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Ibook g4 still worth buying?

K

kmarketing

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 26, 2004
416
0
Hi,

I have a chance to get an 12" ibook g4 1.33 512mb/40gb with applecare for $350. Is that a good buy at this point? I would probably have to consider selling the pismo which sucks, but do you think that this would be a good machine, possibly giving me much better performance than the pismo? Or do you think the pismo would still hold its own against the ibook?

Let me know your suggestions,
Thanks!
 
kmarketing said:
Hi,

I have a chance to get an 12" ibook g4 1.33 512mb/40gb with applecare for $350. Is that a good buy at this point? I would probably have to consider selling the pismo which sucks, but do you think that this would be a good machine, possibly giving me much better performance than the pismo? Or do you think the pismo would still hold its own against the ibook?

Let me know your suggestions,
Thanks!
Click to expand...

I would say YES since it's an upgrade from your Pismo. As for the price I would say about 275.00 to 300.00 is the most I would pay for it. But that's just me
 
do you think it would be a noticeable upgrade from the pismo? On which things would i most notice any improvement?

Thanks!
 
I think that it is a good buy and well worth the $350, especially with Applecare. I bought my 12" ibook G4 in August of 05 and it is a great computer for web surfing and email. I have 1.5 gigs of ram (maxed out) and it does very well with more demanding stuff as well (I just dont do much demanding stuff with it). If you count the ram cost, I paid well over $1300 for it, so I think $350 is a steal.
 
kmarketing said:
Hi,

I have a chance to get an 12" ibook g4 1.33 512mb/40gb with applecare for $350. Is that a good buy at this point? I would probably have to consider selling the pismo which sucks, but do you think that this would be a good machine, possibly giving me much better performance than the pismo? Or do you think the pismo would still hold its own against the ibook?

Let me know your suggestions,
Thanks!
Click to expand...

Ignore the negativity. I would say 100% yes. This machine is not very different from the PB in my signature which is still faster than my C2D iMac for many things (and as I don't intend on updating to Office 2007/2008 right away it probably always will be).

It all depends on what you use it for.

As in ANY case, the MOST important thing first and foremost to get decent performance is RAM. I would stick in an extra 1GB or 512 at least.

I am confident you will notice a very satisfying increase. The Applecare is a nice addition also. Go For It!

David
 
That's an excellent price for that iBook, if it's in good cosmetic and physical shape! Yeah, I think I would do it in your position also. Plus, if you sell the Pismo, your cost in upgrading is going to be minimal...
 
Hi,

I originally bought my current pismo for $300, and have been so happy with it. It had the g4 processor upgrade already installed, and the processor does make a difference from what i remembered with my previous g3 pismos. So I am a little reluctant with parting with it. It does everything that I need for it to do, and I do have the macbook pro for my power needs.

1 thing that I am thinking about the ibook is that if I get it, I probably won't be able to put my 100gb hard drive (from the pismo) in it since it would void the warranty. Even though I haven't used 40gb in the pismo, its nice knowing I have the space.

If the performance boost won't be that great for the things that I need - internet, office, some photoshop, illustrator, dreamweaver, then maybe I'll just keep the pismo.

This is tough for me, if my pismo was a g3, then i wouldn't have second thoughts, but the g4 does make a difference. Maybe I'll just get the ibook, compare and just sell either one.

Thanks for all the opinions!
 
Having replaced a Pismo with a 12" iBook G4 (1.33 mhz) last year, I feel qualified to say that what you propose is definitely worth it, given the low price of the iBook you're considering. The iBook's video card will handle Quartz Extreme, which is simply beyond the Pismo's capabilities, and beyond that everything will just run noticeably more quickly and smoothly. On programs that are relatively uncomplicated, you may not notice a huge difference (example: I use Mariner Write for much of my word processing, and it ran very nicely on my Pismo until my four-year-old son dumped milk onto the keyboard). But even for web browsing the experience will just be more pleasant on the iBook.

Edited to add: My Pismo didn't have a G4, but it was the 500 mhz model, not the base 400 mhz.
 
jcoop said:
IIRC, both Panther and Tiger use it for basic video functionality. It's not essential, obviously--I was running Panther on my Pismo before it died--but it helps.
Click to expand...

Quartz Extreme is the basis for the "compositor" -- the thing that deals with manipulating windows, screens, etc, in two and three dimensions.

I think it is used heavily in system effects like minimizing and maximizing windows, transparencies, using Expose, the 3D effects like the cube rotation, etc. I think you'll see that the improvement in video card will also do a lot for you in terms of things like smoothing of text in PDF files and other rendering issues. I think *now* that's considered part of Quartz Extreme, but it was considered "Quartz" before.

This diagram from Apple may or may not help:

indexarchitectureb20050412.jpg
 
The G4 processor is plenty of power.. what u should be looking at is the video card and ram. video card should be fine for now, but get as much ram and u can physically cram into the thing.
 
Thanks for clearing up some things...

It seems the consensus so far is to go for the ibook and sell the pismo. Anyone feel I should keep the pismo?

Thanks!
 
yea that's a way good deal, for a great little notebook. I bought a 1.0ghz iBook like that and paid over $1K new! Looking at that price makes me sick. Heck, for $350, I'd almost consider buying one to go along with my 17" for when I want portability.
 
kmarketing said:
Thanks for clearing up some things...

It seems the consensus so far is to go for the ibook and sell the pismo. Anyone feel I should keep the pismo?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Well if you have to money to I would keep the Pismo and buy the iBook. As for me I like to collect stuff
 
The only reason to keep the Pismo would be if you like the look and feel of it better than the iBook.
 
That is a complete steal those models with Applecare go for around $650 at least on Ebay right now. The person who offered you that is really under selling their iBook.
I thought that i got mine for a steal at £300 (the specs of my model are in my sig and my model came with 1GB) but the one you posted about is even a better deal.

That iBook has a much better graphic card than the card that is in the Pismo. It can also handle things like Core Image. It also takes 333mhz 2700 memory which makes it faster as well. The processor is also more than double the speed.

If you are really fond of the Pismo though i understand that if when i had my Clamshell and somebody offered me a iBook G4 back then i probably would not have accepted because i was so fond of the Clamshell.

I have an iBook G4 now though and everything that i was able to do on my MBP i am able to do on the iBook (except run Windows natively) and in my opinion for performing every day tasks there is not really any difference.

You could if you wanted to upgrade the HD take it to an Apple service centre and have them do it so that you could perverse your warranty.
 
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