used ibook questions

[edrill]

hi ... i am trying to help my aunt buy an ibook. she'll use it primarily for email, web, iphoto and itunes. no real heavy lifting.

what would be the "slowest" model that would suffice. she'll probably buy tiger to put on it and have to bump the ram.

does tiger need a g4 to run smoothly, or could she get by with a g3? and if a g3 would be ok, how far back can she go, g3 900, 800, etc.

smalldog has a 12" g3 900 combo with 384 megs of ram for $659.

on the other hand, there's been refurbished ibook g4 1.0 for i think for $799 at various times.

i'd like to find one with an airport card already installed if possible.

thanks for the help.

 

[Mertzen]

You can go as far back as the second 600Mhz models. They have the mobility radeon which supports Quartz Extreme and thus makes everything go a lot smoother. And the radeon also supports the dual display hack if you ever need it, though for that the 800Mhz model with the Mobility Radeon 7500 with 32MB of VRAM is a better pick.

Both won't be speed devils but with maxed out RAM and a 5400rpm drive it should be more then enough.

Bit with refurbed iBook G4s at these insane low prices you need to get a really good deal on any of the above.

 

[kingcrowing]

Well, i just bought a 466MHz G3 iBook, (the last run of clamshells) for $300, it was a steal, but its perfect for real basic stuff, however it wont run iLife '05 because it needs a 1024x768 display, but it's ok for like itunes and iphoto, however i would reccomend going with a 600MHz+ iBook as edrill said, for her needs you might as well spend a little more money

 

[dvdh]

Being an owner of a G3 ibook (14.1/900/32) I would suggest that if you can afford the $150 premium or so it takes to go to a G4, do it. The G3's are good machines in general, but some of them out there are ticking time bombs to logicboard failure (mine is on it's third . . . but I do tend to work it pretty hard). Additionally, there is some apple software now that requires a G4 leaving G3 owners SOL. That said, I'm not about to part with my iBook, because its still a great machine even after two trips to be fixed, so if money is a concern, the G3 is still a good option.

 

[mkrishnan]

Bit with refurbed iBook G4s at these insane low prices you need to get a really good deal on any of the above.

Just one more nod for the G4 side, as others have said, the motherboard failure rate seems to be quite a bit lower. But they're great machines either way -- and if you get a G3 that's been belting it out for some time, it's pretty likely that it's going to keep doing it.

 

[edrill]

hey thanks.

not to change the focus of this thread, buy my family's had logic board failures on three g3 ibooks, and my mom just had one too it sounds like (two of them were replaced with new units after three boards - and i'm the one who convinced them all to switch).

my aunt wants to spend around $800 - for ibook, ram upgrade, airport card (if necessary) and wireless router.

based upon what you all said here and the logic board failure rate and the probability an older ibook won't have apple care, i'll look for a g4.


thanks again.