[mralan313]

Hey I`m a window user, but I want to start using apple. Im getting really mad at windows so i decided to go mac, and anyways I have a really small limit so tell me if this is any good.......

Heres the first ibook
Specification:

Processor: 500 mhz G3 PowerPC with 512k Level 2 on-chip cache, 67Mhz bus speed

Display: 12.1" 24-bit XGA (1024x768) TFT LCD

Airport Ready

CD-ROM: The system has a original CD ROM drive

Memory: 320 MB of APPLE PC133 SDRAM

Hard Drive: 20.0 Gigabyte Ultra ATA Hard Drive

Operating System: OS X.35PANTHER Brand new load.

Port: Dual USB Ports

Firewire Port

Network: 10/100 Networking Port and 56k Modem

Video: ATI RAGE Mobility 128 with 8MB VRAM


And if i cant get that one then heres this one

500Mhz
128Ram
12" Screen
10GB Hard Drive
CD-ROM
Modem + Ethernet
OS 10.3.2

Thanks for the help and one other question are the clamshell ones anygood?

[Cucucachoo]

It is slightly dated. I hope your not looking to do gaming on it. But as long as your not looking to do any heavy graphics processing or movie making it should do you well. I would go with the bigger HD and the more memory though.

As far as clamshells goes, i really don't know anything about them. I do know that the green one is the one that i would want. Thats because i like the color green and to my understanding is the faster clamshell they put out. But I could and most likely am wrong.

[mduell]

Sligtly dated? The thing is a boat anchor.

It will be slow. As long as you're ok with only opening a program or two and a document or two at a time it will work. You'll find yourself waiting for web pages to render. Forget games, video editing, or anything like that.

If that is all your budget allows, I'd take the first one. The second one is even worse. And clamshell is the worst.

edit: Yea, that came off a bit more negative than I intended. But you're looking at a computer based on a CPU that was new in 2000 (and at the time there were faster chips available).

[Cucucachoo]

On my iBook i can run Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Tranmit, iChat, iTunes, Safari and Mail, with no lag at all. Albeit the memory is maxed out but it still runs it all with no problem. Of course this is also with 100mhz more cpu than the one in question.

[demibob]

it's dated but its still a great little laptop
One of my freinds left me his old one with similar specs when he got a 12 inch powerbook
I have a new ibook now so i don't use it much any more.

[mralan313]

Ok thanks guys........Im probobly going to end up with one of them tonight. Today im selling one of my windows computers so that i can buy one of those. This isnt going to be for gaming......What im going to be using it for is for taking it to school, doing homework, going online, taking it with me, and wathing dvds on it. Its looking like im going to be going with
but when i get more money im going to upgrade the ram, then the hard drive.

500Mhz
128Ram
12" Screen
10GB Hard Drive
CD-ROM
Modem + Ethernet
OS 10.3.2

[mralan313]

Or does anyone else have any ideas for a mac for me? My budget is $400 thats with shipping.

[demibob]

you could almost get a brand new mac mini for just over that
but i guess from this thread it has to be a laptop
The laptop's battery probably isnt that good anyway
you wouldnt even need to buy a screen with the right cables you could plug it into a tv

[teknopimp]

i suggest pulling out your plastic (or sell something else, work some overtime, etc) and getting a brand new ibook because you may be disappointed with G3 performance or have to deal with reliability issues since it is an old machine. just my two cents.

[mralan313]

Theres always http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-G4-Cube-Po...QQcmdZViewItem

but if i didnt getta notebook i would get
http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-eMac-700mh...QQcmdZViewItem

[teknopimp]

you get what you pay for. i'd just hate to see someone's first mac experience be a bad one because you never know what you're gonna get with a used machine. happy hunting.

[mralan313]

Thanks.........I guess....^, But like what one should i get though? I mean i really dont know anything about macs. I know ALOT about windows, but noting about macs. Are the Emacs any good? Ifound a g4 emac and a g4 cube.....I guess the higher the g the better and the best out is g5 so yeah....

[mduell]

$400 gets you a refurb Mac mini.

[mralan313]

^ i cant find one

[demibob]

a brand new mac mini from the apple website costs 499
look on apple website

[mduell]

Click on Special Deals and scroll down.

I guess its $429 now...

