buying older laptops....

[climbupit]

I've seen the articles on deciding between brand new ibooks and brand new powerbooks, but my decision is a less expensive one.... I have to decide between these two:

I own a 500MHz G3 PB Pismo (14" or 15"?) with 1MB Cache/128MB/12GBHD/8MB Video/DVD that I just installed OX 10.2 on to try to simplify it (it's a hand-me-down that ran very slowly thanks in part to too much junk installed; I erased the HD to do the install and upgrade from OS9.2). I was starting to look around for more RAM when I discovered that, I was eligible to purchase from work a 12" ibook with 192MB/12?GBHD G3 600 MHz running OS 10.2 for $75. I suppose it'll need more RAM as well, but macsales.com lists a 256MB card for about $32 shipped, which doesn't seem bad....

So is it worth the $75? I don't have much money, but it almost seems like a good upgrade for the cost..... am I overlooking some crucially important item?

Thanks so much

 

[Sdashiki]

for $75 its a good deal i think. as a replacement most definetely...unless I too am missing something. but are the optical drives comparable? and what is the Cache in the iBook?

 

[ImNoSuperMan]

I've seen the articles on deciding between brand new ibooks and brand new powerbooks, but my decision is a less expensive one.... I have to decide between these two:

I own a 500MHz G3 PB Pismo (14" or 15"?) with 1MB Cache/128MB/12GBHD/8MB Video/DVD that I just installed OX 10.2 on to try to simplify it (it's a hand-me-down that ran very slowly thanks in part to too much junk installed; I erased the HD to do the install and upgrade from OS9.2). I was starting to look around for more RAM when I discovered that, I was eligible to purchase from work a 12" ibook with 192MB/12?GBHD G3 600 MHz running OS 10.2 for $75. I suppose it'll need more RAM as well, but macsales.com lists a 256MB card for about $32 shipped, which doesn't seem bad....

So is it worth the $75? I don't have much money, but it almost seems like a good upgrade for the cost..... am I overlooking some crucially important item?

Thanks so much

Ahhhh. What exactly r u planning to run on these Macs? Dont think they can even open most of the websites. Since u already have a mac, I`ll advice you to atleast wait for some time, save some money and buy a second hand G4 ibook with atleast 800Mhz. That will be really really better.

OK. I know you are hard on cash. If you have only these 2 options then Buy the 12" iBook, get the RAM and ebay your old one. So you might be having a slightly better Mac for about 50-70$ extra. But I`d still try to stay away from G3. They are very obsolete.

 

[climbupit]

System Preferences says the L2 Cache is 512k, but I don't really know how a cache affects performance or whether there is a difference between a 'cache' and an 'L2 Cache'. Thanks for your thoughts though....

 

[tektonnic]

I know my G3 iBook is a 900mhz but they arnt 'obsolete; they are fine, mine runs safari, word, illustrator (cs) and photoshop (cs) pretty harmlessly on 128mb inbuilt + 256mb RAM.

Chuck Norris says do it!

 

[Dane D.]

Dont think they can even open most of the websites.

But I`d still try to stay away from G3. They are very obsolete.

What are you talking about? That is fine for cruising the 'net, email, iTunes, word processing, just not good for Pro apps like Photoshop or Illustrator. Obsolete, no, slow by today's standards, yes. I still use a G3/300 B/W at home for my personal computer and works great. My advice would be to upgrade the RAM, upgrade to 10.2.8 at least and enjoy. That computer should last another couple of years, if not longer.