Upgrading PowerBook G4 12" LCD/Resolution?

[iModFrenzy]

For a while now, I've had a PowerBook G4 12". I love the form factor of the machine, and would love to start using it as a main computer in school. But I would like to perform a few upgrades to it, and one of those upgrades would be the replacing the LCD with a higher resolution one.

I found this guide on iFixit, https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/PowerBook+G4+Aluminum+12-Inch+1-1.5+GHz+LCD+panel+upgrade/3117

It goes over the process of replacing the LCD with a 1400x1050 HV121P01-100(or 101) LCD, The guide seems pretty simple, just need to make the new screen fit in place and you're golden.

Has anyone else actually tried this though? I'm curious how the Go5200 performs with the extra resolution, and how the screen looks compared to the old one(brightness/colors/etc). I attached an image from the guide that shows the screen in use.

Thanks

 

[Hrududu]

The card will support higher resolutions than that no problem, but I really don’t know why you would want to look at 1400x1050 resolution on a 12” display. 1024x768 is still very usable even today, so I don’t think it’s something I would get into myself. Now i would be tempted to get a 1024x768 display in a clamshell iBook however.

 

[CooperBox]

I've never done an LCD change on a 12" PBook, but have just read through that iFixit guide which is certainly very detailed & well written. However, like delving inside of these for other component changes, this 12" model is not for the faint-hearted.
If it were me, I'd want to see photos of how better the defintion would be, and equally important the price of the replacement LCD; would the combination of these variables be worth the apparent difficult task involved?
I'd be reluctant to perform such a change on mine as is sees very little use - one reason being the base gets very hot even after re-pasting, change of thermal pads and fan cleaning.
Fwiw, I've always thought that the screen resolution on my refurbished PBook6.8 was more than acceptable. Screen shot below:

 

[Lastic]

There is actually a thread by a user on this Forum about the screen mod , see here -> #8
Found it while trying to find more pictures of the completed mod

 

[zappaesque]

The LCD itself in a 12" Powerbook is pretty easy to replace. I replaced mine due to it being dim. I think the hard part would be soldering the wires depending on your experience doing such a thing. I don't know if my poor eyes could handle even smaller type. Looks like a cool project though.

 

[iModFrenzy]

The card will support higher resolutions than that no problem, but I really don’t know why you would want to look at 1400x1050 resolution on a 12” display. 1024x768 is still very usable even today, so I don’t think it’s something I would get into myself. Now i would be tempted to get a 1024x768 display in a clamshell iBook however.

The display just tends to feel a bit cramped when trying to multitask or if I put more than 5 icons on the dock(not including windows that I minimize into it). Plus as the name implies, I love modding The idea of having a higher resolution screen interests me.

I've never done an LCD change on a 12" PBook, but have just read through that iFixit guide which is certainly very detailed & well written. However, like delving inside of these for other component changes, this 12" model is not for the faint-hearted.
If it were me, I'd want to see photos of how better the defintion would be, and equally important the price of the replacement LCD; would the combination of these variables be worth the apparent difficult task involved?
I'd be reluctant to perform such a change on mine as is sees very little use - one reason being the base gets very hot even after re-pasting, change of thermal pads and fan cleaning.
Fwiw, I've always thought that the screen resolution on my refurbished PBook6.8 was more than acceptable. Screen shot below:
View attachment 737401

It actually surprised me how easy it would be to replace the screen. It's just the task of making it fit in place. If this required me to disassemble the computer I would probably be a lot more hesitant.

But I do agree, I would love to see more on the LCD(quality and such). and yeah they get hot pretty easily but I can deal with it for the trade offs(I wouldn't dare to game at a resolution like this anyway,so for just browsing/Finder usage/etc it should be fine). @LightBulbFun recommended I should try an iBook G4 as the GPU is a bit better(Radeon 9600), iBooks seem to deal with heat really well in my experience. I have a 1.33ghz iBook G4 so that is also on the table.

