Just bought a 400 MHz PowerBook -- Stupid???

[rexp]

Great laptop choice. Realizing you won't be able to experience every "newiest gooiest" feature you'll get a great sence of the elegance and polish of both Mac hardware and software. Once you adjust for the drag of spyware and virii plus anti-spyware and anti-virus on a modern Windows PC, the internet will end up being very usable on the PB.

Also, just in general, buying a nearly disposible laptop is a great strategy - if itis stolen, lost or destroyed - which given the rough life laptops live is not unlikely to happen, its not a huge loss. Next time your up for a replacement on your desktop, you should have had a sufficient serving of the Kool-aid, that you will be ready for an iMac.

Cheers and good luck.

 

[NickD]

It was a great deal you got. If all you're going to be doing is surfing the web and checking email, this machine will be fine. Just don't expect great wireless media performance, flash, etc.

Everything else has been mentioned, so I'd better stop before I say the things that people have been saying since the first page

NickD

 

[papasteed]

It is all about perception

I've always been a PC guy, but lately I've been contemplating switching to Macs. I didn't want to waste $1000+ on one if it turns out I don't like it, so I just spent $200 on eBay for a 400 MHz PowerBook G4 Titanium (with 640 mb of RAM, 10 GB hard drive, an Airport card, and Panther). It should arrive in a couple of days.

I figure if I like it, I'll use it for a year and then buy a new Mac next year.

Now my friend (an avid Mac user) tells me I'm an idiot and that the computer I ordered is so old that it's worthless, and that it will give me an unfairly negative impression of Apple.

I'm only going to use the computer for wireless web browsing and e-mail. Any thoughts? Thanks.

I refuse to retire my 400-G4-678 cube- the kids used it for a few years, we used it at work for a while as a sound server. So, this is essentially the same machine as you bought. Now, I am a tech freak- always buying the latest greatest, so I am comparing an Intel Core Duo notebook (already sold my faster 24" iMac), and I can say this- the Cube is back on my desk, as a surf/email machine. I keep the latest OS installed, and patched. Recently the kids were working on the notebook, so a friend and I wanted to do some work with iPhoto and iWeb, which are both relatively demanding apps. Guess what-- it went great. I would do it again. The machine is perfectly capable of doing ALL the normal stuff a normal user does every day. I would hesitate to try Google Earth or Photoshop, and Firefox eats huge amounts of memory, but... it is all about perception. Maybe I will do that next time- think about buying an older machine instead of new... Happy times.

 

[Cabbit]

(rant)Honestly I have wondered about this too. Really for internet use it is just flash that causes problems. I do not understand why some websites need to tembed video and do everything in Flash. Doing basically the same site except using html and java for the site and video in wmv or quicktime drastically lowers system requirements.

I really hate flash player I do not understand why Adobe can not make it more efficient. My 800mhz iMac G4 has a hard time handing one web page with a Flash video playing. That same iMac in 2002 could have multiple html sites open and with Quicktime player have 5 or 6 video's playing simultaneously without studdering. What gives Adobe, please remove the bloat from Flash. (/rant)

Back on topic

That powerbook should be just fine for your uses you listed. The ram is more than Adequate and the Hard Drive should be just fine.

When using the internet I would suggest using Firefox with these add-ons to speed up browsing and block the flash player. The flash player blocking can be individually unblocked if there is a specific sites flash content you wish to see.

Add-Block Plus: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
and choose to subscribe this just gives ad-block a list of common advertising sites to block

Flash-Block: https://addons.update.mozilla.org/e...ows&category=Web%20Annoyances&numpg=10&id=433

Since you are using wireless this tweak will further speed up firefox
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1299854/posts

Here is a more thorough tutorial that I have yet to try
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/speed-up-firefox-web-browser.html

Other Firefox tweaks
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=24483&heliode+firefox

Now that 400mhz powerbook will be pretty snappy on the internet

Oh and for Adobe Acrobat Reader try to stay at version 5 or 6 most any PDF will still open and it is much faster than the latest versions. Or you can use Preview I just never particularly cared for that.

Enjoy

Flash sucks, but Flex rules. I done a coverflow effect in flash it took 130% of my coreduo 1.66. The same effect was easyer to code and looked nicer in Flex and on my machine there was no cpu drain, and it even ran on a G3 400MHz with 256 MB ram smoothly were the the flash didnt run at all.
You are right that using the technology wrong makes sites very inefficent,

We code our sites to run on ie5.5 and ie 6(and the other browsers but these are the oldest) well these browsers are more likely to run on older hardware so why code your site for them if your going to make the users cpu sweet on wrong use of flash.

