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si_lance · Dec 8, 2003, 06:47 PM

A friend of mine has a G3 icebook(500Mhz/640MB/20GB/combodrive) and offered me it plus $600 for my G4. I'm beginning to wonder if that's not a bad idea. I don't really do any cpu intensive work on the G4 aside from ripping CDs I bought into iTunes. As long as 10.3.1 runs smoothly on it, I don't see why this wouldn't be a bad idea. His iBook is mechanically sound, I know this firsthand and he's a trusted friend of mine. The G4 iBook is my first mac since a Quadra660AV. Would I miss the speed difference using Mail, Safari, iTunes, and iChat most of the time? I have a work laptop Dell X300 so I just use the iBook for leisure and occasional PHP/mysql dev which I do via terminal and vim so no need for a heavy editor like BBEdit. What do you all think?

NYCFarmboy · Dec 8, 2003, 09:43 PM

I'd take it!

I am typing this on a 2 year old 500 mhz g3 icebook...

The Good Points:

This ibook has been my favorate laptop of all time. It came with a 10 gig drive, but I had a 40 gig installed in its place.

I like the color/finish of this older ibook better. The area around the keyboard is a nice silver...not the white opaque plastic. Also the outer shell is translucent...not opague like the newer ibooks. I personally think Apple downgraded the looks of the ibook intentionally to set powerbooks apart more.

500mhz G3 is fine for web/email/chat, I have 384 megs of ram...often run 5 applications at a time. I get the spinning ball alot..but..its not too slow.

Over the summer I used a 12" Powerbook G4 with a 877 mhz chip. I honestly didn't see a whole lot of differencce between my ibook and the g4 12" powerbook. (I think it only had 256 megs of ram though).

I have a g4 1.42 dual tower I do most of my processor intensive tasks on. This ibook I mostly use for travel/couch surfing.

The 500 mhz ibook screen is still perfect....and as I understand it, it is the same exact screen still being used in 12" powerbooks and 12" ibooks yet today with no changes in tech specs.

On the down side:
The battery might be shot unless you replace it in the older one. I'm on my 2nd battery. It holds about 2 and a half hours of charge now.

Its at least 2 years old now. I've not yet installed panther. I have it running Jaguar 10.2.8. And have it running exactly how I want so not real wild about going to Panther, but I guess I'm going to have to to keep my ichat software working.

Also.. I have one problem creeping up on me... I have a very slight burnt rubber smell coming up from the keyboard. I'm told it might be the powersupply going bad. (no I never bought the 3 year apple care thing)...should have, could have, would have.

I had only planned on keeping this latop a year or so until a laptop came out with a DVD burner. But...I just liked this one so much I didn't want to replace it. I still don't.

I'm going to be using a 17" Powerbook the next month, and will see how I like that, but I suspect for traveling or just sitting on my couch, this ibook will continue to be my main laptop.

si_lance · Dec 8, 2003, 10:16 PM

wow thanks for that review... I think the icebook has Applecare for another year, but I don't know if it's transferrable... anybody know? Keep the opinions coming.

James L · Dec 8, 2003, 11:34 PM

Applecare goes with the machine, is my understanding... so if you sell the machine, the applecare can be sold with it.

castle3 · Dec 22, 2003, 12:04 AM

I also think you should go for it. I have a G3 icebook and it seems,to me, more durable then the new G4. Another plus side is that sometimes slot loading drives (like the ones that the G4's come with) over time can eat your cds and keep them. I know with the G3 icebooks, it has a fail safe that will force your drive to eject if something like that happens. I may not be right about the G4s having that, but also slot loading drives have been known to put scratches on your cds over times as well. And then then theres that whole asthetic look that was aforementioned.

si_lance · Dec 22, 2003, 12:53 AM

I have to wait until after the 2004 Macworld in SF (January) since we don't know what ol' Steve has up his sleeve, and my buddy wants to know before we do this trade.

ccsccs7 · Dec 22, 2003, 04:09 AM

Originally posted by NYCFarmboy:
...

Its at least 2 years old now. I've not yet installed panther. I have it running Jaguar 10.2.8. And have it running exactly how I want so not real wild about going to Panther, but I guess I'm going to have to to keep my ichat software working....

In case you didn't know and were eluding to having to upgrade to Panther to keep iChat, you can purchase iChat seperately.

Grrr · Dec 22, 2003, 06:58 AM

On the subject of iChat AV.. Keep in mind that the video part of it wont run on a G3 mac of less than 600mhz.. Will be fine for text and audio though.
If it was me, i'd stick with the G4 iBook.

WizOSX · Dec 22, 2003, 10:07 AM

Originally posted by si_lance

I have to wait until after the 2004 Macworld in SF (January) since we don't know what ol' Steve has up his sleeve, and my buddy wants to know before we do this trade.

That's good for you too because you may have a different take on the deal in a month. Especially about what's a fair trade.

Lateralus · Dec 22, 2003, 04:28 PM

Go with the G3 + $600. You'd be crazy not to take it.

ryeguy · Dec 23, 2003, 04:23 AM

si_lance:

Thinking of selling that piece of crap G4 already?

tooki · Dec 25, 2003, 01:20 PM

I wouldn't take it -- I think you will feel the speed difference, since OS X is heavily optimized for the G4. Additionally, the 500MHz iBook does not support Quartz Extreme, meaning that on top of having a slower CPU, the graphics chip can't take over any of the effort (as is the case in newer iBooks). In other words, it'll be slower still.

I have OS X running on a 400MHz PowerBook G3 and it runs OK, but it feels painfully slow at times -- it's easy to bog it down.

tooki

si_lance · Dec 25, 2003, 01:31 PM

Yeah after further consideration... I think if I had originally bought the icebook then it may have been ok, but now that I've been happily computing for the last 2 months, I don't think I could go back. Although I really don't do much as far as CPU intensive work. I don't run a JVM/Java container and an IDE like I do at work. I pretty much stick to the iApps, Mail, and Safari (oh and of course Perl, vi, and ssh). The only thing that I'm really spoiled by is the ripping/burning speed of iTunes. I rip on iTunes (win32) at work on a P4-1.8Ghz/512MB and my iBook seems just as fast if not faster. Thanks for all the replies peoples.

Lateralus · Dec 25, 2003, 01:40 PM

I'd take the performance hit by stepping down to the G3 500, and use the $600 to buy a used Digital Audio G4 or a Dual G4 Sawtooth. Shoot, I was able to get the G4 in my signature sans the 120GB drive for a mere $600. Yes, $600.

But anyways, I'm sure you'll be happy with whatever decision you make.

si_lance · Dec 25, 2003, 01:53 PM

Powermac,
Thanks for the suggestion, but unlike most people on the board, I don't really want/need more than one computer. I already have 2 notebooks (one for work runs win2k) at home, and I have a colocated RH6.2 Linux web/database server. I run apache/php and mysql on my iBook (which runs great by the way) as a dev environment. Did I mention I have a XP Pro workstation at work also? With so many computers my PS2 is getting neglected and we can't have now can we?

jokell82 · Dec 25, 2003, 04:29 PM

Why doesn't your friend just sell his iBook? He could get around $600 for it anyway, then just get his own new iBook...

I DEFINITELY would not downgrade to a 500 G3. I had one, and I upgraded to a 700 G3 a year later. The difference was night and day (Quartz Extreme wont run on that 500, which makes a huge difference in OS X).