Refurbished Mac mini 1.25GHz
1.25GHz PowerPC G4
512MB DDR333 SDRAM
ATI Radeon 9200 with 32MB DDR video memory
40GB Ultra ATA hard drive
Combo drive (DVD/CD-RW)
DVI or VGA video output
Built-in 56K Internal Modem
Learn More
• Save 15% off the original price
Original price: $499.00
Your price: $429.00

Estimated Ship:
1-2 business days
Free Shipping

[Cucucachoo]

have you seen the two iBooks in action? if so and they work well and are for a good price(less than 400) i would go for it.

[mralan313]

^mduell where did you get that from? Like what site?

[mralan313]

mdeull what site is that from?

[TheoCryst]

Go to http://store.apple.com and scroll to the bottom of the page. On the left, you'll see a link for "Apple Refurbished." Click that to check out the coolness of Apple refurbs.

[ghporter]

Follow the instructions mduell posted a few posts up. On the Apple Store site, on the right hand side you'll find a box labeled "Special Deals." This is the way you get to Apple's refurb store. mduell said "Click on Special Deals and scroll down." Do just that.

While I think ANY OS X experience will be enjoyable for a Windows user (and a little bit confusing now and then because it's different) a better machine will make it much better.

[RadarBob2]

I recently bought a used 900MHz iBook at www.techrestore.com. Came w/ a no questions asked return policy and a 6 month warranty.

Whatever you get I strongly recommend 640MB minimum (128 on board and 512MB module) and OS 10.3 (aka Panther). 10.3 actually runs noticeably faster than 10.2.x

[imitchellg5]

I would get the first one and add more ram. Good luck.

[tooki]

Mac OS X on 128MB of RAM is something you do only as an experiment. It doesn't run acceptably with 256MB. With 128MB, it's an exercise in patience (at both lack of speed, and lack of stability). Looooots of patience.

I do not recommend to anyone running OS X with less than 512MB. 1GB is my recommendation for most, considering how cheap RAM is.

tooki

[volcano]

Originally Posted by tooki

Mac OS X on 128MB of RAM is something you do only as an experiment. It doesn't run acceptably with 256MB. With 128MB, it's an exercise in patience (at both lack of speed, and lack of stability). Looooots of patience.

I do not recommend to anyone running OS X with less than 512MB. 1GB is my recommendation for most, considering how cheap RAM is.

tooki

I agree on 128MB of RAM + OS X being generally unusable, but not with 256MB. I beg to differ. I bought a close friend of mine an iBook G4 (800MHz model, 256MB RAM) and it runs Tiger flawlessly. It may not boot up as fast as my 2GHz iMac G5 or 1.33GHz iBook G4, but it doesn't boggle the machine down. I was thinking about upgrading the RAM as soon as I could, but for her purposes (internet, e-mail, IM, a bit of Fireworks, Word) it's fine for the time being.

[Timetheus]

I still use my iMac Dv 400 mhz with 10.3 and the occasional photoshop or iMovie project. Works great for me, but it's being replaced by a new MacBook Pro sometime soon... I hope... I agree with most people here though - I'd look for something a little less dated, it'll last longer at very least.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by volcano

I agree on 128MB of RAM + OS X being generally unusable, but not with 256MB. I beg to differ. I bought a close friend of mine an iBook G4 (800MHz model, 256MB RAM) and it runs Tiger flawlessly. It may not boot up as fast as my 2GHz iMac G5 or 1.33GHz iBook G4, but it doesn't boggle the machine down. I was thinking about upgrading the RAM as soon as I could, but for her purposes (internet, e-mail, IM, a bit of Fireworks, Word) it's fine for the time being.

Given as much RAM as possible, Mac OS X alone will use over 200MB right after booting up. Launching one single application is then enough to push memory use beyond 256MB. I have used Mac OS X with 256MB, and it's dog-slow. Why hold back the speed of the entire machine to save $25, which is all 256MB is worth? Going to 512MB provides a massive speed boost for average use. Anything beyond 512MB brings more modest improvements. Actual speed tests confirm this.

tooki

[ghporter]

640MB is a nice sweetspot on the 800MHz iBook G4. That took adding one 512 DIMM in the user-accessible slot (under the AirPort card) to complement the built in 128, that's all. When we did that it cost $95, but prices have fallen dramatically-you can probably get the same DIMM for half that. A very solid, very useful upgrade. If you have 256 built in, you just go up to 768, which is good too. With RAM, more is better, ALWAYS.

