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Still Enjoying 12-inch Powerbook

powerbook911 said:
The passing of Steve has gotten me a bit sentimental about the older Apple products. Therefore, the past few days I have been using my 12-inch Powerbook G4 a bit more. I even ordered a new battery from Apple's website. The batteries for these things have always been terrible. Pretty much useless after one year. This will likely be the last time they still sell a genuine one. They sent me one, that is over two years old though! ha. Might not keep it.

Anyway, it sure is still a nice little machine. Looks gorgeous still and it has been used so little, it's in really nice condition. I got it in February 2005 right after the January 2005 update and the 12-inch was never updated after that even though they kept selling it until Spring 2006 when the white MacBook finally came out.

It is the 1.5 GHZ G4 with Super Drive, and I have it at the max 1.25 GB of RAM. Sure wish Apple had put 512 on the soldered bit so that it could have 1.5 GB total like the later iBooks.

The RAM and 5400 old hard drive hold it back the most I think, but I'm not about to tear it apart to put in a SSD. ha.

It's so slow to just open Safari in Leopard, but not too bad once it's running. Amazing to think iPhone 4S is quicker than this thing while being much cooler and efficient too.

It was a solid little computer though for its time. The first year I used it with my 20-inch Cinema Display as my primary computer. Surely, under Panther and Tiger it might have been a bit speedier. After all, the first six months I believe I only had 768MB of RAM.

I hope I can keep it going so that every few months I can continue to pull it out and see how its doing.

Until the 11-inch Air last year, this little guy never really had a proper successor.

Thank you PowerBook G4.

Who else still has a place in their heart for the 12-inch PowerBooks?
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I have the 12" 1.5 GHz model Powerbook and i love it. i got it in 2009 for $100 i have to say it is perty fast for a 5-6 year old computer:)
 
I used to own a Rev A 12", however that became so bloody warm that it was just impractical to use for an extended period of time that I sold it a few months later. Plus it was pretty slow with 640mb RAM, and kernel paniced all the time if I held the HDD in a certain way.

However, three weeks ago I purchased a pristine condition Powerbook G4 15" manufactured in 2004. It's got a 1.33Ghz, 60GB HDD and 1GB of RAM, using both slots (!) so knock on wood nothing happens. Even the battery is amazing, original with 189 cycles and still lasts between 3 to 3.5 hours on medium brightness, which is fantastic. All for $AU150. Loving it :D
 
I absolutely love mine! Unfortunately its 1 GHz processor is too slow for all the fancy Keynote transitions so I use him for light text processing and PowerPoint outlining. Still a screamer, though!
 
I miss my Top End 12'' Powerbook :/ I brought it like 2 years ago, and it died after like 3 months of using it :/ I sold off all the parts and made my money back, but i still miss it :(
 
My 12" G4 was my first Apple product and it's still running. I keep it at work so I don't have to haul a laptop around. It's maxed out at 1.25 gig of RAM and a friend put in a 250G Western Digital hard drive. Needs a battery again and it's a little beat up now but I love the size and the feel of the keys.

Hey can anyone advise me how to clean it up a bit? I mean in terms of performance. I'm getting the pizza wheel alot and everything is dreadfully slow. Besides the obvious (get a faster machine!) are there things I can do like empty caches or run some sort of defragger (forgive me I know that's a PC word!) that will let my G4 be less stressed out?

Much obliged.
 
"Hey can anyone advise me how to clean it up a bit? I mean in terms of performance. I'm getting the pizza wheel alot and everything is dreadfully slow. Besides the obvious (get a faster machine!) are there things I can do like empty caches or run some sort of defragger (forgive me I know that's a PC word!) that will let my G4 be less stressed out?"


do a clean install of os x that will make it fast agen. os x does clean up/defrag tasks by it's self when your computer is not in use. :)
 
I has one too!

Power Book G4 12inch 867 MHZ. I have upgraded hdd / super drive. Still works well. Just need to get a new battery for it then all set!

