So, on a whim I bought a 12" PowerBook two weeks ago and I decided to use it as my only machine for two weeks as a sort of "why not?". Perhaps not the best idea during finals week but never the less I thought it might be fun.
The PB has a 1.5Ghz G4, 1.25GB of ram, and the original 80GB hard drive.
The system isn't nearly as slow as one might expect of an 11 year old laptop but it's certainly not fast either, and I mostly attribute that to a lack of memory. Two or so tabs in TenFourFox, iTunes, Word 2008 and Evernote are about all the system can take without bogging down. The slow original hard drive has actually proved pretty irrelevant in terms of actual operating speed during my usage- mostly due to the fact I don't quit my main used applications.
Additionally, some habits of the modern era are really not possible on the PowerBook. Websites scroll fine once loaded but, unlike computers today the ability to instantly scroll where you want once the page starts loading assets isn't real pleasant or even usable. Similarly, playing internet based video requires patience - one must let the video buffer fully before playing and content over 480p just wont play well. Thanks to CorePlayer though, downloaded low-bitrate 720p video is fine but multitasking while the video plays is an exercise in frustration. Writing is a treat on the system with a few caveats - this keyboard is still among the finest ever fitted to a laptop although I find myself missing the newest version of Microsoft Word and OneNote. Functionality hasn't changed much but Word 2016 has a much more intuitive UI.
Interestingly, after the single hour I originally got on the official Apple battery, it's now up to about 3 hours of light use. It must have been bought at the end of availability. The battery has something like 35 cycles on it. Neat! But it's still not quite enough for my liking. Along with the 1024x768 screen, it's by far the hardest thing to deal with. The screen is of decent quality for the era but the lack of horizontal real estate feels real cramped as more and more content is developed to make better use of wide aspect ratios.
I don't have much in the way of conclusions I guess. I don't think anybody should really buy one with the intention of using it as their only computer these days. That said it does work in a pinch, it was very cheap, and they've held up surprisingly well aesthetically too. I think it probably still serves totally fine for some niche uses - especially applications that aren't internet driven.
The PB has a 1.5Ghz G4, 1.25GB of ram, and the original 80GB hard drive.
The system isn't nearly as slow as one might expect of an 11 year old laptop but it's certainly not fast either, and I mostly attribute that to a lack of memory. Two or so tabs in TenFourFox, iTunes, Word 2008 and Evernote are about all the system can take without bogging down. The slow original hard drive has actually proved pretty irrelevant in terms of actual operating speed during my usage- mostly due to the fact I don't quit my main used applications.
Additionally, some habits of the modern era are really not possible on the PowerBook. Websites scroll fine once loaded but, unlike computers today the ability to instantly scroll where you want once the page starts loading assets isn't real pleasant or even usable. Similarly, playing internet based video requires patience - one must let the video buffer fully before playing and content over 480p just wont play well. Thanks to CorePlayer though, downloaded low-bitrate 720p video is fine but multitasking while the video plays is an exercise in frustration. Writing is a treat on the system with a few caveats - this keyboard is still among the finest ever fitted to a laptop although I find myself missing the newest version of Microsoft Word and OneNote. Functionality hasn't changed much but Word 2016 has a much more intuitive UI.
Interestingly, after the single hour I originally got on the official Apple battery, it's now up to about 3 hours of light use. It must have been bought at the end of availability. The battery has something like 35 cycles on it. Neat! But it's still not quite enough for my liking. Along with the 1024x768 screen, it's by far the hardest thing to deal with. The screen is of decent quality for the era but the lack of horizontal real estate feels real cramped as more and more content is developed to make better use of wide aspect ratios.
I don't have much in the way of conclusions I guess. I don't think anybody should really buy one with the intention of using it as their only computer these days. That said it does work in a pinch, it was very cheap, and they've held up surprisingly well aesthetically too. I think it probably still serves totally fine for some niche uses - especially applications that aren't internet driven.
