Are the White iBooks Still a Good Bet or Should You Steer Clear of Them?
Charles W. Moore - 2007.08.20
The dual USB iBook
has turned out to be not only the longest-in-production Apple notebook
computer ever - on the market in various versions for just over five
years - but also one of the most controversial.
It has to be
acknowledged that the reliability record of some "iceBook" models is
simply horrendous - so bad that Apple offered an unusual extended
repair program (now expired) through which iBook G3 users within a
specified serial number range could get their computers' logic boards
replaced if the defect materialized, something the company hadn't done
for a laptop model since the infamous PowerBook 5300.
It was widely believed (or at least hoped) that the problem had been
licked with the introduction of the G4
iBook in late 2003. From time to time the odd complaint about a G4
iBook logic board failure has come to my attention, but a certain
incidence of such failures can be anticipated with any computer
model.
A Design Flaw?
However, earlier this year
Denmark's Consumer Complaints Board reported in a press release
that it has documentation showing that there is a design fault in the
G4 iBook; it demanded that Danish consumers be able to return computers
with this fault to Apple. Danish bureaucrats claim that a substantial
percentage of of iBook G4 users experience the the computer shutting
down spontaneously and the display screen going blank afterwards, a
problem that allegedly manifests at just over one year's use. Apple
rejects the complaint, maintaining that there is no question of a
design fault and that the 12 month warranty has expired (although users
who purchased AppleCare would be covered for three years).
The test laboratory that investigated the iBook for the Danish
government determined that a solder joint between two components on the
logic board is prone to breaking after the computer has been turned on
and off a sufficient number of times and that the joint eventually
severs completely,
This story, which was widely reported on the Mac Web, naturally
caused some anxiety for owners of G4 iBooks and caused persons who had
been considering the purchase of one of these machines as a used or
refurbished unit to have second thoughts.
Should you steer clear of the dual USB iBook? There are certainly a
lot of them out there on the used market, many at very attractive
prices.
Personal Experience
I have a
700 MHz G3 iBook
that is close to five years old, and it has been essentially
trouble-free function-wise. It hasn't been roughly treated, but it has
an awful lot of hours on it, serving for three-years-and-a-bit as my
main production workhorse, and since then as my portable machine on
road trips and whatnot.
It still looks great and works perfectly - and is surprisingly
lively running Mac OS X 10.4.9. The display is still bright and
sharp, and even the long-suffering 20 GB IBM hard drive remains
whisper-quiet. I still really like this computer, except for the
mediocre keyboard, but I mostly just hook up an external keyboard
anyway.
However, the 700 MHz G3 iBook has just about the worst reliability
record of any Apple laptop ever, so go figure.
On the
other hand, my daughter has a 1.2 GHz G4 iBook that she has
used hard with little maintenance since she purchased it in October
2004. She carried it in a backpack through Europe in the summer of
2005, used it as her workhorse during her two last years of university,
and has had it with her in Japan, where she is living and working, for
the past year. For the first two-and-a-half years, her iBook was a
reliable performer, but recently, sad to relate, it has begun to
manifest the sudden shutdown disease.
A friend of mine who got one of the very last 1.33 GHz G4 iBooks in May
2006 - actually delivered just as the MacBook was introduced - got
barely more than a year of use from it before the logic board
failed.
Apple's Most Repaired Model Ever
Of course, a handful of anecdotal cases can't be regarded as
conclusive one way or the other. The white G3 iBook was statistically
the least reliable Apple laptop of the 1999-2005 era, and by a wide
margin, with the absolute nadir being the 2002-2003 models (mine was
purchased on the cusp of those two years). I've heard of users who have
had up to four logic boards replaced under either AppleCare or the
extended service program.
In the MacInTouch iBook
and PowerBook Reliability survey, which was not scientific (since
respondents were self-selected), more than 10,000 readers reported on
41 models, which should be more than broad enough to give a fairly
reliable statistical indication of relative reliability. At the time
the survey was conducted, the G4 iBook scored from middle-of-the-road
to better than average - doing roughly as well as the PowerBook G3 Series, which is
widely lauded for reliability, and substantially better than the
PowerBook G4 Titanium
models. However, the G4 iBook was relatively young as a model at the
time of the survey, and I expect its reliability record would be worse
were a similar survey conducted today.
Recommendations
In light of
recent developments, I can no longer enthusiastically recommend the
dual USB iBook, especially with the price of the far more reliable
867 MHz and 1 GHz 12" G4 PowerBooks having
dropped into the $500 range. Also, the keyboards of the G4 iBooks are
even less satisfactory than the ones in the G3 iBook models.
However, if you like the iBook form factor and are looking for a
'Book in the $200 to $650 range, I think that even G3 dual USB iBooks
make better sense than a Pismo or early revision
Titanium PowerBook for roughly the same price. The 700 MHz G3 and later
iBooks had a much better video card with 2-4 times the video RAM of a
Pismo or Mercury TiBook, and the screen on the 12" model is superb.
The last revision 1.33/1.42 GHz G4 machines have 512 MB of RAM
soldered to the motherboard (expandable to 1.5 GHz), Apple's Sudden
Motion Sensor and Scrolling Trackpad technology, and a Radeon 9550
graphics processor fully supporting Core Image in OS X 10.4 Tiger,
which is a pretty decent list of attributes for $600 or so.
On the other hand, especially if you're planning on using the
machine routinely as a mobile device, I would be inclined to steer you
toward a 12" PowerBook, even at a somewhat higher price.
