Ibook G3

[Brim]

Okay, I'm up early and I've been on PC World's website. I've just impulse bought this:


800MHZ Power PC G3, 128 Mb RAM, 30 Gb HD, 12.1" TFT, CD ROM, 32MB ATi Mobility Radeon Graphics, OS X v10.2 Operating system,

For 475quid.

The missus is upstairs still asleep, and I know she'll go mad. I'm writing this on a laptop which is only two months old, and I've never even used an Apple before.

Can someone please help me to justify this purchase to both myself and more importantly - the wife...

[?pint]

Cancel it... its... kinda pointless.

Or you could say you need an Apple because they're much better for your work or something.

[Fuddle]

theres nothing wrong with that (except you already have a laptop) ... its almost the same as mine (14" cd writer/dvd player), which i'm using now, and had for over a year now.
i suggest you hide it in a cupboard and pretend you had it for ages, just like she does with shoes and stuff.

[bowser123]

Saw that offer a minute ago in the paper, almost did the same thing as you. Personally I think you should consider cancelling.

The G3 iBook is fairly obsolete now and only comes with a CD-Rom and 128mb RAM. To run OSX properly you'll need more memory, whilst ?65ish will buy you a 512mb stick it's extra exspense. The fact it doesn't even have a rewriter is bad too. When it came out it was the bottom end G3 iBook too.
I have nearly the equivilant iMac computer (my processor is slightly slower) and I only paid ?500 for it nearly 3 years ago. It will run all software and most games O.K., however I've noticed newer stuff like Photoshop is quite slow.

Macs are lovely machines, I wouldn't swap my iMac for any Windows computer but if you're serious I'd recommend you pay a bit more and get a more modern Mac.

[Shimmyhill]

Its still a good price, u may make money on Ebay at that price

Buy my lovelly 12" G4 ibook, its much better

[Brim]

I've been given an ultimatum - one of them has to go

I fancy a change and although I've absolutely no knowledge of the mac OS, it's the ibook that I'm going to go for.

Basically, (and i know how shallow it sounds) it just looks so cool...

So, a couple of questions for anyone with an iBook:

How long will it take a complete newbie to get to grips with the OS? (nothing technical, just to know my way around)

Can I use the firewire ext CDRW form my laptop on the ibook?

Cheers.

[bowser123]

Yes you can use all your existing firewire/USB stuff.
The OS is superb, you'll have it sussed real quick. Maybe upgrade to 10.3 for expose though

[talizker]

You have 14 days to take the iBook unused *cough* back to your local PC World for a refund if you don't like it. Should be enough time to get a feel for it, check for dead pixels etc. Just don't forget OSX will run sh1t loads better with 640Mb...

[bignige]

I'd blank using OSX, especially if it's a dual boot. Stick with OS9 on a G3. OSX is very slow and a tad frustrating on a G3. It's not that great on my G4 cube, but is ok on my iMac 17".

[Space Monkey]

Can I use the firewire ext CDRW form my laptop on the ibook?

You might have some trouble with this if using 10.3, apple have removed support for most 3rd party cd writers. There is a patch available but it doesn`t get my USB cd-rw working with iTunes or Finder, so I`m having to use Discribe v5.0.47 for burning. No big deal but a little inconvienient.

I`m using OSX on an ancient 300 MHz G3 and it seems fast enough to me, I still much prefer it to any Windows machine I`ve used.

[weresheep]

bignige:
Erm, I would have to disagree. I have a iBook 12" 700MHz G3 and I love it to bits. Currently running Mac OS X.3.3 and everything I run, runs pretty good. I bought additional RAM to bring it up to 640MB and that did make a load of difference.

You can verify this here, but I tend to have the following open at all times...

Finder (Duh!)
Address Book
iCal
Mail
Safari
iTunes
iPhoto
Photoshop Elements 2
Preview
iPulse

No problems with performance here. Besides, with OS X you get preemptive multitasking and memory protection. Those two things alone make it worth using over OS 9.x.

-weresheep

[Valken]

I had a G3 iBook up until a few months ago and it ran 10.2 like a dream... I've since got a G4 iBook as a replacement though and it is just that little bit speedier IMO.

weresheep,

Where'd you get the desktop background?

[bignige]

weresheep,
My point was after using OSX on a G4, the G3 seems painfully slow, also OSX will never be as fast as OS9 running on the same machine. I'm not on about classic, but actually OS9 - partioning the hd and having OS9 on 1 and OSX on another.
Classic just emulates OS9 through OSX.

Try getting iTunes patterns to run at a decent fps in high res mode and millions colour - not fullscreen, but the window to fit the screen.

All said and done, the price from PC World was pretty good and if I didn't have macs coming out me ears I probably would've got 1 for some wireless surfing on the toilet!!

edit:

Just had a look at your screen shot, OSX is fine to run that sort of stuff - try it with Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Flash. It dosen't have to be at the same time.

I'm not trying to diss your machine, it's a good computer and as stated I owned 1 before selling to buy an eMac, which in turn I sold for a 17" iMac, which I'd really like to sell for a 20" iMac or G5......!

[Valken]

I wouldn't say it feels painfully slow in comparison myself but you can tell you're using a slower machine for sure...

The difference in performance is nowhere near the gap between the iBook G4, a "budget" laptop and the G5 which runs Panther amazingly fast.

[nigel1210]

Any idea if it's got a wifi card built in?