Is a PowerBook G4 Worth Buying?

[Jony Mac]

Thanks! The only problem is the prices on eBay are going up. I guess people are buying these for gifts too. Some iBooks are going for $200+, and the same goes for PowerBooks $240+....

So now I dont know what to do..

 

[boogers]

Alternate route(s).
Buy a book which the owner has problems with boot- apply to PPC types only- and fix it by installing a BSD- Open, Free, Net in that order of choices- or Linux distro on it. Airport/orinoco is supported by Linux. I'm not sure about the BSDs because you may need to build the modules. You'll have to look up what airport extreme uses by doing

dmesg|more

.

 

[whitegoodmen]

Alternate route(s).
Buy a book which the owner has problems with boot- apply to PPC types only- and fix it by installing a BSD- Open, Free, Net in that order of choices- or Linux distro on it. Airport/orinoco is supported by Linux. I'm not sure about the BSDs because you may need to build the modules. You'll have to look up what airport extreme uses by doing

dmesg|more

.

I just did this today with an old Dell that my brother just gave me about a month ago. He was sick of it because he could not get it to run right. Windows XP was running on it and the laptop was so slow and crawled to do anything. I reformatted it and it was still slow as a dying dog. I said screw it and burned Linux Mint to a CD and installed it on this old laptop (I only have Linux Mint on the laptop now but if you want to dual boot that's fine too, I just don't need windows for anything.) It is CRAZY how fast this thing is now! It's just as fast as my Desktop with has a lot higher specs.

 

[tom vilsack]

jbosi:

update on even better way to turn off spotlight

-open terminal
-cd /etc
-sudo nano hostconfig
-change spotlight to....SPOTLIGHT=-NO-
-ctrl-x
-y
-enter

then in terminal (to get rid of indexing)

-sudo mdutil -i off /
-sudo mdutil -E /

reboot

---------------------

for faster youtube try this

-download vlc player (great os player)
-download mactubes (can also save tubes for latter viewing in vlc player...best for G4 try MP4)
-can use vlc as default player by....click mp4 vid and getinfo,openwith,change all

 

[Jony Mac]

Hmm...maybe its not worth getting a PPC. I really dont wanna have to hack up OSX just to get things like YouTube to work... *sigh*

 

[tom vilsack]

i was just suggesting ways to make it faster....but a stock install of tiger or leopard and firefox install with lastest flash,and you should be ok...

just make sure the ibook or powerbook you buy has lots of ram (osx love mem)

i have a 14.1" ibook G4 1.42GHz,1 gig mem (512 on board)...i can max out to 1.5,60 gig hd,ATI Mobility Radeon 9550 (4X AGP) with 32 MB of SDRAM,tiger 10.4.11 and all updates...lastest firefox/flash and it runs just fine,,,i bought it for $125 on craigs...i would compare it to older p4 or atom netbook for performance.....geekbench pulled about 750

 

[Blue Angels]

Sad....

I am going to meet a craiglist seller to buy a 15" PB, and I am a super fan of youtube.... hmmmm....

How bad it is to watch video clips by using PB?

I use my 12" 1.5 GHz Powerbook with 1.25 GB RAM running 10.4 a few times a week and I would certainly not recommend it for anyone that wants to utilize youtube.

 

[motulist]

Sad....

I am going to meet a craiglist seller to buy a 15" PB, and I am a super fan of youtube.... hmmmm....

How bad it is to watch video clips by using PB?

Depending on which model of PB you're talking about, then it can be pretty bad. Youyube videos on my aluminum PB 1 GHz g4 PB is pretty much unwatchable. However, there are safari extensions you can add that make youtube load the h.264 video file instead of the flash video file, and then it's fine. As long as you don't care about watching flash videos from sites other than youtube, then you should be fine.

 

[arogge]

Youyube videos on my aluminum PB 1 GHz g4 PB is pretty much unwatchable.

The playback performance is better on dual-CPU G4 systems. Without the second CPU, the video playback is very choppy, but the audio is fine.

 

[Blue Angels]

True!

I just tried it out today, and just realized it is untolerable to watch video clips. Then I have let the offer go, though the powerbook (15"_80GB_1.5GB) is a super nice machine.

Depending on which model of PB you're talking about, then it can be pretty bad. Youyube videos on my aluminum PB 1 GHz g4 PB is pretty much unwatchable. However, there are safari extensions you can add that make youtube load the h.264 video file instead of the flash video file, and then it's fine. As long as you don't care about watching flash videos from sites other than youtube, then you should be fine.

