Desperately seeking an old iBook/Powerbook! • Non-Gaming • Apple, Mac, and iPod • Eurogamer.net

ruttyboy 12 Oct 2005 15:04:12 7,950 posts
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The following is a vicarious message from Angel who can't get here from work:

"For various reasons, I want to get my hands on an Apple laptop - not a new one by any means, but an oldie, an old iBook or Powerbook that would be capable of running OSX (so over 400Mhz or thereabouts) and wouldn't be incredibly slow. I mostly want to use it for doing my coursework on the train and stuff like that. I was just wondering if any of you lot had one you might want rid of, or if anyone you know has one, before I start looking on ebay.

Not really holding my breath - I don't know too many people that have a Mac laptop!"

Angel_Treats 12 Oct 2005 18:48:10 11,070 posts
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Bumpity. Gowan. Anyone?

asha 12 Oct 2005 19:25:43 2,023 posts
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Iv been eyeing up this one on ebay, its a great buy

Titanum Powerbook G4,
600Mhz
15" Screen
Combo-Drive
30Gb
512Mb Ram
Airport Wi-Fi

Ł475 on ebay

Edited by asha at 19:30:38 12-10-2005

Angel_Treats 12 Oct 2005 19:28:55 11,070 posts
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Ta for that. Bit more than I'm wanting to pay though, to be honest, I was thinking more along the lines of Ł300ish. Y'know... old! I saw this one, what do you think?

asha 12 Oct 2005 19:30:44 2,023 posts
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Angel_Treats wrote:
Ta for that. Bit more than I'm wanting to pay though, to be honest, I was thinking more along the lines of Ł300ish. Y'know... old! I saw this one, what do you think?

I wouldn't really recommend g3's they've been known to have quite serious problems

Angel_Treats 12 Oct 2005 19:35:57 11,070 posts
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Have they? Like what? I did have a G3 iMac for a while but didn't use it that much and sold it on when I got my eMac shipped over here. I had a beige G3 too I think. Can't remember there being problems with either of them. Whatever laptop I do get, it won't get very heavy use, it's only really for train journeys and stuff mostly.

asha 12 Oct 2005 19:42:57 2,023 posts
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Angel_Treats wrote:
Have they? Like what? I did have a G3 iMac for a while but didn't use it that much and sold it on when I got my eMac shipped over here. I had a beige G3 too I think. Can't remember there being problems with either of them. Whatever laptop I do get, it won't get very heavy use, it's only really for train journeys and stuff mostly.

Processors problems, i don't know what exactly goes wrong but if your just using it for light use and you've used G3's before i suppose you shouldn't come into too many problems. I say go for it

Angel_Treats 12 Oct 2005 19:44:21 11,070 posts
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What do you think of the price? Is it reasonable enough?

asha 12 Oct 2005 19:52:28 2,023 posts
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Angel_Treats wrote:
What do you think of the price? Is it reasonable enough?

Yes, looking at Pismos going for similar prices on their it seems a steal. (Just one though, the battery may need replacing)

Deleted user 12 October 2005 20:12:32

You're not planning on running Tiger on that are you?

Angel_Treats 12 Oct 2005 20:14:51 11,070 posts
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Um. Well aye, to be honest. I'd stick more memory in it though, obviously.

Deleted user 12 October 2005 20:23:14

Definitely more memory. But um... hmm, my 1.2GHz / 768MB RAM iBook just about copes with it.

Angel_Treats 12 Oct 2005 20:26:35 11,070 posts
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My 1Ghz/384MB eMac isn't doing too bad actually, it badly needs a clean install though (I just upgraded) and it's a bit of a mess at the minute so when I get a chance to back everything up, I'll be wiping and starting afresh. But it's a lot less slow than I thought it was. Even when I'm running Photoshop.

PinkSpider 12 Oct 2005 20:35:01 3,349 posts
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my 1gb 256mb ram isnt amazing for videos!

Angel_Treats 12 Oct 2005 20:40:43 11,070 posts
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It'll not be used for videos though!

/hugs eMac

Angel_Treats 12 Oct 2005 21:09:21 11,070 posts
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Bluddy hell, that was a bit of a bargain! I bought the Pismo anyway so hopefully it'll do the job alright. Bonus that it has Office installed as I don't have a copy of it already and will be needing it.

Angel_Treats 12 Oct 2005 21:33:00 11,070 posts
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Bill-Lumberg wrote:

Try and get some more RAM in it at some point though.

Oh, I most certainly will do! I'll probably grab some cheapo second hand memory off ebay - I've done it before and never had any dodgy RAM so hopefully I'll get lucky again.

I've done a few hours overtime lately so it's paid for the laptop and a bit of RAM, thought I might as well treat myself to a wee pressie

Deleted user 12 October 2005 22:28:23

Reckon that'll be the last CRT-based Apple machine evah?

Angel_Treats 12 Oct 2005 22:31:57 11,070 posts
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Shame if it is. I still prefer CRT to TFT and I don't care what anyone says ;-)

Deleted user 12 October 2005 23:13:36

Bill-Lumberg wrote:

mouse wrote:
Reckon that'll be the last CRT-based Apple machine evah?
100% yes. But they're cretins for not doing a cheap cinema display to go with the Mac mini. Why they dumped the 15" screen I'll never know. It's forcing people to buy a non-Apple screen unless they're minted.

Quite. I remember the day I bought my parents mini and my 20" ACD and used them together - it was a thing of beauty. Then I gave it to them and plugged it into their shitty budget LCD. I swear I could hear the little thing weeping.

Angel_Treats 12 Oct 2005 23:49:50 11,070 posts
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Yeah. My TFT is awful although it's taken me a while to realise it. Everything just looks so much nicer on the Mac. And when you're editing photos on the PC, no matter how much you fiddle with the settings you never get the colours quite spot on, not on that monitor anyway.

spindizzy 13 Oct 2005 00:42:17 7,755 posts
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I love my 20" ACD as well. It's flipping gorgeous ... I wouldn't ever buy one though! They cost so damn much!

PittsburghAfterDark 13 Oct 2005 09:40:44 4 posts
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Do not under ANY circumstances get a G3 iBook or Powerbook if you're hoping to run any version of OS X. They're fine for 9.X but OS X runs absolutely horrible on them. Many are limited to 256 or 512 MB of RAM (Slower RAM at that than is in current hardware.) and your lag time between apps if you're running more than 3 with 256 MB of RAM is horrible. Despite Apple saying you can run Tiger on a G3 from a practical standpoint it's horrible.

I got rid of my old G3 earlier this year and had to upgrade from Apple's then paltry 256MB to 1GB of RAM on a G4 laptop just to get any kind of relative stability and speed. Go to a G4 and at least 512MB if you're hoping to run OSX.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find one for 300 pounds (U.S. keyboard, no sterling symbol.) however check the U.S. version of eBay. Electronics are much more reasonably priced in dollars than pounds.