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PowerBook G4 1.33 run leopard well?

Davy.Shalom

Davy.Shalom

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 23, 2008
465
1
Hey guys, I've been using macs since 2001, but I have a hardware related question. Do you think leopard will run smoothly on a powebook G4 with the following specs:
1.33 ghz G4
250 GB 5400 rpm HDD
1.25 GB ram
Nvidia geforce 5200 go

I am thinking of upgrading since I plan on using this system through high school, and I don't want to be running an obsolete OS. Anyway, apple is dumping support for the powerpc with the release of snow leopard, so I have to upgrade this year.

Tell me what you think.

*this was typed on an iPod touch. Please excuse any spelling errors.
 
Hey mate

Yeah you should be fine. I'm running Leopard on my iBook of that generation (in fact your RAM is much better than mine) and it works great!
Of course it would always run faster if I had 2gig of RAM but... $..
 
I used to have a PowerBook 1.33 Ghz, Leopard itself worked totally fine but I found that many programs were pretty slow. That's why I got rid of mine eventually and got a MacBook instead :'( I still miss the great build quality of the powerbook though. Especially with the small size of the 12" that should be rock solid.

It really depends what you do with it. If you just want to web surf / email you'll be ok (although really heavy flash pages can get slow on it). But if you want to get into heavy photo editing (Photoshop etc), it won't really do anymore. It didn't work for me anyway.

You will notice a big increase in boot times going from Tiger to Leopard but that's the same for the intel machines.

By the way, I don't think the 1.33 G4 12" came with 2-finger scrolling yet but you can get an aftermarket driver that enables it here. It works great then! There is also a driver to enable safe sleep, but I can't find it right now.
 
Hey guys you've been really helpful. Yeah, I do do a lot of graphics and video editing, but I do that on a PowerMac G5 quad (the family server...), so the PowerBook is for school. Have any of you noticed any problems with battery life related to leopard? I really want to get all the facts down before I buy the operating system. I mean, I need the battery to last at least 3 hours on a charge (its a new apple battery), and I can charge it for about an hour in the middle of the day. All I am doing on it would be recording audio (lectures) and typing word documents (notes), and surfing the web for brief moments (references). So what do you guys think?
 
I think that you will be okay running Leopard on your PowerBook G4. :)

Both my 12" (1.5 GHz, 1.25GB, 160GB 5400rpm HDD) & 17" (HD 1.67 GHz, 1.5GB , 100GB 7200rpm HDD) PowerBook G4's are currently running Tiger, but I will probably upgrade them to Leopard in the near future. I love Leopard, use it on my 24" iMac & Mac Pro, but I just have not gotten around to buying a copy of Leopard for my PowerPC Macs.
 
Thanks so much guys. Still, how many hours do you think I can get out of a NEW (got it 2 days ago) apple battery? Again, just doing word processing and recording with the built in microphone. I need at least 3 hours. I have calibrated the battery as well.
 
Davy.Shalom said:
Thanks so much guys. Still, how many hours do you think I can get out of a NEW (got it 2 days ago) apple battery? Again, just doing word processing and recording with the built in microphone. I need at least 3 hours. I have calibrated the battery as well.
Click to expand...

I would imagine that you should be able to get 3.5 to 4.5+ hours of use from a brand-new battery provided that the battery is properly calibrated and fully charged. Keeping the brightness of the screen down, putting it to sleep when not in use, and setting the machine to Normal or Better Energy Savings will help you maximize your battery life. Also, make sure you do not have a disc inserted in the optical drive, unless of course you need one to be there. :)
 
Alright thanks for all your help guys. This solves my problem. Gosh...those apple batteries are sure expensive. Do you guys know of any GOOD third party batteries that have a better life? I remember my old battery went bad (lasted only 30 minutes) after about a year. I don't really want to be replacing a $130 piece of equipment every year, since I intend on keeping the notebook for another 4 years (at least).

*the third party batteries do not have an aluminum casing, correct?
 
Davy.Shalom said:
Alright thanks for all your help guys. This solves my problem. Gosh...those apple batteries are sure expensive. Do you guys know of any GOOD third party batteries that have a better life? I remember my old battery went bad (lasted only 30 minutes) after about a year. I don't really want to be replacing a $130 piece of equipment every year, since I intend on keeping the notebook for another 4 years (at least).

*the third party batteries do not have an aluminum casing, correct?
Click to expand...

I know that you can find batteries for your PowerBook G4 on eBay for about $40-$55 new. I believe that the outside face is aluminum on some of them. :)
 
Great. I will look into those batteries when this one starts going bad. Does anybody know how to run the Diagnostic check for hardware on the computer? I am thinking about buying a cheaper 1 ghz 12" powerbook (about $150-good condition) for my little brother for the holidays and he does not have a mobile computer. We are going to be going to high school next year, and a laptop is a must for full productivity on the go.
 
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