First powerbook. advice needed please.

[dandubois89]

Hey Ive been using a black macbook for about a year and i love it.

Anyway

Ive been thinking of buying my girlfriend a powerbook off craigslist so i can throw her dell out our window.
Since im only familiar with leopard and so isnt she from using mine I want to make sure it can run leopard decently.

What are some specs that are recommended?
How easily upgradeable are the powerbooks, ram, HDD and i think i have read about cpu upgrades but not sure.
How much should I be paying for a powerbook decently equipped so i dont get screwed over.

Any help, tips, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!

I found a 1.25ghz 12" powerbook on craigslist for $280
http://boston.craigslist.org/nwb/sys/1142385875.html

thanks again for any tips!

 

[MTI]

A G4 1ghz or better, with 1GB of ram is pretty much the lowest platform that Leopard will run decently on, so you'll have to bump the ram on that CL machine.

Ram is pretty inexpensive these days, as are hard drives, but I would think twice about any processor upgrade . . .it's still going to be a G4, isn't it.

 

[Consultant]

I would be careful with anything with dents.

As to replacing parts, look at ifixit for difficulty.

 

[macuserx86]

It's not worth it man. I am starting to loathe my PowerBook G4 1.33GHz. it's maxed out at 1.25 GB of RAM, but it is still so slow. I can't even watch youtube videos without stuttering and massive CPU usage. Right now, the CPU is at 122º F and 22% usage just with some basic web browsing.
If I didn't have a Mac Pro to balance out the pathetic performance, I would have killed this thing long ago.

 

[SkyBell]

I enjoy my 1.33 GHz iBook. It works well for my basic needs.

 

[dandubois89]

so would 280 for the powerbook wouldnt be that bad of a deal?
my gf only really uses her laptop for email, websurfing and website/flash games
nothing too power hungry. but i at least want her to have a reliable computer. I plan on upgrading her ram if i buy this thing. I figure its relatively cheap and most people seem to love their PB.

So any more comments or advice would be great.

thanks for the quick feedback already as well!

 

[dandubois89]

Also are there that many differences between leopard and tiger? Ive never used tiger but I assume the PB would run tiger better. Should I even bother upgrading it to leopard?

 

[mikes70mustang]

its a shame that most powerbooks will be unable to run most new programs. their nice machines, but sucks they are losing support

 

[instaxgirl]

It's not worth it man. I am starting to loathe my PowerBook G4 1.33GHz. it's maxed out at 1.25 GB of RAM, but it is still so slow. I can't even watch youtube videos without stuttering and massive CPU usage.

I've got a 1.33GHz iBook with 1.5Gb of RAM and it's still pretty fantastic. Some things slow it down a little but I'm not doing anything special with it and it's pretty great overall.

I'm running Leopard and not noticing any difference between it and Tiger, so a similar spec'd machine should work for you Also there's not much difference really between the 2 OS's so if you get your girlfriend a machine with Tiger I'm sure she'd adapt pretty easily.

 

[clyde2801]

My signature and avatar says it all.

 

[macuserx86]

I've got a 1.33GHz iBook with 1.5Gb of RAM and it's still pretty fantastic. Some things slow it down a little but I'm not doing anything special with it and it's pretty great overall.

I'm running Leopard and not noticing any difference between it and Tiger, so a similar spec'd machine should work for you Also there's not much difference really between the 2 OS's so if you get your girlfriend a machine with Tiger I'm sure she'd adapt pretty easily.

Perhaps it's just because I've gotten used to real speed with my Mac Pro, but the PB is just pathetic. If I have more than 4 tabs open in FF, typing into facebook text fields lags.. a lot. There's a reason for progress lol.