Brilliant marketing or Pain in the...

[BodaciousBBQ]

Apple is either brilliant or.... well really I guess that is it. I want to buy a PB, but might not just because of cost and because the iBook offers so much software when you buy it. Somebody on another thread mentioned that the PB may be upgraded my Apple VERY SHORTLY. If that is the case, say 2 weeks or less, I'll probably buy the PB and suck up the cost of buying software. Seems like that is what Apple prefers. I was at an Apple store and they kept trying to steer me away from the iBook. Low profit margins, I'ld guess. The ONLY intensive program I would use is iMovie, and that is just as a "home video" project.

That said, is there a particularly good low cost word processor that allows for saving as word files?

Also, if I buy the iBook, what is a user friendly DVD recorder / software.

Thanks, Chuck ( TOTAL MAC NEWBIE )... actually this will be my 1st mac.

 

[iShater]

Get the iBook from a reseller and get MS Office for $199 or less, that would be your best Word compatible wordprocessor

[edit] Oh, and you can get that Office promo with the PowerBook as well or any other Mac [/edit]

 

[scan300]

ThinkFree Office is a low cost office alternative. Saves in MS office formats seamlessly.

If cheap is too expensive, get OpenOffice, at www.openoffice.org this suite of office apps are free.

 

[robbieduncan]

TextEdit in Panther can open and save .doc Word formatted files. Not sure how well it copes with complex layout/tables/images yet but it works pretty well with text only documents.

 

[the future]

Re: Brilliant marketing or Pain in the...

Originally posted by BodaciousBBQ
Also, if I buy the iBook, what is a user friendly DVD recorder / software.

You're being a bit vague here. What do you actually want to do, DVD-wise?