Looking for a PowerBook

[rex450se]

I am looking for a PowerBook if for no other reason than to just play with. I have a rMBP 2013 15" for anything I really need to do so this is just because I want one. I had one years ago and it was a great little machine and would like another. My questions is, price? Since most of these are quite old technologically speaking, what are they worth. Is there a good guide that would give me an idea if a price is fair or not. Just the little looking I've done already it seems they are priced way to high but that's just me. I am looking at a 12" PowerBook G4 1.5Ghz, 1.25Gb ram, 60 Gb hard drive for $75 and I just don't know if it's a decent deal or not. Thanks in advance.

Victor

 

[eyoungren]

I am looking for a PowerBook if for no other reason than to just play with. I have a rMBP 2013 15" for anything I really need to do so this is just because I want one. I had one years ago and it was a great little machine and would like another. My questions is, price? Since most of these are quite old technologically speaking, what are they worth. Is there a good guide that would give me an idea if a price is fair or not. Just the little looking I've done already it seems they are priced way to high but that's just me. I am looking at a 12" PowerBook G4 1.5Ghz, 1.25Gb ram, 60 Gb hard drive for $75 and I just don't know if it's a decent deal or not. Thanks in advance.

Victor

Hi Victor. How much are you willing to do?

The price you quote is actually a decent price for that Mac.

The reason I ask the question is because you can get them cheaper if you are willing to do a little bit of work. I got my wife's 12" 1.0Ghz PowerBook for $50, including shipping. The seller advertised her Mac on eBay as a parts machine. He had managed to roll the Mac down a flight of stairs and broke the screen. So, I knew when I got the Mac I had to replace the LCD. That cost me $25. A little bit of work and my wife has had a fully functioning PB for the last two years.

My son's 1Ghz Titanium DVI came with broken hinges from a business liquidator advertising on eBay. I swapped the LCD with one from my old TiBook. Total cost including shipping was $25. This Mac is a rocket and if he wasn't using it I'd sure as heck would be. I've been on it and it's fast, even with Leopard installed.

Some people get lucky and get Macs handed to them, get paid to take them away or find them in trash cans for God know what reason. But if you look on eBay for PowerPC Macs being sold for either parts/repair you can get them pretty cheap. A parts/repair machine can be listed that way because it needs a new hard drive or something small. Most of the time people selling the older Macs have NO idea what they are selling and little things like a missing system folder can be fixed and you can save big.

I got my 17" PowerBook that way back in 2009. A little bit of love and it was back on it's feet and I only paid $152.50.

But back to the Mac you are looking at. Assuming that you aren't having to do anything to it, again, that is a fair price. I just paid a few weeks ago $50 plus three lower end iBooks in exchange for a PowerMac Quicksilver with a 1.0Ghz Sonnet upgrade AND Mac Pro Speakers. I got rid of three iBooks I don't use and the guy I traded with who loves iBooks is thrilled.

 

[Zotaccian]

I paid something like 80 USD for my machine and it had only 768MB of RAM, but Leopard Retail disc along with original installation discs was included. Condition was and is like new, of course battery doesn't last longer than maybe an hour.

 

[blesscheese]

The G4 iBooks are sweet, esp. the top end ones. They are fast but -- in my opinion-- somewhat handicapped by a ridiculous (by today's standards) 4200 rpm ATA drive. If you are seriously mechanically inclined, you could stick in a faster drive or even an SSD (how much money do you want to sink into this thing?).

Of course, batteries will be tougher to get...

 

[rex450se]

It's not really that I am too concerned over spending $75 versus $200. More of spending $200 when I could have spent $40. I don't want to just throw money away if I don't have to. I had a PowerBook years ago and replaced the hard drive in one already so I know what I'm getting into there. I guess I was just wondering if about what the going rate for a 8, 9, 10 year old laptop is. And this one I am looking at has the restore disks and everything like new, so I'm thinking it's a decent deal. I may just have to pull the trigger.

Victor

 

[gooser]

go for it.

 

[jrsx]

There is a great refurbished site called gainsaver that does ALL (EDIT: except the clamshell ibook) macs and windows PCs. Overall pretty great deals for refur.