iBook

Apple Macintosh From £1,099 ****

Apple's new iBook, right, was unveiled last week, a radical all-white revamp of the consumer and education-focused laptop first introduced in autumn 1999.

I bought an earlier iBook and have become intimately acquainted with its strengths, and shortcomings. The old iBook was strong, had a great screen and six hours' battery life (five in real life). But all this came at the expense of hard disk space, size and weight. After a long day, the old iBook felt like lead.

Has Apple addressed these problems? First impressions suggest yes, they have.

Gone are the oval expanses of rubber and plastic around the screen and keyboard. The elegant white shell is tight to the edge of display and keyboard, and the box is thinner. And iBook has lost weight, too - more than two pounds - without losing any of its strength, claims Apple (I couldn't test Online's loan machine in the same way as I had my own iBook - by throwing the rucksack containing it over my shoulder after a trip on an escalator). The exterior shell is smooth and feels well built, with no flimsy flaps to snap off.

The new machine gains a lot of flexibility. Once, the ability to connect a lead and the laptop to an external screen or TV was reserved for the PowerBook, the iBook's more expensive sibling.

Now the iBook has its own monitor and TV out sockets, so you could deliver a presentation on a projector, watch DVDs on a big screen or plug in an external monitor to mirror what is on the iBook's screen while at your desk.

The 12.1-inch screen is sharp and bright, and comes with a high default resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels. You get a lot on the screen - the same as the iMac's 15-inch monitor - but the downside is that type can appear small.

Sound has been improved a little, with two tinny stereo speakers replacing the previous one tinny speaker. A 10GB hard drive is standard, although more can be fitted to order. There is 64MB of memory on the basic iBook, while all the others come with 128MB - the minimum required to run the new Mac OS X system. Upgrading to 128Mb (which I would recommend) costs £68 from <A HREF="http://www.uk.apple.com."

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Finally, iBook now also has two USB sockets and a FireWire port as standard, so you can plug in your digital camcorder, download your footage and use the pre-loaded iMovie software to create your own films.

So, if the new iBook is thinner, more capable and more adaptable than before, and taking into account it's cheaper too (starts at £1,099 including VAT, but without that extra memory), is there anything to complain about?

Well yes, a little. Gone is the glowing plug-surround to indicate when the iBook was charged, although it is replaced by a battery meter on the outside of the case.

The MHz number watchers will also note that the new iBook only comes with a 500MHz G3 processor, and that this might not be enough for the new OS X should you decide to install it (OS 9.1 comes pre-loaded). But 500MHz is hardly slothful - even under OS X - and if raw power is your concern, the PowerBook should satisfy. Similarly, the ATI Rage Mobility 128 3D graphics card is not the greatest around: iTunes' graphics are noticeably poorer than on a G4 Mac. Again, PowerBooks can offer more, for a price.

Of more importance, the new iBook boasts five hours between charges, against six hours for the old version. Apple has sacrificed some stamina in favour of a lighter battery, but you are likely to get only four hours of "real life" use. That is superior to many laptops, but a spare battery or charger would be necessary for many on the move.

But these are minor quibbles with a package which, overall, is attractive and (for Apple) reasonably priced.

After a slightly gawky adolescence, iBook has reached maturity: better looking, more intelligent and better equipped to deal with the outside world.

• Available to order now. Delivery 3-5 weeks.