Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

An iBook G4 in the modern day.

T

Tokeli

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 24, 2010
2
0
Well! I'm trying to find out how well the iBook G4 (1.33ghz) fares in the world of 2010. I'm a student and mostly-new to Macs, and really want an iBook just as a secondary laptop to use for class and such. My budget's only around $200 though, not including an inevitable new battery, so I'm sort of afraid of getting a dud, falling-apart one.

BUT, getting off track.

For the people who have iBooks right now. How do they hold up? With YouTube and stuff, simple games like WoW, and watching movies and writing reports and the like, just general stuff?
 
its a tricky question , you are never really safe from getting something used which develops a problem , but as the ibooks had some problems through the range but dont let that put you off
mine died not long ago
it looked perfect had a new battery and was even polished !! brandnew keyboard ,so had not a single sign of use when i bought it a couple month ago
so i thought i had a little gem but sadly it developed the exploding logicboard

a mate has his one since 2005 ( a 1.33)and it looks like it was driven over by a car several times and thrown out of a window in the 10th floor , but works flawless since he bought it

and for youtube and other things flash , it can "manage ''up to 360p
everything else including photoshop for example (not the latest of course as thats intel only) is working perfect and not more power needed really
 
I dunno about the iBook, but I'm still running a PowerBook G4. It's quite beat up, has scratches, a couple dents, the case bending by the DVD drive... but it still works!

Serves me well for writing (well, will do so once again when I downgrade back to Tiger; Leopard doesn't seem very stable on my PowerBook), youtube/hulu videos will play, but like MacHamster said, at a very low resolution. I run Hulu a 288p, and it's still a bit choppy at times. Watching movies is great as long as the movie isn't streaming.
 
no ibook will run wow anymore, as wow requires a G5 or later now (it used to only be a G4) and no ibook ever shipped with more than a 1.42ghz G4 CUP.
 
Posting this from my iBook G4 12in / 1.33GHz / 1GB RAM running Leopard. :)

I use it for web, email, word processing, journalling, and so on and it syncs everything nicely via 1Password/Dropbox. Youtube can stutter a bit, but I think it's passable. Also great for Keynote/PP presentations via a projector. I still get people admiring it when I just turn up, open the lid to wake from sleep and plug the projector straight in and it just works.

I even keep a copy of Lightroom 2 on it for the very odd occasion where I want to take it away with my DSLR to look at freshly taken photos before coming home. Not exactly a quick performer with LR, but fine for the rest of the tasks.
 
Tokeli said:
Well! I'm trying to find out how well the iBook G4 (1.33ghz) fares in the world of 2010. I'm a student and mostly-new to Macs, and really want an iBook just as a secondary laptop to use for class and such. My budget's only around $200 though, not including an inevitable new battery, so I'm sort of afraid of getting a dud, falling-apart one.

BUT, getting off track.

For the people who have iBooks right now. How do they hold up? With YouTube and stuff, simple games like WoW, and watching movies and writing reports and the like, just general stuff?
Click to expand...
well i have a 500mhz g3 ibook i brought to replace my pc netbook and for simple tasks it runs fine, youtube just doesn't work at all but i haven't tried the html5 beta, your question of wow has been answered but if you count simple games as things like unreal then the answer is yes (and i should mention the ibook has the best trackpad for playing games EVER) dvd's play better than on my dad's macbook as for video files it is a bit touchy, and you will have no trouble at all writing reports
 
ok there is one thing you always have to think about
do you need to play the latest version of WOW or are you happy playing a older one
same for other software do you need the absolute latest versions and cant live without them ?, do you need to watch youtube in HD 1080p and cant do with less? , then sadly i have to tell you you wont get happy with a ibook:(, and need a brandnew MacBook Pro:eek:
but if you can live without the latest software and if you are not that much concerned if a video in youtube only plays in 360p then the iBook will be a really great inexpensive Mac for you
but this is something that applies with all ppc Mac's as more and more new software is intel only as these young developers just dont know any more how to code for ppc :(, but there is still enough software around of all sorts that still will run its just not the newest version , but that has its advantages as new software has bugs , the older has all bugs sorted out :D
 
i would not recommend a used macbook or macbook pro if its out of apple care means the first generations which come close in price to the more expensive good condition iBooks
their logic boards are big timebombs , because it was before i switched to Mac i was looking in buying a Macbook , but their logic boards failed quicker then Apple could replace them :rolleyes: then i seen a eMac and fell in love with ppc Mac's:)
 
