iBook G4

chrismscotland · 20 Jul 2009 at 22:44

Been looking at getting a netbook with the Samsung NC10 the main focus of my affection, however I've seen a lot of iBook G4's available on ebay and I am looking to make the switch to Mac with my next desktop pc, but I was wondering how useful a G4 iBook would be for browsing, office, and listening to music?

outsourcedsoul · 21 Jul 2009 at 10:05

It would be great for basic tasks like that, only potential downside is you wont be able to use the new OSX Snow Leopard when that comes out as I believe it's not compatible with the old Power PC processors.

Spuds · 21 Jul 2009 at 10:44

I have an old 13" iBook G4 that I bought ages ago for travelling with. I've since replaced it with a Macbook Air, but it'll still do everything you've listed with ease. As outsourcedsoul has said you won't be able to use the latest OSX on it, but I don't think that's much of a concern.

Purely out of interest, how much have you seen them going for on eBay? If its a decent price I may dig out the box for mine next time I'm at my parents house and pop mine on there.

chronicfathead · 21 Jul 2009 at 22:32

I would recommend a later aluminium cased iBook, over 867Mhz, so you could run Leopard. Although Tiger was very good, and I would say more stable than Leopard.

I would say go Leopard, as some apps are leopard only.

artaxerxes · 22 Jul 2009 at 17:17

I loved my old iBook G4, and it would be perfect for the tasks you list if it is 1GHz and has 1GB+ of Memory (this is the most important part! they come with one soldered stick of 256 on the early models - so you see a lot of 768s - which was fine back in the day - but try to get one with a 1Gig stick). I would be tempted to get one again if I didn't have a white Macbook!

Only thing is going to be battery life... it starts at 6 hours or so with these machines, but the battery is going to be old, so assume half, if the battery has been treated well. The new netbooks will crucify that.

chronicfathead · 22 Jul 2009 at 17:51

artaxerxes said:
Only thing is going to be battery life... it starts at 6 hours or so with these machines, but the battery is going to be old, so assume half.

Can you not get new batteries for the iBooks any more? A new battery usually makes a world of difference.

I know some of the new netbooks have a stated long life, but not all of them. Some are still rated at 3 hours. Don't assume that a netbook will keep going for 7-8 hours on battery.

Also a lot of the netbooks I have seen (samsung N10 and a couple of HP's) have got dim screens, which in anything approaching sunlight are dreadful to use.

mosfet · 23 Jul 2009 at 23:21

I've got an iBook G4 12" (in sig) which I use almost daily still.

You *can* buy batteries from them, either very expensively from Apple or (as I did) from a cheap Chinese manufacturer on eBay. I get around 3hrs from mine, 1 year after replacing it.

Main problems:

Flash video decoding brings it to its knees, even though full screen h.264 decoding is fine. Flash and other apps are just not optimised for PPC.

In the same vein, browsing can be quite slow. Safari 4 and Firefox 3.5 do help quite a lot, but for long pages or Flash-heavy pages can be painful.

The screen is rather dim. My girlfriend's new Macbook Pro makes an absolute mockery side-by-side.

Try picking up a first-gen Macbook 13" if you can. I've seen them for as little as £350 on some sites.

Good luck, you won't be disappointed by an Intel Apple laptop.