What Mac Should I Buy? *URGENT*

[Goftrey]

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Hi guys, I've been on a rollercoaster ride the last few weeks with my second hand iBook g3 I got off eBay for £60... The first thing I had to get to grips with that I couldn't download barely any software on the thing and that it's old and dying slowly... Then. The worst thing that could ever happen to an iBook happened, the faulty backlight... I've only had it for three weeks and it's going back on eBay for spares/repairs. Now, I'm obviously going to be in need of a laptop (definatley a mac). I'm only a student and have a budget of around £60-£70. I would like a machine that's running leopard. So on my shortlist is a... (another) iBook g3, an iBook g4, a PowerBook g3 (super ancient) and a PowerBook g4 (hard to find one of them for under £100, let alone £70)... One word, help?!?!

Ps. It also had to have an aiport slot (which means the only PowerBook g3 that's even worth considering is the Pismo (FireWire)

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP WITH MY (*****) AND NOW FAULTY IBOOK G3

 

[cocacolakid]

The CPU has to be at least 867 mhz to officially run 10.5 Leopard, so a Pismo is out, unless you are OK with 10.4 Tiger instead.

I don't know what the market is like in the UK, price wise, but in the U.S. it's almost impossible to find any G4 iBook or PowerBook for your budget.

You might have to settle for another G3 running Tiger.

 

[cocacolakid]

Low End Mac has a nice comparison chart of specs on G3 iBooks...

http://lowendmac.com/pb2/ibook-guide.html

There are ways to put Leopard on slower Macs, which someone here should be able to guide you, or do a search on MacRumors to see how well it might run on a slower G3 iBook.

I believe the official specs for 10.5 Leopard require a G4 running at 867 mhz or faster.

 

[zen.state]

Low End Mac has a nice comparison chart of specs on G3 iBooks...

http://lowendmac.com/pb2/ibook-guide.html

There are ways to put Leopard on slower Macs, which someone here should be able to guide you, or do a search on MacRumors to see how well it might run on a slower G3 iBook.

I believe the official specs for 10.5 Leopard require a G4 running at 867 mhz or faster.

10.5 need Altivec in the CPU to run on a PowerPC. That means G4 and G5 CPU's only. There is no way around that whatsoever. The only hacks that can be done is making it run on a G4 slower than 867MHz.

 

[chrismacguy]

To put it simply, its nearly impossible that you will manage to find a laptop that will work well with Leopard for under £100. The only laptops that work with Leopard are PowerBook/iBook G4s and to make it useable you'd want to be over 867Mhz. The prices I've seen for a PowerBook G4 867/1.0 with the 1GB RAM you'd really want , are about £120 ish. If your very lucky you might manage to get a 867 12"/1Ghz 15" under £100 if you pick an auction that ends at a really odd time, however its quite unlikely (I can currently see a single decent G4 under 70 quid, and that will probably go up to £100-£110 before it sells in 11hrs time).

For your budget your looking at a PowerBook G3 or possibly a PowerBook G4 Titanium - while the G4 Titanium can run Leopard, I really, really, really wouldn't want too. Especially not on the early models (Without the DVI port - these are some 667Mhz models and anything below), as its diabolical to say the least, even with 1GB of RAM. I'd say 10.4.11 Tiger is the maximum you'll get for a laptop in your budget.