MacHamster68 said:
i would not recommend a used macbook or macbook pro if its out of apple care
their logic boards are even bigger timebombs then the iBook ones , because it was before i switched to Mac i was looking in buying a Macbook , but their logic boards failed quicker then Apple could replace them :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Source? Proof? Personally, I beg to differ. With the exception of the 8600 issue, MacBooks and MacBook Pros have been very, very solid machines and a step up in quality over their PPC counterparts. At work we we didn't get any more in for repairs than we did PowerBook G4s or iBooks in their day.
 
just type in google macbook logicboard and problem and you find more like this

http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/macbooks2.html


and always bear in mind they did not sell only a couple hundred ,
so even a low percentage of failed logic boards equal a couple 10000 MacBooks

but you are right it looks the same in the ibook and powerbook range of apple laptops but then these cost far less usually

so its a question of how much risc you are willing to take and i am not a fan of gambling with a uncalculated risc
 
MacHamster68 said:
just type in google macbook logicboard and problem and you get bombarded with thousands of hits , too many to read them all
but you are right you get many hits if you type iBook instead but a couple thousand less
Click to expand...

That doesn't prove anything. MacBooks are actually still being sold and more and more roll off the shelves every day. Compared to the stagnant and - comparatively - puny user base of half a decade plus old iBooks way past their prime. You must be joking, you can't compare a constantly growing userbase of MacBooks to the totally stagnant user base of iBooks.

Fact is Apple's Intel notebooks are very solid machines, any fellow Apple tech worth their pay check will agree with me.


Edit: That link isn't really relevant anymore, from the very top of the page,
December 20, 2006
Click to expand...
 
it is relevant as i was referring to the first generation of macbooks and powerbooks as thats what is close in the price range now of ibooks and powerbooks in very good condition as we are talking about buying used and cheap and not new and expensive
and out of apple care means 4 years old so 2006 if i am not wrong as we have 2010
 
MacHamster68 said:
it is relevant as i was referring to the first generation of macbooks and powerbooks as thats what is close in the price range now of ibooks and powerbooks in very good condition as we are talking about buying used and not new and expensive
Click to expand...

Eh my bad.
 
but maybe i should point out that the first generation macbook pro 17 inch models had been reliable as mentioned in that survey from 2006 and are worth looking at if someone wants a used Macbook Pro but the 17 inch models are still quiet expensive compare to the rest of the range at least here in uk ,obviously they did cost more when new

but thats always the dilemma in the US the prices drop really quick compare to the rest of the world (UK) i am really getting jealous sometimes if i look at ebay USA or on APPLE.com :(
 
I had a 1.2ghz Ibook 2 years ago, and had it for about 3 years previous to that. It was a solid machine with performance to boot. I loved it a lot :)
Ram is where those puppies shine and if you max it out it will run Tiger without a drama. (leopard at your own peril :)

Mine developt a video issue where id have to bang on the laptop in a certian spot for the lappy screen to work. After about a month of this, it refued to show anything on the screen at all. (external however worked just fine :)

so i got rid of it. My new macbook pro doesnt do anything that that little ibook (i had the 14 inch one) couldent do, so yeah i recon they are great :)

Thats if you can find a nice working one. :)
 
Posting this from the iBook in my signature, which is far older than any G4 equipped iBook. :) I use mine for school work (Office:mac 2008 runs great!), surfing (Facebook, forums, etc), email, and the occasional YouTube adventure (although using this). No, it's not fast, but it is usable. And it looks awesome.

A G4 has great potential, even today.
 
make it easy , you see the ibook on ebay and you think
....yes thats it ....
and suddenly raw performance scores or reliability issues do not matter any more ,ppc mac's have a soul and you should buy them with your heard not with your brain
 
thejadedmonkey said:
no ibook will run wow anymore, as wow requires a G5 or later now (it used to only be a G4) and no ibook ever shipped with more than a 1.42ghz G4 CUP.
Click to expand...

Not true. WoW still runs on my G4 just fine. Not sure about the next expansion, but for now it runs fine.
 
CubeHacker said:
Not true. WoW still runs on my G4 just fine. Not sure about the next expansion, but for now it runs fine.
Click to expand...

Yup, my PowerBook G4 is still my main way of playing it. It's not even on lowest settings and it runs decently. (20-30 frames exploring, 15-25 frames in dungeons and battlegrounds)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back