[invisiblefrog]

Just a quick note, you mentioned school/homework... Click on store for education before you click the red deals tag, you will save a little extra. Not much, but a little. This of course is on the apple site.

[milhous]

you said that you wanted to watch dvd's on it. obviously if it's just has a cd-rom drive, it won't be possible.

[SciFrog]

I used daily a 500mhz iBook with 384MB ram 20GB HD, Airport, running tiger. Granted it is only for emails and internet browsing, also iCal and Address Book, but it work great, fast enough (ie no beachballing), still I don't load Dashboard, use iPhoto or iMovie.

Sorry but this thread is too bashing for that old iBook, it works perfectly depending what you need it for

[polendo]

I have a 700 G3 iBook w 640 mb RAM and OS X 10.4. Its fine for browsing, email and chatting. Word processing on MS Word is slow.. Powerpoint is slow too. Excel is fine (vs. a Compaq 900 mhz Duron w/256 MB RAM). Video.. no way.. since brand I haven't been able to watch "decently" any video.. it just stutters all around. My recomendation is to save the 400 until you can get a new Mac. I still keep mine, but seldom use it anymore.

Right now I get my mac fix with a Mac mini w/ 1 GB of RAM, until I get to see what intel brings to the table this year.

[l008com]

I wouldn't get a G3 these days. Just too slow especially with all the video thats out there in the world today. You want at least a G4, with at least 512 MB of ram, and at least a 20+ GB Hard Drive. Any less and its going to be anywhere between painfully slow and dog slow. Plus laptops wear out. Something like a used ibook thats a year old might not be bad. But I'd never buy a 5 year old laptop, especially if I was planning on doing real work with it. I think your best bet might be to get an apple refurbished iBook. Its going to cost more than your budget for sure, but you are talking about computer that you are going to be using every day. Also, as has been said already, if portability isn't required, you can get a brand new mac mini that will blow a 500mhz G3 away. And it has 512 MB of ram which is good.

[Ian_Bullock]

If its any use, I'm using a G3 500mhz powerbook, and it still runs everything pretty quickly - never noticed any slowdown in it on everyday tasks. Max out the Ram whatever you do, mine had 256MB when I got it and now has 1GB. The difference is amazing. And if you're planning to upgrade the hard drive make sure you put at least a 5400rpm one in. It gave me a big speed boost when opening programs.

However I'd have serious doubts about a G3 ibook, as the logic boards are likely to fail on them, though if its gotten to 5 years old it might not be one of the dodgy ones.

If you're on such a tight budget my recommendation for usefulness and expandability would be a G3 pismo powerbook - much easier to upgrade internally, larger ram limit, same cpu speed, and can slot a pcmcia wireless card in the side and get airport extreme functionality. The ibooks are reliant on airport, and the airport cards are getting very expensive to buy nowadays. Also easy to upgrade the optical drive to whatever you want on a pismo, and has two firewire ports

But anything with a G3 processor in is getting past it, and probably won't be supported by the next operating system update - they all have very slow graphics by today's standards.

Try to get a Mac mini or a G4 ibook if you have the money.
Good luck, Ian

[iREZ]

used g4 tower, mac mini, emac, or pismo are the only things worth buying at 400 dollars. each of these machines is findable on the net, and will run tiger decently well. dont get urself what you could afford right now, hold out a bit longer and get something a bit better. a total of 700 could get you a nice lil mac mini, a decent 17" lcd, and keyboard+mice on ebay. do yourself a favor and keep away from the g3.

[savagedudeguy]

20gb hard drive? I'd go out and buy an external hard drive, and um yeah good luck with this.

[I WAS the One]

Originally Posted by mralan313

Or does anyone else have any ideas for a mac for me? My budget is $400 thats with shipping.

Ebay my friend... You will find great Powerbooks there, if you want a powerful Powerbook with USB and Firewire running OS X, you will find a Powerbook Pismo that will boot with both OS 9 and Panther or Tiger, for that amount of money, and then after you fall in love and master that little baby you will be happy spending whatever it takes to have a brand new Mac Book Pro! so here are the links:

Expensive One: US $799.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/G3-Powerbook-Pis...QQcmdZViewItem

Cheaper One: $599.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/G3-Powerbook-Pis...QQcmdZViewItem

Real Cheap: $330.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/APPLE-POWERBOOK-...QQcmdZViewItem

or Check this sites: http://shrevesystems.com/
http://www.macofalltrades.com/Apple_Notebooks_s/5.htm