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iBook G4 question

T

toneLA

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 28, 2013
113
0
Beverly Hills, CA
Hi everyone,

So it might seem a little odd considering I am currently using a Haswell 11-inch MacBook Air and Crystalwell 15-inch MacBook Pro + a couple iOS devices, but I wanna inquire about the iBook.

I was a PC user (a LONG time ago) and after the plethora of issues I dealt with when Windows XP came out on a Compaq, I stumbled upon the 'Apple booth' and was instantly mesmerized by the 12-inch iBook I came across. Love at first sight. The shiny white plastic, the aqua interface, the small footprint. Looked like a jewel next to a PC.

Next thing you know, I'm a Mac user and I never looked back for a second. Must have owned dozens of machines since then.

I never knew that there was a PPC section on MR until earlier today. So here is my question.

Just for fun, to have on a shelf here at home, to use for basic tasks and remember the good old days, I would LOVE to get one. I have no idea why but I just know that I really want one.

Thing is, I am a bit of an OCD kind of guy. Most of the ones I see on eBay are in terrible shape. Heck this thing is more than 10 years old.

If I were to get one and walk into an Apple Store to have the bottom and top case replaced, could Apple do that (do they still carry parts?) or are they obsolete? I know the question seems dumb but you never know.

Or, if anyone here has one in box never used, please, PM me. I regret so much that I sold mine. I still had the soft plastic pouch it came in and it looked newer than when it came out of the box.

Thanks for your help!
 
yes it is obsolete and i don't think apple will even work on it even if you had the parts. another shop may. the labor costs would be tremendous anyway.
 
toneLA said:
Hi everyone,

So it might seem a little odd considering I am currently using a Haswell 11-inch MacBook Air and Crystalwell 15-inch MacBook Pro + a couple iOS devices, but I wanna inquire about the iBook.

I was a PC user (a LONG time ago) and after the plethora of issues I dealt with when Windows XP came out on a Compaq, I stumbled upon the 'Apple booth' and was instantly mesmerized by the 12-inch iBook I came across. Love at first sight. The shiny white plastic, the aqua interface, the small footprint. Looked like a jewel next to a PC.

Next thing you know, I'm a Mac user and I never looked back for a second. Must have owned dozens of machines since then.

I never knew that there was a PPC section on MR until earlier today. So here is my question.

Just for fun, to have on a shelf here at home, to use for basic tasks and remember the good old days, I would LOVE to get one. I have no idea why but I just know that I really want one.

Thing is, I am a bit of an OCD kind of guy. Most of the ones I see on eBay are in terrible shape. Heck this thing is more than 10 years old.

If I were to get one and walk into an Apple Store to have the bottom and top case replaced, could Apple do that (do they still carry parts?) or are they obsolete? I know the question seems dumb but you never know.

Or, if anyone here has one in box never used, please, PM me. I regret so much that I sold mine. I still had the soft plastic pouch it came in and it looked newer than when it came out of the box.

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...

As a fellow iBook user and owner, I totally understand how you feel about it. So good luck with finding one that's brand new anywhere. You should be able to find something on CL, or through PowerMax, or some other Apple reseller site and maybe you could get lucky. You might even find one that has been used but that you can clean up and it would be awesome.
And I know for a fact that Apple WILL NOT service it at all. I tried that here at my local store in Arizona.

You cold always just buy 2 of them. Buy one that works perfectly, but has cosmetic issues, and then buy one that looks beautiful but is not functioning and then replace the top and bottom case yourself.
 
RedCroissant said:
As a fellow iBook user and owner, I totally understand how you feel about it. So good luck with finding one that's brand new anywhere. You should be able to find something on CL, or through PowerMax, or some other Apple reseller site and maybe you could get lucky. You might even find one that has been used but that you can clean up and it would be awesome.
And I know for a fact that Apple WILL NOT service it at all. I tried that here at my local store in Arizona.

You cold always just buy 2 of them. Buy one that works perfectly, but has cosmetic issues, and then buy one that looks beautiful but is not functioning and then replace the top and bottom case yourself.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your help! I will give it a go and keep my good eye out for one. It's really sad that I never thought at the time that I would want to have it in the future. It's seriously my biggest regret - it was the prettiest thing ever. The unibody white MacBook after that looked lame in comparison.

I originally had the G3 and then the G4 when they slightly altered the color to make it less see-through. LOVE the opaque one! :p I know by today's standards, that's not a powerhouse at all. But dang, at the time, it was like driving a Rolls Royce compared to the sad looking grey triple its thickness PCs out there.

I miss it!
 

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Yeah, in general Apple won't work on any Mac after 5 years. That's their limit. They might look it over for you (they confirmed for me that the logicboard on my then 8 year old TiBook (in 2009) had died), but they won't fix it.