 

[Jony Mac]

Thanks for keeping this thread going. I really didnt think a PB G4 would have that much trouble viewing YouTube and Flash. I wish I would have grabbed the PB G4 1.5GHZ 12" on eBay for $99, but I held off.....my loss. Now they are all like $300 bucks! Sheeesh..

 

[tobiaslaw82]

powerbook G4

I have a 17inch PowerBook G4 which is like awesome. I have used the Power Mac G4 earlier and then upgraded to the PowerBook G4. The laptop is super sleek and looks awesome, a total 10 on 10 for this stunner....

 

[Jony Mac]

Funny...today one of the Vice Presidents gave me a 800Mhz PowerBook G4 Titanium. It has no hard drive and he said it doesn't power on. So I'm actually going to test it out, maybe I can get it working. 800Mhz will be slow, but maybe fun to play with.

 

[Jony Mac]

So I created a new topic maybe everyone that helped me out here can take a look at this.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1062712/


The two PowerBooks wont power on at all. I've tried hitting the reset button for the PMU and saw nothing. I left the charger plugged in for 48 hours, I read somewhere (maybe on this forum) that doing this may help recharge the internal battery. That did not help.

I called my local Apple store and they do have a charger there I can test..but I havent made it there yet. I found the replacement battery on eBay for $8.99 so I'm going to order that. I think that's probably my next step.

I think if it does not work the $9 is not a major loss.

Does anyone have any other experience with this type of problem. The battery is really easy to get to on this so it should be a straight forward replacement.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

I've been tossing around this idea and wanted to get some other opinions. I currently have a 2009 unibody MacBook, but I am thinking about purchasing a PowerBook G4 for my wife.

She currently has a Dell Inspirion 8600 which the battery is shot on and it is slow. I'd like to get her a Mac, but trying to save money I was looking at PowerBook options. I am aware that upgrading beyond Leopard wont happen and I think I'm okay with that since she still runs XP.

She will use this mainly for email, web, facebook, (facebook games), YouTube, etc. I'm not sure how in depth she'd use iTunes or any of the iLife suite.

For what I mentioned above will a PPC PowerBook handle her needs? I only can compare how these apps / functions run on my current Mac which is far different than a PowerBook.

If you could leave a reply or perhaps a suggestion or two that would be great.

I'm still using a 2004 G4 occasionally, running under Tiger. Works fine to run a simple web browser. I don't depend on it, and, I wouldn't pay much for one, but, the fact is, they still work fine.

 

[Jony Mac]

Yeah when I got this PowerBook G4 for free I figured I'd like to get it running. Even though its 800Mhz its probably good enough for traveling purposes. I'd rather take that laptop to the airport and on a plane than worry about loosing or damaging my new MacBook.

 

[VanneDC]

Interesting.. ive been reading through this thread and people have been swinging specs left right and center, but no one comments on what type GPU is in the MB/PB.. Ive owned 4 different macbooks/Powerbooks and they are all SOOO different.

Even funnily enough, last year i bought my mum for xmas a Powerbook G4, 1.5ghz with 1 gig of ram, and when inquireing about the gpu in the machine the dude didnt even know.. anyways. i thought it would be the same as my other PB 1.5Ghz g4, but it wasnt.. My original PB has a 9700Pro with 128mb ram in it, while this other PB had a 9700(nonpro) with only 64mb ram...


That made a world of difference in usability... The 9700pro had no dramas at all with youtube, wheres the non-pro stuttered like a freaking maniac.. Let alone all the PPC games i have...

so just keep GPU's in mind when looking for a G4 lappy.

Oh and in case your looking at a early macbook... steer well clear of anything with the GMA950 in it.. (funnily enough, the X3100 is much, much better, but still sheit compared to dedicated)

 

[dandeco]

Since I still don't have enough to buy a MacBook, I found a great deal on a 15-inch PowerBook G4 and sold my upgraded iBook G3 and got it! This is the high-end 2004 15-inch model if I'm not mistaken; it has a 1.5 GHz G4 processor, 1 GB of RAM (the label said it originally had 512 MB), an 80 GB hard drive, slot-loading SuperDrive, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics card with 128 MB of VRAM, AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth included, even a backlit keyboard and ambient light sensor!

The PowerBook came with the AC adapter and Apple extension cord for the power brick, as well as a copy of Microsoft Office 2004, and Quicken 2005 for Mac. However, it did not come with an operating system installed, so when I initially turned it on, I was greeted by the "flashing question mark folder" icon. It did come with the original restore disks, but I chose not to use them, as Panther does seem a tad out of date (I've used it before at my college until they upgraded their old PowerMac G4s to Leopard). Instead, I went and installed my copy of Mac OS X Leopard, as well as iLife '09 (I'm just using iMovie HD 6 with it; not sure how iMovie '09 would perform on this machine yet), and Office 2004 and my copy of Final Cut Express 4 (will probably also install Photoshop on it as well).

