Don't get a clamshell unless you want to run Mac OS 9. I cannot stress enough how BAD the 800x600 screen resolution is, especially under OS X. Even the 466MHz models with 576MB of RAM are NOT good Mac OS X machines. The web browsing experience is brutal unless you go to mobile sites. I LOVE the look at feel of Clamshell iBooks, and I would love to be able to use them more than I do, but despite the look, super keyboard, and handle, they're just terrible computers for OS X. I highly recommend a G4 processor so you can run Leopard & have higher system RAM available to you. Keep in mind no G3 iBook can handle more than 640MB of RAM and you're never going to run anything higher than 10.4 Tiger. It's much better to have a PowerBook that CAN run Leopard, but choose to run Tiger, or have 768MB of RAM and have the option to upgrade to 1.25GB or 2GB later on.Thank you all for replying. Sounds like it totally is worth it. I don't need more answers regarding this.
One thing I haven't got much from is whether G3s are still worth when it's a lot cheaper than its G4 equivalents. More opinions are welcomed!
One thing I'm concerned about is the odd keyboard smell of the iBook G3, which kind of makes me want to avoid it. Much of the reliability problems were mainly on the iBook G3. Can I conclude from this that the iBook G3 Snow is the least reliable of the lot?
And also, what would your opinion be on using an iBook G3 Clamshell? It's clear these would be much less usable than the others mentioned (as they're older), but can it still function for light stuff?
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One more thing to add:
Another reason to go a little newer with your PowerBook or iBook choice is having an Airport Extreme card vs the original Airport card found in the Titanium PowerBooks and G3 iBooks. While 802.11G speeds in itself is a huge benefit, also being able to connect to newer WPA2 networks is becoming increasingly important, especially if you're going out and using the laptop where you cannot control the network security. I've found that over the last couple years, original Airport Cards are less and less compatible with networks. Just one more thing to consider that I don't think anyone else here has brought up yet.