Bill,

I just bought a DELL inspiron 5160 to use on a wireless set up at home and I've been very pleased with it. I got it back in September and it's plenty quick and has been highly reliable. You may want to look at that model as well. Bank for the buck, in my opinion.

PTH

Thanks for the tip, but the 5160 is a larger, heavier laptop. I'm wanting one that I can lug around with me, and the 700m weighs 4 pounds. It also has a wireless card built in, and also hasa compact flash card reader, which is key for digital photography.

I don't think it's quite fair to call Apple "blog-hostile"... it's more accurate to call them "trade secret leaking-hostile." Had this information appeared in a newspaper or magazine, the suit still would have been filed, but the blog wouldn't have been the target.

Apple is doing what all companies do in that position. I just hope we get the right outcome... a legal ruling that bloggers deserve protection. This could all end up being a good thing for the blogging community!

Bill,

Take a peek at the tweaktown deals page. They list various coupon codes for Dell machines and right now, have one for an additional 10% off the price as configured.

http://www.tweaktown.com/deals/deals.php

Their deals change regularly and they have had some real good ones lately.

FYI,

Allen

Actually, if the blog was a newspaper owned by a big, deep-pocketed chain, Apple wouldn't be suing/subpoeanaing them because Apple's lawyers would tell Apple that it was going to lose on First Amendment grounds, and that it was going to be costly to fight. Apple's lawyers are just hoping a poor blogger caves.

If you wanted to, Bill, you could come up with lots more reasons not to purchase an Apple product: They are incredibly wrong in suing Think Secret and others (who feed my apple cravings).Heck, Al Gore is on Apple's board. I could go on. However, as you are the parent of a young child, I suggest you put off purchasing another windows machine until you watch someone edit a video in iMovies. Or, get someone to show you the quality of a video IM via iChat/iSight. You can replicate certain things in Windows, but believe me, once you see what you can do with the suite of software that comes bundled with iLive running in OSX, you'll, well...just check it out for yourself. This is NOT the old Mac you remember having from years ago.

Sorry. Typos - It's iMovie and iLife.

Of course, they've not got those new Mac minis for under $500 . . .

Well, one dollar less than $500. But still, a decent deal for a decent computer.

As to the Think Secret and the blogger suits . . . I'm not necessarily opposed to them (though I don't necessarily agree with Apple Legal on this either). If Apple is trying to get a source, I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to probe for it. Their employees have probably signed non-disclosure agreements, and if they aren't in jepordy, I see no reason for Apple to not sue to get their names. Now, if they ask for something other than names, then I get suspicious.

Yes, steering you to Apple.

The thing is your statement that "you just get more" with a Dell is false.

Apple iBooks knock in at 999.00 - 1499.00 in the 14" model. The processor is a G4 which is nice, built-in wireless, 30 or 60gb hd, and a MUCH better video card. Likewise the 12" model...

Look again at the Apple store. Not trying to be partisan, I've got loads of friends who have done the comparisons themselves -- and they always had to add stuff to the Dell to make it equal, then if it was cheaper it would only be so by a 100 or so.

Now, factor in iLife and what better choice do you think you could make?

The new iMac mini is not so great.

Sure, it's $499. But there's no monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, etc.

So by the time you add all of those in you're right back up in price.

It's really only suited for those who already have the necessary peripherals...but then, who is going to buy a nice shiny Mac and then plug in some old keyboard and monitor?

Plus, the iMac mini has a very slow system bus, and not the greatest amount of RAM.

For that same $499, I can get a complete system from Dell, including mouse, keyboard, and an LCD flat panel monitor.

Yeah sure -- we've tried to take advantage of Dell's inexpensive systems. Have never found one with LCD included with the same features as the Mac for only 499.00 -- I think you are in some reality distortion field land.

Key point -- the Dell I am typing on now has no real video card. The Mac does, every Mac at least has a real video card. On this Dell, I open up a few applications and the "intel extreme video" with shared memory (yes, not even real vram!) slows to molasses!

Judge this carefully and include the software suite in your decision. Microsoft Movie is just a comparison to iMovie and iDVD.

Thought: there is no way you can get a Dell and an LCD monitor for $499.