 

[gnasher729]

I've always been a PC guy, but lately I've been contemplating switching to Macs. I didn't want to waste $1000+ on one if it turns out I don't like it, so I just spent $200 on eBay for a 400 MHz PowerBook G4 Titanium (with 640 mb of RAM, 10 GB hard drive, an Airport card, and Panther). It should arrive in a couple of days.

I figure if I like it, I'll use it for a year and then buy a new Mac next year.

Now my friend (an avid Mac user) tells me I'm an idiot and that the computer I ordered is so old that it's worthless, and that it will give me an unfairly negative impression of Apple.

I'm only going to use the computer for wireless web browsing and e-mail. Any thoughts? Thanks.

That computer is not worthless at all. It's not nearly as good as a brand new $999 MacBook, but for $200 it is not bad. Probably does its job better than a cheap PC laptop for $600. Don't expect too much speed, and the harddisk won't hold lots of music or photos, but for email and internet and a bit of word processing it is absolutely fine. 640MB of memory is a good number. If you use it at home, you could buy an external Firewire harddisk with as much space as you want, if the harddisk isn't big enough.

 

[K-Funk]

Surprisingly, there's still 5 GB of space remaining on the hard drive. I installed Firefox and it's working great. I was even able to watch a baseball game on MLB.com, and it didn't freeze up like it usually does on my PC. And the DVD player works fine.

Once I get accustomed to not having a right-click button, I think I'm going to love it, while still looking forward to upgrading next year.

 

[krunk]

Didn't read the whole thread and I'm sure that others have said it, so take this as reinforcement:


I wouldn't judge Windows XP by how I liked it on a Pentium I system. It just wouldn't do it justice and it'd be likely I'd fault the OS for things that had to do with the system.

If your in the market for a laptop, just pony up the 1k for a base model and if you don't like it install windows.


*note* the computer itself is not worthless. It'd make a great bsd or linux machine. It just is not up to running OSX like it should be run for a new user. I was first introduced myself to OSX on a free 500mhz Powermac I picked up out a junk pile. It was alright, but I had to keep reminding myself that the "laggy" feel was the machine and not the os.

 

[nsbio]

Once I get accustomed to not having a right-click button, I think I'm going to love it, while still looking forward to upgrading next year.

Hook up any old external mouse?

 

[tristan]

Article on how productive a TiBook 400 can be.
http://www.lowendmac.com/myturn/my07/0726.html

Now I'm jealous! And I have a MacBook Pro.

 

[ankh]

Careful -- keep 15-20 PERCENT free on hard drive

You will really screw things up after a while if you run with less than maybe 20 percent free space on the hard drive, the Mac OS is using that for temp files.

This is really serious, you can find out that you have one or two crosslinked files and then that you have several hundred crosslinked files shortly after that.

It happens. Get a spare big drive, even a slow one, and back your machine up.

Drives are cheap. Time spent recreating files is life better spent living.

 

[megfilmworks]

I've always been a PC guy, but lately I've been contemplating switching to Macs. I didn't want to waste $1000+ on one if it turns out I don't like it, so I just spent $200 on eBay for a 400 MHz PowerBook G4 Titanium (with 640 mb of RAM, 10 GB hard drive, an Airport card, and Panther). It should arrive in a couple of days.

I figure if I like it, I'll use it for a year and then buy a new Mac next year.

Now my friend (an avid Mac user) tells me I'm an idiot and that the computer I ordered is so old that it's worthless, and that it will give me an unfairly negative impression of Apple.

I'm only going to use the computer for wireless web browsing and e-mail. Any thoughts? Thanks.

I have to agree with your friend. How many people would be impressed with a 5-7 year old PC laptop. I have purchased two new laptops since my G4 titanium (which I loved) and they are vastly different.

 

[Belly-laughs]

I run the Adobe CS suite on both my 400 and 667 TiBooks, with Tiger and 512MB ram… They still work just fine for most tasks, but I can make a cuppa and drink it while InDesign redraws a 300+ cell formatted table.

 

[FredAkbar]

I think you made a smart call. Two of the best things about Macs, IMO, is the hardware design and the OS. The TiBook is slim and isn't really that different in terms of design from today's MBP (maybe a little thicker, no iSight, etc.). And it has Panther, which is a fine OS. It will probably be choppy at times, but for basic web surfing and email I don't see why you shouldn't be able to use it and enjoy the Mac experience.

 

[aliquis-]

I've always been a PC guy, but lately I've been contemplating switching to Macs. I didn't want to waste $1000+ on one if it turns out I don't like it, so I just spent $200 on eBay for a 400 MHz PowerBook G4 Titanium (with 640 mb of RAM, 10 GB hard drive, an Airport card, and Panther). It should arrive in a couple of days.

I figure if I like it, I'll use it for a year and then buy a new Mac next year.

Now my friend (an avid Mac user) tells me I'm an idiot and that the computer I ordered is so old that it's worthless, and that it will give me an unfairly negative impression of Apple.