There is actually a thread by a user on this Forum about the screen mod , see here -> #8
Found it while trying to find more pictures of the completed mod

Wow this actually helped me make my decision of buying a BOE H121P01-100 Panel a lot easier, thanks for finding that!

The LCD itself in a 12" Powerbook is pretty easy to replace. I replaced mine due to it being dim. I think the hard part would be soldering the wires depending on your experience doing such a thing. I don't know if my poor eyes could handle even smaller type. Looks like a cool project though.

Indeed it seems to be, and very nice! And I believe the only soldering I need to do is extending the 'CCFL High Voltage' cable, which I've done soldering like that so its fine(you could probably get away with just twisting to wires together and putting heat shrink over it but for a LCD I wouldn't attempt that). and I would think Mac OS X has some settings to upscale the UI if its unreadable, I'll look around 10.5.

 

[AphoticD]

I would think Mac OS X has some settings to upscale the UI if its unreadable, I'll look around 10.5.

Install Xcode 3.1.4 then launch the QuartzDebug tool. You can scale the UI up and set it to be persistent, but most apps written for 10.5, including the Finder don't have any clue how to handle the scaled UI and things like toolbars and icons get messy very quickly.

In other words, it's something that is possible, but given it was in a very early stage, it's not very usable.

 

[iModFrenzy]

Install Xcode 3.1.4 then launch the QuartzDebug tool. You can scale the UI up and set it to be persistent, but most apps written for 10.5, including the Finder don't have any clue how to handle the scaled UI and things like toolbars and icons get messy very quickly.

In other words, it's something that is possible, but given it was in a very early stage, it's not very usable.

Oh okay, if thats the case then I won't attempt that but still cool Thanks!

 

[Bug-Creator]

but I really don’t know why you would want to look at 1400x1050 resolution on a 12” display.

Take an 12" P/iBook and place it next to a current Macbook (which would have an even smaller screen being "wide") and you'll notice that you can actually get more to display (unless your eyesight is really bad).

 

[Hrududu]

Take an 12" P/iBook and place it next to a current Macbook (which would have an even smaller screen being "wide") and you'll notice that you can actually get more to display (unless your eyesight is really bad).

Thats exactly the point though. The OS doesn't scale, so you don't get a "retina" appearance, you get icons and text that are nearly too small to see. Yes, there might be a few advantages if you're working in Photoshop or Illustrator, but the benefit of the extra pixels is diminished by the physical area. Now a 14" iBook at 1400x1050 might be more reasonable, but the 12" screen IMO is just too small.

 

[MagicBoy]

The 12" 1400x1050 displays were used on some higher end ThinkPads. Only ever saw a couple of machines with them, they were IPS, good brightness and decent quality. Most standard business spec models used a 1024x768 res panel at that size.

 

[Bug-Creator]

Well I can "unscale" my MacBook and a fake resolution around the same dpi it's still useable.

But your right, the failure to really adapt to different resolutions (or user's preferences) is the biggest flaw in OSX and all the "retina" scaling is just a kludge.

Running such an highres iBook with MorphOS would be work just nice as MUI based GUIs can adapt to (almost) any given font size.

MUI was developed by a bedroom coder for Amiga and runs on everything with an 68020 and some (2MB AFAIR) RAM, so no excuse for Apple never getting that one right.

 

[CooperBox]

There is actually a thread by a user on this Forum about the screen mod , see here -> #8
Found it while trying to find more pictures of the completed mod

In that link you provided it was amazing to see the component cost (in 2011) of the mods performed on that PowerBook:

Powerbook $287
240GB SSD $577
Hydis LCD $235
OEM Battery $55

Total $1154

Today it would cost just a fraction of that, especially for the SSD.

 

[0248294]

In that link you provided it was amazing to see the component cost (in 2011) of the mods performed on that PowerBook:

Powerbook $287
240GB SSD $577
Hydis LCD $235
OEM Battery $55

Total $1154

Today it would cost just a fraction of that, especially for the SSD.

