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alexreich

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 26, 2011
640
28
I've found one online for $90 shipping and everything. Unit appears to be in excellent condition.
 
Well, "worth it" can mean a lot of things to different people. I think it's a good deal so long as it's in really good shape. Just keep in mind that PowerMac G4's and G5's are probably the best deal you can get in terms of most power for your money. You can easily pick up a dual processor G4 or G5 for under $200.

EDIT: I notice you already have a PowerMac G5. Disregard the part about buying a PowerMac. Also, how much RAM does it (the iBook) have?
 
If your planning to use for the internet,i would save your money and buy a 12" powerbook.
I have owned both... the 12" 1.25/1.33 powerbook makes using the net with a lot less lag.
 
EDIT: I notice you already have a PowerMac G5. Disregard the part about buying a PowerMac. Also, how much RAM does it (the iBook) have?

Haha yeah. My G5 is at Desktop duties, but I would like to have a 'mobile' Mac running at least Tiger. It has 768MB RAM, but I have laptop RAM in my closet that will fit the machine. I have two 512MB sticks.

I really don't mind having a PPC or Intel, but PPC is pocket-friendly for me. I'd like to spend around $100-130 on a 1GHz or more G4-based iBook/PowerBook.

Ideally I'd find a 1.25GHz/1.42GHz/1.5GHz/1.67GHz iBook or PowerBook, but in my $130 price range I really have to drop the CPU power to be able to find anything.

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If your planning to use for the internet,i would save your money and buy a 12" powerbook.
I have owned both... the 12" 1.25/1.33 powerbook makes using the net with a lot less lag.

The main Internet usage of this machine would be browsing MacRumors, Cult of Mac, OS X Daily, Amazon, and eBay. And the occasional use of YouTube, but with MacTubes, not a browser. Should that matter in these terms?

Not sure if I've mentioned this before on the forums, but I've gotten along with my 450MHz Sawtooth G4 for months before I got my 1.8GHz G5 so I'm pretty well-grounded on my expectations of what I can or cannot do with this machine.
 
I love my aluminum body Powerbook G4 its quite zippy with my airport extreme card for the most part I just use it with an icurve hooked up to apple keyboard and mouse in my room because my g5 power mac doesn't fit.
I would recommend a PowerBook G4 to anyone looking for a cheap powerpc alternative to intel macbooks.
The specs are
1.33ghz PowerPC G4
768mb RAM
60gb Solid State drive

a 12 inch brand new lcd display new battery and combo drive with a nice leather case that rolls

Keep in mind that I picked this up for only $135 this just proves that if you look hard enough you can find great deals on apple laptops
 
Just hit a bid on a 1.5GHz PowerBook G4. Hopefully I'll get it :)
 
I recently purchased a couple of 12" Powerbooks (a 1.5 and a 1.3) off Ebay. Both were in the "a little beat up" category, and I paid $70 (from a fellow Canadian) for the 1.3 and $100 (best offer) for the 1.5 (plus shipping). Both turned out to be in better shape than I expected, with batteries that were good for over an hour.
The 1.5 turned out to have a dead hard drive, and the seller gave me a rebate to cover the cost of a new hard drive. I had thought from iFixit that replacing the hard drive would be difficult, but it actually took me less than an hour and a little care and patience. It was mostly a matter of removing and replacing an endless series of screws. :D

You should be able to find something for around $100 without too much trouble.
 
I'd say the 1.33 GHz iBook G4 would be the best one to use for internet. I have no idea why, but on Leopard they just seem way faster, and you have two-finger scrolling built-in. I guess you can use iScroll2, but I'm using it on my 15" PowerBook G4, and it's so jerky that you can't really use it for much. Just trying to scroll down a blog brought me two articles up, as an example. It could work for you, and I've heard from some people it works well on their laptops, so it could work for you.
 
Whoops didn't think about that. If I get it I'll order a 1GB stick as well.
 
I'd say the 1.33 GHz iBook G4 would be the best one to use for internet. I have no idea why, but on Leopard they just seem way faster, and you have two-finger scrolling built-in. I guess you can use iScroll2, but I'm using it on my 15" PowerBook G4, and it's so jerky that you can't really use it for much. Just trying to scroll down a blog brought me two articles up, as an example. It could work for you, and I've heard from some people it works well on their laptops, so it could work for you.

I currently have a 14" 1.33GHz iBook G4 and it does pretty good with the internet. Obviously theres some stuff it still lags on (i.e., youtube), but that's as expected. The 14" doesn't have two finger scrolling built in, but there's a program called iScroll2 and it works great. In fact I'm typing on it right now. iScroll2 isn't that bad, but I really had to turn down the settings or else it went way too fast.

With any iBook, I would recommend maxing out the RAM. I also wouldn't go any lower than 1.33/1.2GHz. I also use Tiger instead of Leopard, but I'm sure it could run Leopard just fine. I can't compare it with any PowerBooks but so far mine has done everything I've wanted it for.

Also, I know this is a little off topic, but the only difference between the 14" and the 12" is the screen size. The resolution is the same on both. In fact, unless you have a hard time seeing the text the 12" would probably be just fine.
 
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