LCD monitors are about $200 or more - trust me, I just bought one. (Actually, Dell's site lists a 15 inch model for $150). The cheapest Dell is $399, with comperable specs (same amount of memory, worse video card - when they don't even tell you what kind of card you are getting, its bound to be one of those intel chipsets - same hard drive space, etc.). Thus, you would be getting a comprable Dell for $100 less. Also, if you already have a keyboard and mouse and a monitor, you don't have to buy them again (with the iMacs, you got a new monitor, like it or not, and you were paying for it - after all, it was integrated into the system).

Its not the greatest machine, but it isn't vastly inferior to similarly priced PCs either.

I just don't get it. What's happened to the blogsphere. Are you all on dope? Don't you appreciate the right to own property?

That's what's going on here. Apple isn't blog hostile. They simply want to protect their trade secret information by stopping internal leaks and preventing outside sources from using what is essentially stolen materials.

Bill,

comparing a Dell to a Mac is comparing apple's (pun intended) to lemons. do this: stare at an ibook (disclosure: i own two) screen and a dell screen, models of comparable price. when you're headache has subsided from looking at the dell's screen, you'll understand the $ diff. plus, comparing the viral petri dish of windows to the unix os x, is well, unfair at the least. you'll need a firewall, anti-virus program, and spyware removal program, plus, if you think apple's bad, ever peer into windows media player. windows logs every cd, movie, mp3, etc. you watch or listen to, hides the data in a secret folder you can't find, and has a draconian DRM scheme. and you think apple is bad. plus, apple has no activation schemes either. (second disclosure: i am a java and AMP web developer, and for that, there is no equal to os x) as for software, not that it matters, but macs unix core comes with full development environmetns, both unix and mac, for free. and they are the most secure out of the box systems around. i am not a shill. I've been windows free since '98, having ran linux on my pc's. but i now run os x almost full time, keeping linux on a couple of servers. everything for linux is available for the mac, as is everything necessary for windows, i.e. office, dreamweaver, photoshop, etc. also, try this, type a bit on a powerbook or ibook, then type a bit on a dell/gateway/compaq/whatever. you'll notice a huge difference.

I don't see Apple's lawsuit as being against bloggers, per se. They're suing companies that publish their trade secrets. That ThinkSecret and AppleInsider have a blog-style format doesn't make them bloggers. They both encourage people to violate their confidentiality agreements so that they can draw page hits.

Actually, the point about hardware costs is only marginally relevant - you amortize those over the useful life of the computer. The reality for Windows buyers now is that they're buying into a persistent cycle of viruses, worms, and spyware, which simply does not impact the Macintosh community. It's not really a question of the cult of Mac or anything like it - it's that Mac users pay a little more up-front to deal with a gigantic lack of hassles during their computing experience.

Think of the economics here. You buy a computer for $200 less, but spend an hour a week updating virus definitions (or even worse, have spyware applications that turn your computer into a forwarding mail server for spammers). You own the computer for a year. Do you really consider your time worth only $4 an hour?

Also, considering that you can do practically everything on a Mac that you can do on a Windows machine, and you can do lots of stuff on a Mac that you can't do on Windows (the Mac is simply a nicer and more consistent system to work with digital media like pictures and music), I see Windows folks as missing out on a lot of things while they struggle to do things Mac users take for granted. On the Mac, WiFi just works. On the Mac, FireWire just works. USB devices just work. It's an effortless computing experience, which means if I think about an upgrade, I don't have to think about it in terms of how long it will take to "figure it out and get it to work with my current system."

A word of warning about Dell: a few months ago a client called Dell to place an order, and the Dell person asked for the name of the person who would be using the computer, and what the computer would be used for. When the client declined to provide this information, the Dell person insisted it was required ''because of the Patriot Act.'' Client canceled order, began ranting about our slide into fascism, etc. I did some Googling and discovered Dell has been lying about the Patriot Act in order to gather marketing information. Pretty sleazy, eh? (Note that the computer was a standard PC, not some powerful server or something, and would have been shipped to a US address.)

Buy whichever computer you want. I like macs - you don't have to.

However, if you're going to choose simply based on Apple protecting its business interests, you better be running linux on that Dell.

I don't have a problem with Apple protecting its business interests. I'm all for that. I AM against Apple trying to force online journalists to reveal their sources.

Apple needs to stop leaks, not stop the First Amendment.