Currently, unit is in its box until i can get a new battery keep it safe.
 
MAC MAN JW said:
"Hey can anyone advise me how to clean it up a bit? I mean in terms of performance. I'm getting the pizza wheel alot and everything is dreadfully slow. Besides the obvious (get a faster machine!) are there things I can do like empty caches or run some sort of defragger (forgive me I know that's a PC word!) that will let my G4 be less stressed out?"
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Add more memory, if you can. The biggest cause of the beach ball for me is when I run out of memory and the computer starts paging onto the hard disk.
 
wallyu said:
Hey can anyone advise me how to clean it up a bit? I mean in terms of performance. I'm getting the pizza wheel alot and everything is dreadfully slow. Besides the obvious (get a faster machine!) are there things I can do like empty caches or run some sort of defragger (forgive me I know that's a PC word!) that will let my G4 be less stressed out?

Much obliged.
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System maintenance. Repair permissions, run a system maintenance tool (Onyx, Cocktail, MainMenu, etc (at minimum run the Daily, Weekly and Monthly scripts). Boot from your install disk and run Disk Utility to repair the disk (better would be DiskWarrior if you have it) Clean out the clutter of files you don't need/want. You might also try Monolingual which will remove all the language files from the system that you don't use. If you use the machine for design (utilizing fonts) then clean your font caches.

If you do this on a regular (periodic) basis (most people don't, they wait until the system is so slow the only feasible remedy is reinstalling the OS) you can maintain the system in good working order.
 
I still have my 2005 PB15 with the 1.5ghz and 2 gb ram. I love it to death and back. I prefer it to my i7 iMac. Of course it can't do anything super amazing, but I am able to write on it and surf the web wonderfully. I love the keys and the way it feels in my hands. It will be sad day when this little guy leaves me... :(
 
karilynn said:
I still have my 2005 PB15 with the 1.5ghz and 2 gb ram. I love it to death and back. I prefer it to my i7 iMac. Of course it can't do anything super amazing, but I am able to write on it and surf the web wonderfully. I love the keys and the way it feels in my hands. It will be sad day when this little guy leaves me... :(
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I say, don't ever let it leave you. Even if it stopped working someday, just keep it. It's a beautiful piece of computer history.
 
powerbook911 said:
I say, don't ever let it leave you. Even if it stopped working someday, just keep it. It's a beautiful piece of computer history.
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Never. I still have my very first iPod that I bought in 2003. It doesn't work anymore, but I still have it in a box. I remember when I bought it and I thought, wow, this is incredible. My life had a soundtrack. I still remember the day I got my PB. I knew it was wonderful the minute my fingers touched the keys. There really is nothing better. I can't bring myself to buying a MBP. I don't like the black plastic keys, I don't like the way the machine looks or feels. I will hold on to my dear PowerBook until the day it leaves ME and even then, I'll still keep it just to remember it.
 
My wife still has her 12" 867mhz powerbook. That thing was soooo cool when we bought it. It's still in mint condition with all the accessories too.

She was just lamenting that she doesn't use it anymore and was thinking of selling it. That made me sort of depressed :(
 
MattA said:
My wife still has her 12" 867mhz powerbook. That thing was soooo cool when we bought it. It's still in mint condition with all the accessories too.

She was just lamenting that she doesn't use it anymore and was thinking of selling it. That made me sort of depressed :(
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If she does, have a friend buy it with your money, hand it back over to you, so you don't lose it. :) ha-ha. After all, she won't get much for it! $100? It's worth way more than that to the heart of any Apple fan.
 
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MattA said:
My wife still has her 12" 867mhz powerbook. That thing was soooo cool when we bought it. It's still in mint condition with all the accessories too.

She was just lamenting that she doesn't use it anymore and was thinking of selling it. That made me sort of depressed :(
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it would make any one depressed ! :(
 
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