$577 for a 240GB, sheesh. The one I put in my ASUS laptop a few months ago was a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB which I bought for somewhere around €80 or so. Just makes you wonder how much SSD storage one could buy in 2023 for that same €80...

 

[Dronecatcher]

Just makes you wonder how much SSD storage one could buy in 2023 for that same €80...

SSD and storage in general will be retro by then....everything saved as qubits in some vague quantum Cloud

 

[iModFrenzy]

Thats exactly the point though. The OS doesn't scale, so you don't get a "retina" appearance, you get icons and text that are nearly too small to see. Yes, there might be a few advantages if you're working in Photoshop or Illustrator, but the benefit of the extra pixels is diminished by the physical area. Now a 14" iBook at 1400x1050 might be more reasonable, but the 12" screen IMO is just too small.

Yeah its a shame it doesn't, a "retina" PowerBook would be pretty nice. But I do happen to Photoshop(CS6) quite a bit so the extra resolution would be handy.

In that link you provided it was amazing to see the component cost (in 2011) of the mods performed on that PowerBook:

Powerbook $287
240GB SSD $577
Hydis LCD $235
OEM Battery $55

Total $1154

Today it would cost just a fraction of that, especially for the SSD.

Yeah those really shocked me haha, 577$ could grab you a 1tb or 2 SSD today. I managed to grab an LCD for a much lower price(below $100). SSD is next on the list.

 

[weckart]

$577 for a 240GB, sheesh. The one I put in my ASUS laptop a few months ago was a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB which I bought for somewhere around €80 or so. Just makes you wonder how much SSD storage one could buy in 2023 for that same €80...

I’m betting on 60GB. Prices are on the up, sadly.

 

[z970]

SSD and storage in general will be retro by then....everything saved as qubits in some vague quantum Cloud

...I shudder at the thought...

Sent from Ubuntu 16.04 on my Mac Pro.

 

[iModFrenzy]

So I’m still working on this but here’s a sneak peak

 

[philgxxd]

@iModFrenzy Was it worth it at the end for you?

 

[ervus]

I put one of these hi-res screens in a 12" powerbook that had a broken panel. The extra resolution is nice in "portable" mode but at a desk I still use an external monitor. Also, the screen I got is not particularly bright. This might just be luck of the draw, but I see that there are some LED kits available to replace the arc lights. I would be interested in doing this if anyone has experience or info on hooking up the LED strip to the powerbook.

 

[Amethyst1]

If I still had my 12" - I'd gladly pay someone to put in the higher-rez panel. 1024x768 is so... 1998.

Or a 1920x1200 panel in a 15".

 

[B S Magnet]

If I still had my 12" - I'd gladly pay someone to put in the higher-rez panel. 1024x768 is so... 1998.

Or a 1920x1200 panel in a 15".

They remain beyond my budget (particularly, to find an authentic HV121P01-100), but should that ever change, I already have the experience of changing out CCFL for LED illumination. Given overall comments on the HV121P01-100 series, low brightness has always been a sticking factor.

Having calculated it previously, there should be just enough memory headroom on hand for even a Rage Mobility 128 with 8MB VRAM to drive the 1400x1050 resolution — which is exactly what would be needed to run this retrofit on the iBook clamshell G3/466.

This is the dream, at least.

 

[Amethyst1]

Having calculated it previously, there should be just enough memory headroom on hand for even a Rage Mobility 128 with 8MB VRAM to drive the 1400x1050 resolution —

I've run 1920×1200 at 32768 colours on a Pismo (using that same 8 MB GPU).

 

[B S Magnet]

I've run 1920x1200 at 32,768 colours on a Pismo (same 8 MB GPU).

Yep, they’re definitely equipped to run up to 1152x768 plus 1280x960 dual displays, at 24-bit colour, per the specs of the first-series Titanium PowerBook G4 models, so 1400x1050 is more than ample room.

Unlike the pricing breakdown for the iFixit modder’s upgraded system, the singular largest expense in 2021 would be to find that authentic display in working condition.