[macboy]

Well after all the great stuff Apple is doing lately, I decided to go buy my first mac. So im going to sell my current Compaq off for like a $1000 and get me a similar spec'd Powerbook.

I looked around eBay and found I can get a good condition Powerbook G4 15", with 1.5Ghz and 1 GIG of RAM, 80GB, Superdrive for about a $1000

Is that a good price for a Powerbook that was introduced almost a year and half ago? Would the performance be really aged as compared to the powerbooks of today..

Any views on this would be appretiated..

[legacyb4]

I'd say that's a fair price given the spec; RAM's boosted up, reasonable size hard drive, and Superdrive along with a 15" screen.

[Djliftinlive]

That's probably one of the best prices you're going to see.

I have the exact same laptop, and it works great (I paid 3200$ for mine though when it was introduced...)

But yes if you can get the manuals, original software, box etc. and it's in realatively good shape I'd go with the 1000$.

...But are you able to wait a few weeks and possibly purchase a new Macbook Pro?
Are you the type of person who wishes they had the latest technology, or just looking for a good, sturdy laptop?

[macboy]

**Sorry about this. The forum just acted wierd on me.

[macboy]

Although I'd like to have the latest and greatest out there, but Im still unsure about using a mac. I've used a PC all my life. So I wanted to give this a test run. Didnt want to buy something very old as that wouldnt give me the feel of a mac.

Also, what does this whole Rev. A/B mean? I see it on a lot of powerbooks..

[uicandrew]

when people say powerbook, that is a very general term. There have been powerbooks for many years, and they even look alike on the outside, but every once in a while, there are some upgrades made to the powerbook line (or any apple product) Much of it is unnoticable to the naked eye, but usually it is hardware upgrade, like faster processor, memory, etc.

Since apple is very hush hush about new products, they don't really have beta testers to work out the kinks. So many people turn their noses up at the first of any new line of apple products, because they think that it is full of bugs. Then roughly 4 months or so after the introduction of the product, a revised one hits the market, then that is dubbed Revision B.

the time between the revision varies. it isnt like clockwork. the best benchmark is over at macrumors.com in the buyer's guide section. they have mapped out every revision for every current product, then based on trends, they have a recommendation for buying now or waiting for the next revision.

if you want to give it a test run, then maybe a cheaper mac mini might do well. I used a mac mini for a test run last year, and it was fun. i've only been a mac user for 6 months, but i've learned so much from these forums.

although ebay has cheap macs, be very careful with powerbooks. I just bought mine off of ebay and over the course of a weekend, there have been 2 attempts to scam me, and i'm a veteran ebayer, who's never been a target of a scam. i would actually recommend buying from a fellow user off of these forums. You can ask many questions. and the price is comparable, if not better than ebay.

I bought my mac mini from a guy off the forums for an incredible price. I was SOOO close to buying my 17 powerbook off another forum member, but timing was bad. i encourage you to read my previous posts by clicking on my user name and selecting "find more posts by uicandrew."

i've had mini stories about my mac buying experience in my posts, and i try to make my posts informative, instead of a useless "i agree" or "lol"

[macboy]

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I'd originally thought of going with a Mini too but I need portability, so an iBook or a PB are my best bets. I'll definately be looking through the Buyers guide at MacRumors and keep my eyes open for offers up on Market place here.

Thanks for the help.

Also guys.. Does it make a difference if I get an iBook or a powerbook? Apart from the looks, if I get one with similar specs as a PB, are the iBooks like less sturdier or bulky?

[typerlover]

If you can get it for that price and its legit definitely a great deal. I just sold my 1.5 15" pb with 80gig hd/1gigram/sd for 1500 on ebay.

[uicandrew]

ibooks are made from a plastic polycarbonate. the pb is made from aluminium. the pb sub-forum has a couple recent stories about the dents that the pb got.

ibooks are MUCH more durable.

here's a link i posted earlier comparing the ibook and powerbook (both 12")

http://www.systemshootouts.org/shoot...k_12pbook.html

[AppleCello]

iBooks were originally built with the idea in mind that they would be a workhorse machine for students and mobile consumer-types. THey are meant to be tossed into a backpack with heavy text books and can take more of a physical beating than a powerbook.

I had an iBook for a while during college and i transported it just like another text book. Once I got my PowerBook, I realized that it would need its own padded sleve or even its own carrying case. its much more fragile than the ibook, though it has been beefed up with a more sturdy screen hinge design in recent years.

Do any of the iBooks have the Sudden Motion sensor for the hard disk? that would be a great feature to have on all notebooks. Depending on how you plan to use your Mac, I think that the iBook might be fine and save you some money, especially if you plan on replacing it with a new machine in 6-12 months.

[NetJunkie]

I sold my 15" 1.25GHz PB to a friend for $1K. 1GB RAM, Superdrive, etc. Fair price.

[Chad A Wright]

I just bought one off ebay. 15" 1.5 w/512MB RAM, 80GB HD, Superdrive for $1,278. I considered that to be a pretty good deal.

[wuzup101]

Yeah $1000 is a good price for that machine. I bought almost the same machine (less superdrive but with 128mb vram and 512mb that I upgraded to 2gb later) 1.5 years ago for $2100 with the ADC discount. After having a great experience with this machine... I will gladly drop another 2-3k for a new mac when this one is no longer useful --> something that seems like it's going to take a while. It's not the fastest computer, but compared to a faster PC I still get more work done on the mac, no question about it...

[amazing]

Main thing in looking at a used laptop is whether it has applecare, imo. A laptop without applecare is a risky investment. So, look at the "special deals" section of the Apple Store, where you'll get an idea about prices for refurbished laptops that come with a year of Applecare with the option of getting another 2 years within the first year. You'll also find links to refurbished laptops at dealmac.com

For example, smalldog.com is offering an Apple refurbished 12" 1.5ghz for $1090. All this will give you an idea about whether a price on eBay is too good to be true.

[macboy]

Cool.. I'll keep that in mind. I'd be bummed as hell if I end up getting spammed, but im fairly good with eBay so I can make out the bad apples.

About the 1.5ghz - how slow is it compared to the latest 1.67? How would you compare, if you had to - a 1.5Ghz PowerPC to a P4 or something like an AMD 64 bit, the one I use. Is ram the only factor that determines the speed or the processor plays an important role too?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by macboy

About the 1.5ghz - how slow is it compared to the latest 1.67? How would you compare, if you had to - a 1.5Ghz PowerPC to a P4 or something like an AMD 64 bit, the one I use. Is ram the only factor that determines the speed or the processor plays an important role too?

If you sat down to use both, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a 1.5 and a 1.67.
A 1.5Ghz G4 a bit slower than any Athlon 64. System Shootouts (which appears to have a slight Mac bias) says it's about as fast as an Athlon 1.5Ghz ("1800+") or a 2.0Ghz Pentium 4 or a 1.4Ghz Pentium M.
CPU and RAM can both matter; it depends on what you're doing.

[wuzup101]

I'll tell you that I went from a desktop that I built w/ an AMD "barton" XP 2500+ that was overclocked to 3200+ speeds (see sig) and I didn't notice any speed decrease.... that and the mac OS lets me get a whole hell of a lot more done then when I used windows (which I know how to use fairly well). Overall the PB/iBook are great portables... I would highly recomend either