I'm only going to use the computer for wireless web browsing and e-mail. Any thoughts? Thanks.

I think 200 dollar is awesome, I would have paid that for a PC laptop aswell since it's still portable, and that one had quite much RAM aswell. And it still runs OS X aswell.

 

[aliquis-]

Flash is going to stink on that machine and with so many websites using Flash today, surfing the web will be dreadful with that old Mac. After using it you will most likely hate Macs!

So just uninstall flash then, flash sucks anyway.

 

[zap2]

your not going to get the current taste of a Mac with that thing....its good for a back up laptop, or maybe word editing, internet and email on the go.


Personal, I'd say buy a new Mac, and if you end up not liking OS X, install Windows, and be done with Apple after that.

 

[sbluetruck]

um, the comp in my sig is wicked fast. seriously.
i use it for word processing and i couldnt ask for anything better (maybe a mac pro ...)
i keep it at OS 8 bc of the limited specs, but i wouldnt want to upgrade anyway.
my point is that old technology is AWSOME... as long as you dont expect everything from it.
it is faster than my fast windows machine at booting and loading word
sounds like a great comp for the price. gives you more to look foward to.

i've got 1.6GB free on my HDD btw

 

[ericsthename]

Well, I'll chime in my 2 cents.

What kind of user are you and what do you appreciate in a computer. Yes, the computer is a dinosaur by technological standards, but there are a great deal of things in that computer that are still quite reflective of Macs today.

Its not hard to notice that Apple has only made minor tweaks and changes to their professional laptop since the computer the OP purchased. To that effect you'll still get to notice how attractively designed the hardware is, and how that will affect your computing experience.

As far as for the software experience goes, OS X was pretty much butchered into compatibility with such hardware - in my opinion. Simple things like browsing the web will seem much slower than they would if you were doing it in OS 9 - BUT you will get a taste of the interface and such. Don't be surprised that even scrolling a basic text page will be choppy. Also you won't get to see the little animations and transitions that serve as "Apple Wow Factor" to people only used to utilitarian PC's.

All in all though, 200 dollars isnt a lot to spend and I wouldn't mind having one of those kicking around even though I have a new MacBook Pro.

 

[NiteWaves77]

On the contrary, you've done something very responsible. I don't know what your friend uses his Mac(s) for, but the machine you've purchased can still run with the best of them. No, it won't run like a new Core2 Duo Macbook, but web surfing and email will run just fine. I'm using a Powerbook G3 Lombard running OS X Tiger to write this. Sometimes I forget I'm not on my iMac Intel. Othertimes I'm reminded I'm on 7 year hardware. Depends what you're doing.

It's not about the box, it's about the OS and user experience. I think you'll fall in love with OS X. Just keep things in perspective and base whether or not you purchase a new Mac next year on how well you like the OS and experience, not necessarily the speed.

Your friend needs to understand "worthless" and "obsolete" are relative terms.

I've always been a PC guy, but lately I've been contemplating switching to Macs. I didn't want to waste $1000+ on one if it turns out I don't like it, so I just spent $200 on eBay for a 400 MHz PowerBook G4 Titanium (with 640 mb of RAM, 10 GB hard drive, an Airport card, and Panther). It should arrive in a couple of days.

I figure if I like it, I'll use it for a year and then buy a new Mac next year.

Now my friend (an avid Mac user) tells me I'm an idiot and that the computer I ordered is so old that it's worthless, and that it will give me an unfairly negative impression of Apple.

I'm only going to use the computer for wireless web browsing and e-mail. Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

[A Pittarelli]

a good beater to take on trips and such, can still use tiger!

 

[K-Funk]

Re:

Well, just to update everyone, I'm still enjoying my "new" PowerBook. What's really great is that it has Microsoft Office installed. I've basically just been using it for web-surfing in bed, and it works fine -- sure, it's a tad sluggish, but still very usable. I'll probably try to hold off on buying a new Mac until the MacBooks receive their next update.

 

[tobefirst ⚽️]

Well, just to update everyone, I'm still enjoying my "new" PowerBook. What's really great is that it has Microsoft Office installed. I've basically just been using it for web-surfing in bed, and it works fine -- sure, it's a tad sluggish, but still very usable. I'll probably try to hold off on buying a new Mac until the MacBooks receive their next update.

I'm glad it is working out for you!

 

[flopticalcube]

Well, just to update everyone, I'm still enjoying my "new" PowerBook. What's really great is that it has Microsoft Office installed. I've basically just been using it for web-surfing in bed, and it works fine -- sure, it's a tad sluggish, but still very usable. I'll probably try to hold off on buying a new Mac until the MacBooks receive their next update.

A very sensible idea and $200 wisely spent. Congrats.