It\’s really bad, but they all are. That machine has a broken hinge as well. Our sys-admin bought a new one from a mac junkyard online and he installed it today. The case comes glued together, instead of screws. He, being a very crafty woodworker and god-like figure painter has managed to make it as good as new, but the epoxy is still drying tonight.
We have a flat panel monitor made by Apple that blew a backlight yesterday. They want a credit card and $50 just to talk to a tech person on the phone. Repairs for this are probably $1,000, this is a $1,300 flat panel. It just fell out of warantee too.
I am a gamer so PC has some serious advantages for me. $1,350 for that notebook though seems like a lot of bang for the buck.
Sorry, but I just am in a mood to start trouble tonight or something.
peace!
Comment posted on 1-10-2004
As far as I know, Apple doesn\’t make anything called a Titanium iBook. Do you mean a powerbook? The iBooks are white. Mine has socket head screws all over the place holding it together. Its true the Apple Airport I have is glued, but is still serviceable. As far as the hinge goes, at least on my iBook it is far more solid than any Dell hinge I have ever had, doesn\’t allow the screen to twist and allows the screen to slip back behind the laptop portion making it just that much farther away when the thing is on your lap. The IBM laptop we just got is their low end one but it was surprisingly well made, and I liked the hinge on that. I suppose I had better take a closer look at the powerbook\’s construction (something I have not done) before I hoot too loud about wanting one, as I said my only experience so far has been this \"low-end\" iBook which I find to be of much higher build quality than any of the ~45 PCs and laptops I have personal experience with at work (except perhaps the SGI workstations which I am partial to as well).
As far as games goes, I am always interested in them, but whenever I have time to play one (rare) I can sit there for about 5 minutes before I get bored and start investigating some arcane networking or OS tweak on the internet. I guess thats why all I have on my iBook are console and arcade emulators which offer that short term (play-all-four-quarters time frame) I agree that you\’ll get a better bang for the buck if games are your main object since games on Mac are few and far between, but although the library of PC games is vast, PC gaming is dying according to \’Maximum PC\’ anyway - Consoles have taken over and there is real fear amoung the diehard PC gamers that game developers will stop writing for PCs all together soon. I personally don\’t think this is very likely at least any time soon, but if you look at the number of title releases of PC games for the last 2 years, they are REALLY a much shorter list than Console releases which I guess is an indicator of a trend.
Comment posted on 1-10-2004
Yes, you\’re right. It\’s a 15\" powerbook, not an iBook. I think they are well made but the metal cases do mean that you have to take care of them beyond that of a plastic one.
My friend Matt has an iBook and it is very sweet. I agree with your statement that they are made well. They are like art.
I have an x-box to play games on mostly. Sitting on my couch surrounded by my 5.1 surround system, playing on my 32\" TV blows the doors off of gaming on a computer imho. X-box live is fantastic and has full voice always. It just works.
The thing I don\’t get on a console is complex military sims like Falcon 4.0. The market is just different for consoles. I love realistic sims and strategy games with tons of depth. Most of the console outings are more action based, though some are fantastic in their own right.
That being said, I am feeling the pull of the iBook. I haven\’t made up my mind what to purchase yet. I worry about the speed.
Have you tried to run the Maetro app on your iBook? (from my blog) Does it run it well? How fast is your processor? This PIII 1Ghz struggles a little bit but it\’s not that bad.
Comment posted on 1-10-2004
“Have you tried to run the Maetro app on your iBook? (from my blog) Does it run it well? How fast is your processor? This PIII 1Ghz struggles a little bit but it’s not that bad.”
I went to the site, but I’ll not be able to test it on the iBook since it requires Java3D which only runs on 10.3 and I’m still on 10.2.8 (When upgrades are free, I do ‘em right away, but when you hafta pay for ‘em, I usually wait for a couple bug fixes to come out first).
I did install it on my Dell PIII 800MHz (Mandrake Linux) and its pretty darn slow. I would say “unusable” but I don’t know how to use it. The idea of Maestro is so freakin’ cool, thanks for pointing it out to me. I just wish I had a fast enough machine that it was less painful. I WISH I COULD AFFORD A MULTI-PROC G5.
Comment posted on 1-14-2004
ok, now I\’m leaning toward the 800Mhz 12\" iBook. I like the little machine. It looks well made and would be very nice to work on.
My only reservations are that the G4\’s benchmark so poorly that I\’m worried about buying a new machine that is under powered. I plan to use it for pretty typical web stuff, but I get into things like Maya rendering also, and I wonder if I\’ll be happy with it doing that sort of thing.
hmmmm.
Comment posted on 1-15-2004
I can\’t say that you\’ll be able to do serious 3D modeling, but today I stayed home with the kids (Emily has the flu) and this is what I did (wirelessly to the Airport) on my G3 iBook: Had remote desktop open pretty much all day to control three Windows 2000 servers at work to fix printing issues, move files to the Linux box (samba), while ssh\’d into the Mandrake Linux Webserver through Terminal.app to configure some perl based collaboration tools while surfing the web (Mozilla), Checking mail with Apple\’s Mail.app (with the GNUPG plugin), typing sticky notes while gabbing on the phone on and off with work, while updating iCal as needed. Then I synced some new addresses from the palm, downloaded some pics from the digi camera, worked some web pages in Taco (like preview with Safari), and launched OS9 to run my old copy of Photoshop. Some of the while I jammed to the Eels (thanks Todd!) on iTunes, and took some breaks to play Armagetron. I did not reboot, nor did I crash even one program, even once. Keep in mind that all day I had to close the top to take care of this and that (kids sick, snow shoveling, a trip to the Dr., trip to the store, lunch, dog, etc.), and every time I opened her up again, I was right where I was, no waaaiiiiting for the stupid windows \"preparing to standby\" for 2 minutes before you can use the darn thing again. BAH! Even if it IS slow, this thing ROCKS. I would NOT attempt to play any really intense 3D games on it though.