Second Hand Mac notebook Advice

[polar-blair]

Hi

Buy younger brother has told be he wants a mac, He said he wanted the mac with the cool swively neck thing, (The iMac G4) So I checked on eBay and they were just a little out of his rice range, (well the decent ones were anyway) So he has a budget of £350 - £400 (max) So I suggested a ibook which seemed to generally be faster and cheaper (on eBay) than the iMac

I have only used intel macs, so I haven't got a clue about the older macs, I was wondering if there was anything I should know about the iBooks before he gets one? what min specs he should get? Should I install leopard on it? Any issues I should know about? Or is there any alternatives?

Thanks

 

[crabbydaddy2]

i used to have an ibook g4 i liked it. although it was a g4 they sell for a big chunk of cash.,

it maybe better to wait.

 

[eman]

The 1.42GHZ iBook was a pretty rock solid machine IMHO.

 

[polar-blair]

i used to have an ibook g4 i liked it. although it was a g4 they sell for a big chunk of cash.,

it maybe better to wait.

I can find a 1.5Mghz iBook with 1Gb of ram and a 60Gb HD (why are they so small - but no big deal we have plenty of external drives) for £275 I wouldn't say that is that much for a mac.

And wait for what? the new macbooks?

 

[marbles]

get a brand new top line Mac Mini for £399 (edit> £399 for the 1.83Ghz combo 80Gb & £499 for the 2Ghz DVD burner & 120Gb HD ) from Apple ..........faster than the G4 Macs for sure ....the tech in the Mini is outdated by today's standards, but then again so is a G4 , only more so !!! !!

....I'd go for a Mini ...you get warranty too and it will be more 'sell able' when it's time to upgrade.

Mini all the way


EDIT> I know the title says notebook ,but you mention the iMac G4 in your original post so I thought I'd mention the Mini , but if you hang round for a week or so on ebay I reckon a G4 iMac would turn up within budget.......... personally I'd go for Mini any day over a G4 anything ! same price range & its new !

 

[donga]

Buy younger brother has told be he wants a mac

do you have a cold or something?

maybe you can look into old powerbooks too, they can be had for around that price range. and many seem to run leopard okay, with ram maxed out.

 

[eXan]

If you still want a G4, make sure it has the clock speed of at least 867 MHz - the minimum requirement for Leopard.

Another thing you should know about PowerPC Macs is that they can't run Windows natively and by today's standards they are s l o w.

 

[194567]

the imac g4 is a great machine and good looking too, depending on the usage it can be very slow. However in the same price range you can also get a imac g5 (after a quick search on ebay), Powerbook g4 or mac mini as stated above. The Ibook is a pretty good deal though. For internet usage and emailing is a g4
good enough, however you can get the most out of an mac mini.

 

[windowpain]

Hey,

While I have a lot of love for the ibookG4, to be honest with you I wouldn't spend ukp400 on one. They are nice but the macbooks make it look very very slow indeed. (I have a ibook G4 1.33ghz and a 2.2Ghz dual core macbook, and the macbook smokes it!)

I know you said that he has a budget, but if you look here in the refurb section you 'might' find something suitable, keep checking it as they can go pretty quickly.

A g4 is already (at least) 3 years old. spending just a little more will get you so much more laptop. If he has 80% of the money already..I would urge him to wait until he has a little more.

I know its not really the advice you asked for...but just my 2p.

 

[marbles]

do you have a cold or something?

good observation ol' chap and funny too , I respect that .

 

[polar-blair]

Thanks for your advice every one, I was thinking about the mac mini because it was in the same price range its just the extra cost of a monitor, mouse and keyboard would quickly bump up the price, but then realised we have a unused flat screen TV with a VGA input that could be used and with an education discount my bro could get on for near enough £400 with Mouse and Keyboard.

I thought that he really wanted a laptop but turns out he would prefer a quicker machine for his money and a mac mini seems like the perfect choice. So thanks everyone for the help.