Buying an ibook or powerbook 12 for wife

[iBlue]

When you say "anything of substance" what do you mean? I know it won't be a powerhouse. That's what my mbp is for. The powerbook would just be for my wife. The most intensive thing she would use it for would be farmville. Have you ever run farmville on your powerbook? How did it do?

Farmville?! haha! No, can't say that I have but I've had my browser crash just because I was watching a youtube video that hadn't fully loaded. PPC just really struggles with any CPU intensive tasks.

 

[raysfan81]

i bought a MSI wind netbook in my signature its running OSX snow leopard so is a hackintosh and everything works under snow leopard and plays all the flashgames and plays even youtube without stutter at 480p , and 720p some with a little stutter so yes it is better in that aspect ,the iBook will only manage 360P ,
the wind comes closer to a MacBook Air 1.66 in therms of performance and looks like the little sister of the 13" macbook

Would you recommend the u100? I hear that you can overclock the processor to 1.9ghz in the bios. Can you update osx 86 (haven't used it in a while).

 

[liquid85]

So I just won this auction.
1gig processor for 190 plus shipping. I checked at crucial and a 1gig stick of ram is 50 bucks. So thats nettbook specs for a little cheaper plus it's a mac. Well we'll see how it performs. Worst case I'll just put it back up on ebay. What do you think?

 

[liquid85]

Here's the link.http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320579824347

 

[No ice please]

The 12" PowerBook I owned was well taken care of but as it aged, the bottom case started to pry off in places, which didn't affect the performance at all. My school's iBook G4's (yes, they still have iBooks, mostly G3's ) who have been beaten the heck out of are still in good condition and run fine. Overall I do recommend the PowerBook because IMO, it feels more comfortable and spacious.

My school has a cart of unopened G4 ibooks. I wish that they would sell them.

 

[molala]

If all works with the laptop, I think it's a good choice. Just check if it will need a new battery or even a new PRAM battery (if the date resets to 1970 when you unplug it). These you can buy on eBay.

 

[liquid85]

i figured a battery will be needed. I'll be sure to check if the date resets as well. I found some on ebay for only 30$. And crucial has the ram upgrade to 1gig for 50$ if 768mb isn't enough. I'm excited to get it and see how it performs as a netbook replacement. Do you think it would be worth it to upgrade the ram?

 

[MacHamster68]

Would you recommend the u100? I hear that you can overclock the processor to 1.9ghz in the bios. Can you update osx 86 (haven't used it in a while).

yes actually i can , i was well surprised about its performance and there are drivers now for everything really ,and for updates that depends on which way you install in first place but i dont want to discuss that here as thats a Mac forum really , just think INSANELY and WIND


to come back to the iBook with all the problems that can come with one eg. bad solder and other logicboard problems , not to mention that most used ones come with half dead batteries , and i don't want to mention the cracks and scratches either ,
the PowerBooks come with dents and half dead batteries too , on the 15" you find often that the airportcard is dead , and is a pain to replace and there is the dead ram slot problem on them

so buying either of the two makes it a gamble that hugely depends on how well they had been cared for by the previous owners , Apple did for example offer all sorts of repair schemes , and the good news there are good ones out there that are well worth the Money , its only a matter of finding them

 

[Sixtafoua]

I have a 12-inch PowerBook, and love it, it's so cute.
I noticed with youtube it is kind of glitchy, like it isn't very smooth, so the facebook games may be a problem, but I have a slower model without much ram, so maybe faster models are different.
For iTunes and web surfing, It's a great computer.
I hope you enjoy your PowerBook, It's a great little computer.

 

[joefix413]

You won't be sorry!

Liquid, I did the exact same thing a year and a half ago, found a teacher selling her 12"PB 1.33G ppc with 1.25G of ram for my wife( for $600). It runs OSX 10.5.8 beautifully and does everything really well! Not the fastest at video rendering( she does small clips for her website), handles web pages easily and has been a joy to learn Mac on. She is non-technical and has had an easy time switching the little that she does know over to the Mac world. Find a clean machine and enjoy!

 

[g4 powerbookboy]

actually i would make my wife buy me a new macbook pro and then maybe give her the old one. course that is why im not married and never will be. dont want a female around, a dog is a better companion. but a nice powerbook will work just fine for her if you really want to buy her something.

 

[liquid85]

Well usually she gets my tech hand-me-downs because she just really doesn't care that much, but I just a brand new MBP so...
But I decided to to resell the powerbook I bought when it arrives because I bought a better one. I won this auction tonight- http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170535891562&ssPageName=ADME:B:EOIBSA:US:1123#ht_556wt_726

I didn't know that only the 1.5ghz Powerbooks had two finger scrolling. So I bought this one. It has the faster processor, a bigger hardrive and it's in a little bit better shape. Plus it has office installed. I also ordered a 1 gig ram upgrade.
So she'll have the best powerbook 12 you could get for 250$. I can't wait till it all gets here. I'll post pictures and impressions when it arrives.