What is the oldest PB/iBook to run Tiger well...

FWIW, our 400 MHz TiPB with 1 GB ram does a really nice job for email - web surfing - Powerpoint & Word presentations - Excel works fine as does iTunes and iPhoto It is one of the first G4 PBs and continues to serve us well except for a possible PRAM battery on its last leg - runs quiet, cool and gets lots of use on a daily basis (as does our 366 Clam).

Cheers

emaja said:

Title says it all.

I don't need a notebook, but I sure want one. The refurbs are still a little more than I want to spend right now, so I looked at other resellers that have "refreshed" models like techrestore.com.

I have my G5 iMac for the heavier stuff. The notebook would be for wireless internet and dumping photos to on vacations until I could put them on the iMac.

I do not want to do eBay. I have heard too many horror stories and want to go with a company that has an unconditional return policy. I want to be able to return it for any reason whatsoever.

Tech Restore has a lot of deals going now like a 15", 800MHz TiBook for $799. That's in my range. I would like it to support CoreImage, but I think have to get a 1GHz model for that - correct?

Opinions?

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Tibooks still go for a lot of money. HOwever, if you shop you can pick up a 400Tibook for no money at all. And they will run Tiger okay, the maxed out ram is the issue. Also, a faster hard drive will help.
I"m on a 550 Tibook with a 60gig 7200rpm Travelstar hd and 1 gig of ram. Very speedy. In fact, almost as fast as my 1.5ghz Powerbook 12" with 1.25gigs of ram and a 5400rpm hard drive.

To the OP: An early PowerBook G4 or an iBook G4 800 would be great. You probably won't get core image, though.

emaja said:

Are you running Tiger on it?

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Read the fracking title.

"What is the oldest PB/iBook to run Tiger well..."

10.4.6

Forgot - I did install a Toshiba 60 GB drive in also.

I haven't gotten around to putting Tiger on my hopped-up WallStreet, but those who have (the common setup is Sonnet's G4/500 card + maxxed-out 512 MB RAM; fast 7200 RPM hard drives sure don't hurt either) seem to be reporting that it runs at least as fast as Panther. I'll vouch for Panther performance on such a WallStreet.

Some of those folks on the XPostFacto forum are putting X on yet older laptops: Kangas in particular. (But Kangas have a color and SCSI problem with Tiger, apparently). Also those tiny little suckers, what were they called? ::checks MacTracker:: 2400c's I believe. I don't believe there are any G4 upgrades available for a 2400c, so they're doing X on a G3. I do see some scattered claims of folks getting Tiger to work on it, but I doubt that it works well.

The even-older 3400c PowerBook appears to be limited to 10.1.5, as there aren't even any G3 upgrade cards for it, so it's pushing around X with a 603e processor (owwch!).

So I nominate the WallStreet, with the disclaimer that you need the Sonnet Card in it, a large fast replacement HD, and all the RAM it will take if you want to run Tiger well on one.

lilstewart92 said:

Read the fracking title.

"What is the oldest PB/iBook to run Tiger well..."

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What kind of point are you trying to make? That you don't read the posts before being unnecessarily snotty?
To the OP who is inquiring about older lappy's running Tiger, I use a G3 800 mhz that runs Tiger fine, and I know a lot of the Titanium PB's run Tiger nicely as well.

ahunter3 said:

So I nominate the WallStreet, with the disclaimer that you need the Sonnet Card in it, a large fast replacement HD, and all the RAM it will take if you want to run Tiger well on one.

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That would be much more expensive than a new model. Vintage Macs are cool but the upgrade costs are high. I wouldn't even opt for a G3, unless it was 700MHz or above.

emaja said:

I would like it to support CoreImage, but I think have to get a 1GHz model for that - correct?

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Correct, the 1GHz PowerBook (Rev. B) is as low as you can go, and I've seen those go for nearly $1k on eBay. After the resellers mark them up, it's even worse.

I would forget about CoreImage and settle for that TiBook. But for $200 more you could get a new iBook.

dferrara has sharpened the pencil in a different thread - probably a solid ROI analysis.

Just make sure it at least has a Radeon or GeForce video card.

emaja said:

Tech Restore has a lot of deals going now like a 15", 800MHz TiBook for $799. That's in my range.

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Apple.com sells current model 12" ibook refurbs for $799. If they're currently out of stock, just check back soon.

ebay and resellers grossly overcharge for very old, used computers. The truth is that there's practically no such thing as a good deal when it comes to 3 year old macs like that tibook; people just perceive those computers as holding their value too much.

Although the tibook does have some advantages, most notably the screen size, it's woefully behind the ibook in so many ways, not to mention it's used and doesn't have applecare.

A friend just bought a tibook for 250.00 (I think a Ti 500mhz) with a bad combo drive, no airport, but one gig of ram.


You can find deals if you look.

i have a G3 powerbook (Pismo) with 500mhz, 1gb ram, and a 60gb harddrive that works well. Expose works well, and the start up time is about 40sec from the time i push the powerbutton unil everything is loaded on the dock.

and here's a great thing, the pismo doesn't get hot. I had my laptop in my lap while watching tv and it didn't get anywhere near as hot as my Centrino 1.6ghz laptop.

with the newertech battery, it'll get at least 3 hours, even with airport on. (based on extrapolation of reading the battery meter.)

It's a nice rugged laptop to be able to bring to a public wifi spot. it's not fragile like the aluminum (prone to dents) and there isn't titanium paint to chip off (like the titanium).

and the screen resolution is just like the 14 or 12 inch ibooks.

it is a nice basic laptop; which was also featured on "sex and the city" all 5 or 6 seasons. At one point on the show, the pismo that belonged to the main character broke and she took it to get repaired. And even though her boyfriend bought her a brand new "cute" ibook clamshell, she still went back to the venerable, dependable Pismo.

jadekitty24 said:

What kind of point are you trying to make? That you don't read the posts before being unnecessarily snotty?
To the OP who is inquiring about older lappy's running Tiger, I use a G3 800 mhz that runs Tiger fine, and I know a lot of the Titanium PB's run Tiger nicely as well.

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frack you, you fracking fracker

re: "more expensive than new" / "upgrade trap" —

In my case, I tossed in the G4/500 and the extra RAM back in 2001, and the dual 7200 x 60gig hard drives in '02. The new PowerBooks of the time were quite a bit more expensive and not dramatically faster.

But unless someone is selling one on eBay with the Sonnet card already in it, I agree that it would not be cost-effective to go out and acquire one like that now to run Tiger on.

The WallStreet is a beautiful, wonderful machine. If there were a way to get gigabit ethernet into one (without costing me a PC Card slot, all of which were tied up doing other things), I might still be using it as my primary computer.

emaja said:

Now I just have to decide if I want to wait for the Intel-based iBooks.

Argh...

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Yeah, that's my dilemma too.