You might want to take a look here before sprining for and Inspiron.

http://www.thisistrue.com/dellhell.html

Bottom line on the article is that Inspirons are designed for home use and are not as rugged as the Lattitude line which is geared for business use.

Ah, Bill, exactly how is Apple supposed to do that? Apple employees sign NDAs that say they won't reveal confidential company information. Some employees violate those agreements- how do you think Apple should prevent this? Of all the methods avaliable, going to court to compel websites to reveal the identities of the people who gave them the information is the least odious means I can think of.

Unlike revealing wrongdoing by government officials, there is no overriding public good served by the details of Apple's next generation of products being announced ahead of schedule.

Why should this recieve the same level of protection as whoever leaked the Pentagon Papers?

Bill,

I have been an Apple user for some time and love OS X but I recently sold my iBook G3 800 in favor of the Dell 700m. The screen is a brilliant, reflective surface that I have come to love. It is lightweight and really performs. The only drawback is the smaller keyboard but, now that I am used to it, if feels like second nature and I have actually come to like it better.

Look out for the deals that float around. I got mine with education pricing and a $500 coupon code for $700.

Bill Bill Bill...

This isn't a blog thing. It's a Mac thing, a thing that you apparently (absolutely no offense intended) don't understand. This is a cat and mouse game that has been going on for at least a decade between Apple and web sites such AppleInsider, ThinkSecret and MacOSRumors that predates blogs, the blog concept and blog software by years. Unless, of course, one should argue that Apple rumor sites are in fact protoblogs, for which, quite honestly, a decent argument could be made.

It also helps to understand Apple's motivation: Apple keeps it's head above water in the cut-throat global PeeCee industry is by innovating it's ass off developing new technology and exciting products---as opposed to Dell, whose only innovation consists of a marketing/sales paradigm---and in doing so Apple has developed a "market" amongst Apple afficionados and others for advance knowledge of it's upcoming products. The Apple rumor sites take adantage of this demand and leverage it to sell web ads. Look at the names of their sites; this is *all* they do.

Now, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong per se with folks running Apple rumor sites (or Dell rumor sites---"Look everyone! Michael's lopping another $19 off of the Optiplex!!"---Har!), but Apple has legitimate interests here too, especially considering it's reliance on innovation (and thus surprise) in the face of the Micro$oft/PeeCee juggernaut. And believe me, if I posted a sign listing the specs of Apple's forthcoming products in my front yard before MacWorld, Steve Jobs would have a battalion of lawyers parachuting down onto my street, especially if it was a product in which he had some portion of his ego invested.

Whatever you do, Bill, don't forget that at the end of the day, a Wintel PeeCee is it's own reward with it's spybots, sKRIPt k1dd13s, hourly virus alerts, and general glut of proprietary crapware. Besides, I'm sure when Apple gets a whiff of the response to it's actions in the blogosphere, they'll back off---and then of course regroup, and figure out another way to try and protect it's critical business information.

:jackson

"Some employees violate those agreements- how do you think Apple should prevent this?"

They have no right to prevent it. They have a cause of action against the employee, but a trade secret, once revealed, is no longer a secret and cannot be put back under the rug. Besides, I'm not at all convinced that the mere release of data which Apple FULLY INTENDED TO RELEASE at a later time can qualify as a "trade secret".

They have a cause of action against the employee, but how can they act without finding out who the employee is?

ps: 'confidential' and 'trade secret' are not even remotely the same thing, and I did not assert that they were.

Last year I got a Dell Dimension 8400 3.0 ghz Pentium 4HT, 80 gig hd (expandable to 1 terabyte), 768 mb RAM with an LCD monitor for $850. With free shipping. I love it to death.
Dell has absolutely horrible customer service, though---I really had to fight to get my discounts. And I wouldn't recommend getting one unless you can do most of your own tech support---it's in India, and they'd rather have you format and reinstall Windows than help you solve the problem.

I have been looking at the 700m also, some similar laptops you may want to look at are the Fujitsu S6000 and S7000, and the IBM X40 (by far the head of the class, but very expensive) and T42. The Dell seems like it will be the cheapest (have seen it at 1050 properly loaded, with coupon codes from sites like Techbargains.com).

http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=1&langId=-1&dualCurrId=73&catalogId=-840&partNumber=23711CU
http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=S7