Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Refurbished 12inch iBook or New 12inch iBook.

N

Ninjabelly

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 8, 2005
10
0
If you don’t want to read the whole story, I bolded the actual dilemma at the end. Thanks.

Well I’m new the Mac world. I have always mostly been a PC guy. Before I give you the reason for my debate between the two let me give you some background. I do have a gaming/work Windows PC that I use at home and so really buying a PB isn't affordable ( :( ) or necessary as I am a student on a limited budget. I use my PC for Web, Image Design, Coding and Maintenance/Administration of my site web servers. The only game I really play at the moment is WoW (Don't have time to frequent anything else), and I play it a whole lot .

PC Specs:
Athlon 64 3500+ Venice Core
2GB OCZ PC3200 DDR
2 - 36 GB WD Raptors (RAID 0)
2 - 250 GB Maxtor 7200 RPM IDE
2 - XFX 128mb Geforce 6600GT's (SLI)

DVD-R Optical Drives, etc.....

So after that long intro here is my situation. My Dell Inspiron 8200 is beat to hell so I traded it to a friend for 2 Samsung 930B LCD’s. Now I am in need of another laptop for school and I figured what a perfect opportunity to pick up a Mac. I mainly plan to use this for school and playing WoW on the go. No big instances or anything I mainly use the PC for MC, ZG, etc. So I am on a budget and whichever iBook I get I plan to upgrade to 1GB of ram, but I was wondering if it will be well worth my $250 dollars extra to skip looking at a refurb'd 12 inch iBook at 1.2GHz/256MB/30GB/CD/Radeon 9200 and just save for a bit longer and pick up a new 12 inch iBook with 1.33GHz/512MB/AP extreme/40GB/Combo/Radeon 9550? The big "IF" for me is the Radeon 9550 because of the Core Image Support. Since I'm new to it all; what do you guys think? Is it worth the extra money for me to go with the newer one? Will I see a significant difference? Let me know and thanks for any help. I hope to soon be a new Mac Owner. :)

Also another quick question. On the Crucial site it says the 1.33ghz 12inch iBook can take 1.5GB of RAM, and I see in some signatures here that people have 1.5GB in their iBooks. How is it possible if it only has one memory bank?
 
Ninjabelly said:
nces or anything I mainly use the PC for MC, ZG, etc. So I am on a budget and whichever iBook I get I plan to upgrade to 1GB of ram, but I was wondering if it will be well worth my $250 dollars extra to skip looking at a refurb'd 12 inch iBook at 1.2GHz/256MB/30GB/CD/Radeon 9200 and just save for a bit longer and pick up a new 12 inch iBook with 1.33GHz/512MB/AP extreme/40GB/Combo/Radeon 9550? The big "IF" for me is the Radeon 9550 because of the Core Image Support. Since I'm new to it all; what do you guys think? Is it worth the extra money for me to go with the newer one? Will I see a significant difference? Let me know and thanks for any help. I hope to soon be a new Mac Owner. :)

Also another quick question. On the Crucial site it says the 1.33ghz 12inch iBook can take 1.5GB of RAM, and I see in some signatures here that people have 1.5GB in their iBooks. How is it possible if it only has one memory bank?
Click to expand...

the iBook has 512 built in. I think the slot supports 1 gig or something like that.

but, you can get a refurb-- they're still awesome. Do you REALLY need the core image support?
If you need the extra cash more than you need core image, I'd say get the refurb. Either way, they're really nice. :)
 
katie ta achoo said:
the iBook has 512 built in. I think the slot supports 1 gig or something like that.

but, you can get a refurb-- they're still awesome. Do you REALLY need the core image support?
If you need the extra cash more than you need core image, I'd say get the refurb. Either way, they're really nice. :)
Click to expand...

Well I mean would it siginificantly effect performance in game? Or would I only see the difference of a few frames? :) Again im new with all of this so im not exactly aware of the advantages of core image support etc. Thanks.
 
Ninjabelly said:
Well I mean would it siginificantly effect performance in game? Or would I only see the difference of a few frames? :) Again im new with all of this so im not exactly aware of the advantages of core image support etc. Thanks.
Click to expand...


since I don't want to lie to you, I'll just let you read about it yourself. wikipedia, how I love you! :)
 
applemacdude said:
not one of the easiet things to do...
Click to expand...

it can be a fun, little weekend project. :p

or, if you're saving enough money to justify having a mac specialist put it in for you, do it.

but if you DO need the combo (and frankly, who doesn't need one nowadays... it's like getting a car with no steering wheel!) and the bigger HD, go with new.

MAKE A GRAPH! :D
 
Maybe he just wrote CD instead of CDRW because he was lazy. How can it come with a CDROM when Apple doesn't have anymore computers with plain old CDROMs in them, particular newer, 1.2GHz G4 iBooks. :confused:
 
Abstract said:
Maybe he just wrote CD instead of CDRW because he was lazy. How can it come with a CDROM when Apple doesn't have anymore computers with plain old CDROMs in them, particular newer, 1.2GHz G4 iBooks. :confused:
Click to expand...

Thats what was exactly listed on the Apple Refurb Site in terms of specs. Maybe someone else can shed some light on it?

Head to Head though in terms of performance is there a big difference between the two?
 
The performance difference is little to none. These G4 updates are all decorative right now. I mean 0.12 GHz upgrade? So what?

However, the HD thing would bother me. OSX takes up enough space as it is, so unless you have an external that you want to save to, 30GB is a big limitation.
 
Ninjabelly said:
So I am on a budget and whichever iBook I get I plan to upgrade to 1GB of ram, but I was wondering if it will be well worth my $250 dollars extra to skip looking at a refurb'd 12 inch iBook at 1.2GHz/256MB/30GB/CD/Radeon 9200 and just save for a bit longer and pick up a new 12 inch iBook with 1.33GHz/512MB/AP extreme/40GB/Combo/Radeon 9550?
Click to expand...
I agree w/ previous posters, get the new 'book... the refurbished iBook you're referring to only has a CDrom drive, it means that it won't even be able to read DVDs (if I'm wrong, somebody please correct me) but I think that you need either a Combo drive or Super drive.

For only $250 more you could get a new iBook w/ a combo drive, more RAM, more expandability for RAM (Katie's right, 512MB soldered w/ a slot open that can take up to 1GB), better graphics card, sudden motion sensor (a great thing for laptops), built in BlueTooth 2.0 and AE.

Sounds more than worth the extra saving time for that $250.
 
I would wait till at least Wednesday to see what happens with the PowerBooks.

You might be able to pick up a NEW current model PowerBook at a considerable saving or go for the new HD quality model IF rumors hold true.
 
The refurb could indeed have a cd-rom only, they did this for edu customers up until the last revision. I myself, (being a little biased) would go for a new ibook, they are excellent..
 
I don't understand how it just has cd-rom.. My 5 year old pismo powerbook at least has CD/DVD-rom.
 
epepper9 said:
I don't understand how it just has cd-rom.. My 5 year old pismo powerbook at least has CD/DVD-rom.
Click to expand...
Apple used to make educational versions of the iBook and eMac. As an educational individual you used to be able to 'downgrade' an iBook to CD only but w/ this latest revision/upgrade, Apple took away the ability to order this iBook w/out getting it refurbished.
 
The way I see it is that almost all Mac users love their Macs so the only reason they return them is if something is wrong. This is why I always buy new Macs versus refurbs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back