Finally, Apple and Amazon gave me a sign. I continued to do my research and consistently heard good things about the iBook. But like any consumer ready to shell out hard-earned money, I was still skeptical. Other than Averatec, this is the only notebook I came across with a retail price of $999 that came in under 5 pounds. What really caught my attention was the price tag. It’s too heavy to be an ultraportable, but it’s small screen means it doesn’t fit with most thin-and-lights. Apple’s 12″ iBook weighs in at touch under five pounds, but is in the ultraportable form factor. Then I was introduced to a strange mix of the above. Yet, even the ones I liked didn’t work out because they didn’t fit my budget (about $1,000). Some of my favorites include the Fujitsu S6210, IBM T40 series, and Dell 600m. Thin-and-Lights looked very appealing, so I researched that category the most. The ultraportables and subnotebooks often lacked basic features I wanted such as an optical-drive, and would easily burn a hole in my wallet… several times over. However, when I began my quest to purchase an affordable portable, I ran into many problems. I felt nothing from Apple’s clever “Switch” ads, and as with many fellow PC/Windows users, I thoughts Macs were for newbies, graphics designers, grannies, and others who couldn’t handle more than one mouse button. Getting an Apple laptop was unthinkable for me at first.