So far I think it was a pretty good deal (I got it for $170, with free shipping), and it is DEFINITELY better than the old iBook, even probably better than a modern Windows netbook! I'm also somewhat certain that once I upgrade the RAM to 2 GB, this machine will even outperform my eMac! (Strangely, in a freak coincidence my eMac would not connect to the Internet via wireless today, no matter how hard I tried configuring it, so I'm using the PowerBook G4 for most of my tasks (I'm typing on it right now as I speak.) YouTube videos seem to play just fine on it, even better than on my eMac in some cases (I usually just have them set to 360p on my G4s in most cases.)

I was considering one of the early MacBooks with the Core Duo processor and Intel GMA 950, but now I am not sure if that'd be a good idea.

 

[joepunk]

Nice buy there dandeco.

I have the same model powerbook and I can't decide if I want to update the ram and hard drive for about $150 or fork over a few hundred dollars plus for the last version the 15" 1.67/Double-Layer Superdrive.

 

[Jony Mac]

So the PB G4 800MHz with a Gig of Ram does not run as slow as I thought. I was using it a good bit the last couple days over my 10 month MacBook. Until I find something for this, I think it will be my "travel" machine..

 

[crammedberry]

I'm surprised so many of you are having problems running youtube on a G4 1.5+...

I can still run youtube videos on my iBook G3 600... granted, it's 240p, and sometimes it glitches when things get crazy.. but it still runs... I have an iMac G4 that can handle 240p full screen no problem, and 360p inside the window (not full screen)...

A 1.5 G4, being -at least on paper- 50% faster, should theoretically be able to handle something as basic as web browsing without any hiccups, remember that these were top of the line machines at one point... that has to count for something

 

[chrismacguy]

I'm surprised so many of you are having problems running youtube on a G4 1.5+...

I can still run youtube videos on my iBook G3 600... granted, it's 240p, and sometimes it glitches when things get crazy.. but it still runs... I have an iMac G4 that can handle 240p full screen no problem, and 360p inside the window (not full screen)...

A 1.5 G4, being -at least on paper- 50% faster, should theoretically be able to handle something as basic as web browsing without any hiccups, remember that these were top of the line machines at one point... that has to count for something

Right, as a test, I grabbed my Photography Laptop, which is a 15" PowerBook G4 1.67Ghz, 1.5GB RAM etcetc (Nice, Near-Maxxed out machine) and 240p plays acceptably, however anything above that it jutters a bit. It certainly cant handle HD. Also, the fact they were top of the line once doesnt count for anything. My PowerMac 8100 was top of the line once, however at 100Mhz, I wouldnt want to use it for anything

 

[crammedberry]

Right, as a test, I grabbed my Photography Laptop, which is a 15" PowerBook G4 1.67Ghz, 1.5GB RAM etcetc (Nice, Near-Maxxed out machine) and 240p plays acceptably, however anything above that it jutters a bit. It certainly cant handle HD. Also, the fact they were top of the line once doesnt count for anything. My PowerMac 8100 was top of the line once, however at 100Mhz, I wouldnt want to use it for anything

One thing I noticed was when I had leopard on my iMac, it couldn't even do 240p... and with tiger it can do 240p perfectly, and even 360p in some cases... leopard seems to be a huge drain on the system

There's also a big difference between a PM 8100 and a 1.67 G4, all I'm saying is... I can still use old windows laptops to do something as rudimentary as web browsing and watching a few crazy videos, not that I live on youtube, but it's a good capability to have. I don't have a later PowerBook so I can't verify all this, but it still stuns me to learn that they can't play 360p videos acceptably...

 

[chrismacguy]

One thing I noticed was when I had leopard on my iMac, it couldn't even do 240p... and with tiger it can do 240p perfectly, and even 360p in some cases... leopard seems to be a huge drain on the system

There's also a big difference between a PM 8100 and a 1.67 G4, all I'm saying is... I can still use old windows laptops to do something as rudimentary as web browsing and watching a few crazy videos, not that I live on youtube, but it's a good capability to have. I don't have a later PowerBook so I can't verify all this, but it still stuns me to learn that they can't play 360p videos acceptably...

Well mine is running 10.5.8 and runs it ok. And I know there is a big difference between the 2, but it was just to make a point about being top of the line counting for nothing.

 

[coupdetat]

Well I didn't read the whole thread, but don't swap a Pentium M for a G4 if you're mainly concerned about performance! The Pentium M will stomp all over the G4 when it comes to teh snappy. It is the parent of the Core architecture.