Apple Releases New iBooks

I know you’re all very excited boys and girls. Apple has bumped their iBook computers.

We now have: * A 1.2GHz 12″ iBook with 30GB hard drive and a combo drive * A 1.33GHz 14″ iBook with 60GB hard drive and your choice of combo or super drive

All three models sport: * 512KB of Level 2 Cache * 133MHz system bus * 256MB of PC2100 RAM built-in (with a single slot free, allowing for 1.25GB total) * ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 with 32MB of SDRAM * One Firewire 400 port * Two USB 2.0 ports * Video mirroring (no spanning) * V.92 56Kbps modem * 10/100Base-T Ethernet port * Airport Extreme on all models * Optional Bluetooth * Display supporting 1024×768 resolution

More details are available at Apple.

Pricing is $999 for the 12″, and $1,299 and $1,499 for the 14″ version with combo drive and superdrive respectively.

The 12″ isn’t a bad deal, but for the prices of the 14″ iBooks, I’d move on up to the 12″ Powerbook. The screen may be bigger on the 14″, but again, the actual pixel space is the same, so things will only be bigger on the 14″ screen. It’s good to see Airport Extreme on all laptops that Apple now offers (though this should have happened earlier). The small amount of RAM is disappointing again.

I’m going to predict that one of the first things that nay-sayers will harp on is the lack of Firewire 800. Get over it, this is a consumer machine and it’s entirely inappropriate to have.