Thinking about buying a g4 powerbook..

I was thinking of buying a used g4 powerbook, I was wondering if there were any major issues I should be worried about. It also does not have a working dvd drive, would that be hard to replace?

 

The next version of Mac OS X will not work on a non-Intel Mac. Replacing the DVD would be not worthwhile, since the component is now quite rare and the repair cost would most likely cost more than the laptop itself.
Unless you're getting one for a few hundred (<300) dollars, it's not worth it.

 

Dont do it, buying a powerbook at this point is a waste of money.

 

If you want an older something, how about an original Macbook Pro with the ATI Radeon X1600? The opinion is, that in simple tasks, the ATI card peforms better than the NVidia ones because the drivers are highly superior.

It's also a design close to the old Powerbook, but it has a dual-core CPU, and it'll run Snow Leopard.

 

It is true that ATI writes a bit better driver but its not true that the older radeon outperforms even the nvidia 8600m gt.

http://www.barefeats.com/santarosa.html I know this is gaming but even the nvidia 8600m gt still blazes past by the old radeon in OSX as well. Just too lazy to find the performances in the OSX, you can look for yourself though.

Just take a look, also the new 9600m gt makes the radeon look like chicken $hit in performance.

The 1st gen mbp is a good machine but it can only use up to 2gb of RAM and the 2.33ghz mbp only 3gb of RAM which is a shame.

 

There is nothing wrong with buying a powerbook at this point. They are still great computers and run Tiger and Leopard fine. Not everyone will upgrade to the newest hottness. And snow leopard is still a while away. Heck, I still use my 12" powerbook daily even though I also have a MBP.

I would only buy a powerbook with a dead optical drive if it was very cheap and even cheaper to fix. Find out what type of optical drvie it uses and check prices.

 

Instead of a powerbook, why not get one of the older white/black macbooks? Their still miles and ages faster than any powerbooks.

Sure you can surf the net on the powerbooks and get email but thats pretty much all you can do. You cant watch hd trailers or even watch higher definition videos online.

 

Source? I thought this was just a rumour at this point.......nothing confirmed.

 

If he's speaking of snow leopard he is correct. Whole point of snow leopard is for the multicore + gpu usages with the os.

Either way if there was even a slightest bit of chance that PPC does support it, I'm sure it defeats its own purpose and will see hardly any increase in performance in the powerbooks, maybe you would see somewhat increase with a powermac g5.

 

Yeah, it would be in the 200-150 range, so the price is right. I just sort of want to try out an apple on the cheap to see if I would really like it or not.

 

I say stay away. It does seem like a good price but with the CD drive busted you're pretty much screwed for reformatting.
At least invest some more money and try to find a core duo macbook pro. Those will last alot longer then the powerbooks.

 

It would make sense since snow leopard is really just performance, carrying around that extra PPC support won't help.

 

There is another solution, go to the apple store and bring a usb thumdrive (with whatever files you want to test out like movies and such) to try out a mbp for 30 minutes to 2 hours if you'd like.

Try the latest and find out how great they are. And for free.

 

He just has to boot off a usb drive with a leopard install on it and hes fine. Dont need a cd to install osx.

 

Why not invest in a core duo machine for a few hundred more? Didn't the powerbooks get insanely hot?

 

I really wouldn't go with a Powerbook because of all the technology around. I would really go with a Core Duo MB as your lowest choice, or even a low end ATI MBP. It's really not worth it, because the lack of older software and hardware for it.

 

Perhaps I wasn't specific enough - I was writing in relation to the power of the GPUs. Of course, the 9600M GT is considerably superior to the X1600, but when it comes to how the drivers harness that power...

 

Until it's been officially stated by Apple that Snow Leopard won't support PPC, it's simply a rumour and nothing more.

 

Either way, I would think it would be a waste to upgrade to snow leopard on an inferior system like a ppc machine (but it might be a little worth it for the G5 Power Macs).

 

Wow, glad I got a lot of replies. After thinking about it for a bit, I think I might just save up some more money for maybe an older macbook pro. I basically need something that I'll still be able to play games on once in a while. Thanks for all the help guys!

 

Quick update, I picked up a 17 inch mbp on clearance at Best Buy, we'll see if I like it or not.

 

Congratulations! It's the Unibody right?

 

No, it's one of the older ones. It cost a little less then a unibody, so I figured I didn't want to drop a whole wad without knowing if I could live with it long term.

 

Congrats, but dont forget to buy apple care especially with those 8600m gt cards...

 

Oh, ok, it'll still be a great machine! Just as jjahshik32 said, AppleCare will be a benefit if that 8600 card dies on you.

 

Yeah, I was definitely going to do that as soon as possible. I saw that there were varying prices for the applecare, which one is the one I'm supposed to get for this notebook?

 

The one that says for a Macbook Pro.

 

Ahhh, I see where I was getting mixed up now, there was one that was for a Mac Pro, but it's only for the desktop. Cool beans.

 

Here's the right AppleCare for your MBP: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB588LL/A?fnode=MTY1NDA2Mg&mco=MjQzNTc4Nw

You could also get it alot cheaper on eBay.

 

Thanks for the link. I was thinking about using ebay, but how reliable are the sellers, it's half the price that it would be from Apple. Anyone have a recommendation for a seller?

 

No problem for the link, and I'm sure I could find you a reliable seller on there. Make sure that if you buy AppleCare on eBay that it comes with the box, because my brother got scammed by one of those "I'll email you the number" deals. Most of the sellers on there are pretty reliable for the most part. I remember there being one seller who devoted all of his ebay account to selling AppleCare, but I'll have to find him.