If you are somewhere in the three to five year mark they charge you a flat rate if you don't have Applecare.

We're all on our own now. There are many third party shops that will do repairs, but because the PowerPC Macs are rarer now they hideously overcharge because they can get away with it.

I would suggest eBay, but I don't have much hope. Between the PowerBooks and the iBooks the PowerBooks seem to have more inventory.

Welcome to the PowerPC area, by the way!
 
toneLA said:
Thank you for your help! I will give it a go and keep my good eye out for one. It's really sad that I never thought at the time that I would want to have it in the future. It's seriously my biggest regret - it was the prettiest thing ever. The unibody white MacBook after that looked lame in comparison.

I originally had the G3 and then the G4 when they slightly altered the color to make it less see-through. LOVE the opaque one! :p I know by today's standards, that's not a powerhouse at all. But dang, at the time, it was like driving a Rolls Royce compared to the sad looking grey triple its thickness PCs out there.

I miss it!
Click to expand...

There are a quite a few in my area that are and have been for sale for a while. You could even get three for around $100 most likely.

I just wish mine had a working FW port and then it would be the best ever. And true that it's not a powerhouse machine, but even with a single cpu at 1.42GHz, it works very hard and is awesome. I have no doubt that it would be very difficult to near impossible to find a working and absolutely usable Windows-based laptop from 2005.

I still use mine to do all the tasks I use my 2004 imac G5 for.
 
eyoungren said:
Yeah, in general Apple won't work on any Mac after 5 years. That's their limit. They might look it over for you (they confirmed for me that the logicboard on my then 8 year old TiBook (in 2009) had died), but they won't fix it.

If you are somewhere in the three to five year mark they charge you a flat rate if you don't have Applecare.

We're all on our own now. There are many third party shops that will do repairs, but because the PowerPC Macs are rarer now they hideously overcharge because they can get away with it.

I would suggest eBay, but I don't have much hope. Between the PowerBooks and the iBooks the PowerBooks seem to have more inventory.

Welcome to the PowerPC area, by the way!
Click to expand...

Thank you! What amazes me is that the PPC section is right below the one I usually click on. I must have been blind until yesterday. I feel really privileged to have experience PPC and used so many great products from the era. When I hear people talking about Apple that they've only experienced for the last 2 years, it makes me smile. They've missed the best part. I love iPads, MacBook Pros and the latest iMac but there's something about the old school ones that's really dear to my heart.

RedCroissant said:
There are a quite a few in my area that are and have been for sale for a while. You could even get three for around $100 most likely.

I just wish mine had a working FW port and then it would be the best ever. And true that it's not a powerhouse machine, but even with a single cpu at 1.42GHz, it works very hard and is awesome. I have no doubt that it would be very difficult to near impossible to find a working and absolutely usable Windows-based laptop from 2005.

I still use mine to do all the tasks I use my 2004 imac G5 for.
Click to expand...

Oh I remember the iMac G5 from 2004 really well. I had one too. If I'm not mistaken it didn't have an integrated iSight. I had the massive but really cool looking firewire one to attach on the back. (Once again, I got rid of it - gave it to a friend. Had I known, I would have kept it too. It looked freaking amazing.)

I had the 2005 model after that and this one had it built-in.

As far as performance, to be honest, I wouldn't do much with it but I read here that so many people still use them. That's quite amazing. Only Apple can build a computer that lasts for so long. Can we say that of the others? And then you hear people saying Apple is s* compared to HP or Dell. Makes me laugh.

The good old days!

----------

OH! Look what I just found! What do you guys think?

https://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/sys/4166263189.html
 
LOL!

Let me tell you about the PowerMac G4/450 AGP at work driving dual monitors and running 10.5.8 with 1.5GB of ram and using Adobe CS4, QuarkXPress 8, Acrobat Pro 9 with Pitstop Pro 11 and Office 2008. ;)

Circa 2000 machine, been used daily to push out ads and pagination for our weekly newspapers.

All the PCs of that era at work have long since gone to the scrapheap.
 
If that didn't work out it looks like Craigslist is your best bet. Local so you don't have to worry about paying shipping. And the prices in your area are awesome for the G4s I searched for.
 
toneLA said:
Thank you for your help! I will give it a go and keep my good eye out for one. It's really sad that I never thought at the time that I would want to have it in the future. It's seriously my biggest regret - it was the prettiest thing ever. The unibody white MacBook after that looked lame in comparison.

I originally had the G3 and then the G4 when they slightly altered the color to make it less see-through. LOVE the opaque one! :p I know by today's standards, that's not a powerhouse at all. But dang, at the time, it was like driving a Rolls Royce compared to the sad looking grey triple its thickness PCs out there.

I miss it!
Click to expand...
I may have a box of parts for you, I sold the logic board. PM me
 
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