ibook G4 questions

whitecrook

whitecrook

whitecrook

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Hi all


Anyone still running one of these?


I'm interested in a portable (i.e. 12 inch) laptop and there are some PCs around this spec, I can't feel happy about spending 150-200 on 64M PIIs so I see one can get Ibook G4 for around 200 quid depending on spec and this looks like a winner to me... because the smallest new mac laptop you can get is 13 inch at 700 squid - too expensive.


And they run OS X :)

Can these run Leopard 10.5?

What is the minimum recommended RAM amount I see them with 640 / 768 / 1.5 GB (like, win xp will run in 128 but 256 is a good min, and it requires 512 at least to be useful and 1GB is plenty)

Do they all come with WIFI as standard? I have a WRTGL router.

Any one know of common probs and easy fixes (i've seen a few with no backlight, for example)

How good os the sleep/suspend/resume functionality?

And...

What would be the minimum spec you would feel happy using on one?



EDIT oh and do these take standard laptop memory so I could in theory get a lower spec and upgrade with more ram?

Regards all..
 
Last edited:
whitecrook said:
Uhhh I thought it was 800Mhz G4 or faster, but I wanted confirmation from you mac guys.
Click to expand...

Apple said:
A Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5 or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or better) processor
Click to expand...

It was recently changed to exclude 800Mhz machines.

Edit: You'll also need;

# 512MB memory
# DVD drive for installation
# 9GB of free disk space
 
So, to confirm, an IbookG4, with a min of 512MB and 867Mhz Proc will run Leopard.

Will this be 'usable' or slower than a sloth through treacle?

My experience of Macs stretches as far as LCIII's about 15 years ago, and a Dual G5 Mac tower I borrowed for a while, so I don't have any real feel for these things. Much appreciated.
 
I had/have an iBook G4 and its a nice little machine, although a little slow. I run it with 512mb RAM and to be honest that is the bare minimum.

As far as I know they all have bluetooth and wifi... mine does anyway. I dont know of any specific problems. It can run a little hot sometimes when its worked hard. The sleep and suspend functions work fine (Tiger), in fact, I probably have more problems with my MacBook (which is not often).

Used as a portable web browser/word processor its brilliant. Quiet, good battery life (5 hours approx in my experience) and small enough to chuck in your backpack. I used to take mine to uni and work in the canteen or whatever.

It runs dvds fine, but can struggle with some video files. It will probably laugh at you if you tried HD on it.

If you have any more questions just ask and I'll try to answer them.
 
theheyes said:
Used as a portable web browser/word processor its brilliant. Quiet, good battery life (5 hours approx in my experience) and small enough to chuck in your backpack. I used to take mine to uni and work in the canteen or whatever.

It runs dvds fine, but can struggle with some video files. It will probably laugh at you if you tried HD on it.
Click to expand...


Nice. That's what I need, small, good battery, and ideal for using to read/take notes. I'd like to be able to watch divx/xvid on it as well though...

What CPU does yours have. What is the best CPU you can get? 1.33GHz?

What browser do you use? Is there any graphical lag when e.g. drawing windows or pictures and stuff?
 
Mine was the latest iBook, 1.33Ghz. I think the best you could get was 1.4Ghz.

I use Safari 2 and Firefox depending on the site/how I felt. There is a little bit of graphical lag but only when I have a lot open (lots of dashboard widgets are a big culprit). This is why I would say 512 RAM is the bare minimum.

In regards to video, dont get me wrong it does play videos fine (it has a dedicated card afterall) I just think that when you have a few apps open in the background and you try to play a video, things can get a little slow to respond. Its a RAM thing. I'd definately go with 1GB RAM.
 
I just remembered - there were reports of the motherboard failing in a few iBooks. I dont know how widespread the problem was, and mines been fine (touch wood) but it would be something to watch out for if buying second hand.
 
Best computer purchase I've made so far, tbh. I got the one in my sig about a year ago for £300 on MM, put another gig of RAM in it and it's served me well as a main machine quite happily. It handles video up to 1024x768 quite happily and still keeps 3 hours of battery life.

If you can get a good condition one for £200 then go for it and upgrade it as much as possible. Beware that they scratch really easily, and I didn't bother getting a case for it so mine's in pretty poor condition now.
 
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