PowerBook G4 for $250

[Aperturexs]

People will hate me because of what I am going to say, but for $250 you could pick up a first gen MacBook Pro, which is much better for the types of applications you would want to run. If you really want a PowerBook, make sure you look out for later models, as these have superdrives, larger hd's, a higher RAM limit, better bluetooth and wifi, and sometimes a backlit keyboard. If I were you I would pass on anything that is higher than $150 at most for a PowerBook.

WAIT WAIT WAIT… I was wrong. I used to have a 12" 1.0 GHZ REV B PowerBook G4, and I miss it dearly. However if you want to fool around with PowerPC Linux, I would recommend you get aquatinted with Mac OS X fully, and then try it. Once you do, there are many distributions of Linux for PPC. I would recommend just trying straight up Ubuntu, and seeing if that meets your needs.

 

[sarthak]

I'm having a hard time finding a PowerBook G4 for the prices folks mention here. I'm in Canada and much of the cost seems to come from shipping & duties. Besides, people are selling them for ridiculous prices locally.

$165 eBay | $150-175 locally
PowerBook G4 12" | 1.5GHz | 1.25gb DDR | 80GB+ Drive | "Great" condition with Great battery

$160-225 eBay | $200-400 locally
PowerBook G4 15" | 1.33-1.67GHz | 1GB-2GB RAM | 60GB+ Drive | "Great" Con'd

$180-200 eBay | $300 locally
PowerBook G4 17" | 1.5-1.67GHz | Great Con'd

High res is another $60 - 100 on top.

What do you folks think? Are they "rip-offs" or fine pricing? People think I am "low-balling" when I offer $100-150 range.

 

[Altemose]

I'm having a hard time finding a PowerBook G4 for the prices folks mention here. I'm in Canada and much of the cost seems to come from shipping & duties. Besides, people are selling them for ridiculous prices locally.

$165 eBay | $150-175 locally
PowerBook G4 12" | 1.5GHz | 1.25gb DDR | 80GB+ Drive | "Great" condition with Great battery

$160-225 eBay | $200-400 locally
PowerBook G4 15" | 1.33-1.67GHz | 1GB-2GB RAM | 60GB+ Drive | "Great" Con'd

$180-200 eBay | $300 locally
PowerBook G4 17" | 1.5-1.67GHz | Great Con'd

High res is another $60 - 100 on top.

What do you folks think? Are they "rip-offs" or fine pricing? People think I am "low-balling" when I offer $100-150 range.

Try going thrift shopping. I got a G4 15" for $23.50.

 

[sarthak]

Try going thrift shopping. I got a G4 15" for $23.50.

Guess I'll have to try that. Though, it'd be a hard if not rare find where I am.

I picked up a Mac Mini G4 1.42GHz | 512mb RAM and a 19" LCD for $100 in a garage sale about two years ago. Turned out it kept overheating and freezing, popped it open and realized there is years of dust that was BURNED inside. Gave it a good cleaning and it ran great as an HTPC. Though, I ended up reselling it a year later due to the corrupted OS and lack of XBMC add-on support. I didn't have a Leopard disc otherwise, I would've did a clean install.

I realize now I should've kept it, they're still great for moderate browsing and plenty of other tasks.

Thanks for the suggestion. Will look around, it's almost impossible to find a good price on eBay / Kijiji / Craigslist right now.

 

[Altemose]

Guess I'll have to try that. Though, it'd be a hard if not rare find where I am.

I picked up a Mac Mini G4 1.42GHz | 512mb RAM and a 19" LCD for $100 in a garage sale about two years ago. Turned out it kept overheating and freezing, popped it open and realized there is years of dust that was BURNED inside. Gave it a good cleaning and it ran great as an HTPC. Though, I ended up reselling it a year later due to the corrupted and extraordinarily slow OS install and the lack of addons that worked on PPC version of XBMC. I didn't have a Leopard disc otherwise, I would've wiped the drive as well.

I realize now I should've kept it, they're still great for moderate browsing.

Especially with the right browser...

Unfortunately, the Minis were always underpowered even when they were new in my opinion.

 

[sarthak]

Especially with the right browser...

Unfortunately, the Minis were always underpowered even when they were new in my opinion.

Ended up picking up this:

$145 CAD All in on eBay
PowerBook G4 12" | 1.5GHz | 1.25gb DDR | 100GB Drive | "Excellent" condition 6 hr battery runtime estimate

Hope it can do some moderate tasks: surfing, YouView, office/iWork, iTunes, iLife apps etc.

It does seem a bit pricey but nearly half the cost was shipping, duties/taxes, exchange rate etc. I'll keep a lookout for cheaper deals locally and on the net for the 15" / 17" (especially high res) though.

 

[Zotaccian]

I bought my latest PowerBook G4 for 43 USD including shipping. It is 12" model with 1GHz CPU, it has 1.25GB RAM and very large (for its time) hard drive, 250GB. Airport card was installed and bluetooth is by default in this model. There is something stuck in the optical drive, display had large scratch and keyboard was missing one key. Battery is not good.

I have however replaced display with perfect one and attached that missing key. I do have battery for this machine somewhere but haven't installed that yet, also I haven't disassembled the machine to see what is in the optical drive.

But OK deal I'd say.