andsteele Posted May 23, 2008 Share Posted May 23, 2008 I'm really low on money at the moment, being a 17 year old IT student. I wanted a Macbook Pro but I don't have the money. I was thinking about buying a second hand powerbook g4 instead. I know the G4 is old now but heres what I will be using it for: College Assignments Web Surfing Running some adobe programs like dreamweaver and photoshop iTunes Maybe a little video editing I would be getting the 1.67GHz model and putting as much ram as I can afford. Anyone here have a powerbook G4? What do you think of it? Most importantly, what is battery life like? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/106475-thinking-of-buying-a-powerbook-g4/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
gufus Posted May 23, 2008 Share Posted May 23, 2008 Hi Be careful. It might be that you don't find a 1.67ghz G4 below 1k$. Maybe it's worth getting the lowest macbook instead... fine machines. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/106475-thinking-of-buying-a-powerbook-g4/#findComment-756600 Share on other sites More sharing options...
westwaerts Posted May 23, 2008 Share Posted May 23, 2008 battery life is ok, you can watch a dvd, normal business up to 5 hours but if you are satisfied with speed and compatibility is the question. on a macbook you can run winxp and osx and thats the beating argument to my opinion. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/106475-thinking-of-buying-a-powerbook-g4/#findComment-756637 Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsteele Posted May 23, 2008 Author Share Posted May 23, 2008 I have considered the Macbook but I just think that the Powerbook G4 and the Macbook Pro look so much better. I know that I won't be able to run windows but I already have a desktop machine running windows so I wouldn't really be interested in running windows on the G4. I did consider the Intel iMac. The last model which looked similar to the iMac G5. But I need a portable. I really want to get my first Mac but money is tight. Plus osx86 doesn't work well for me. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/106475-thinking-of-buying-a-powerbook-g4/#findComment-756777 Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeekofComputers Posted May 24, 2008 Share Posted May 24, 2008 The I own a 1Gigahertz 12'' G4 and they are nice to carry if you have to take notes or edit a video if you go away to your cousins on the weekend etc Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/106475-thinking-of-buying-a-powerbook-g4/#findComment-756872 Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilikelmo25 Posted May 24, 2008 Share Posted May 24, 2008 It would be smart to buy a PowerBook G4 as a cheap MacBook Pro. I have a PowerBook G4 (12 inch, 1.33GHz) and it still does most things that I like to do very well. e.g. Surf the internet, read e-mails, iMovie here and there, games, etc. But it's really not anything special as I can say the same thing about the iMac G3. Even though the G3 is slow at some things, I could still play Tux Racer, use iTunes, read e-mails, play Chess and surf the internet with no problems. But eventually I did switch to an eMac as my desktop because the slow bits here and there from the G3 did start to get annoying. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/106475-thinking-of-buying-a-powerbook-g4/#findComment-756887 Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsteele Posted May 24, 2008 Author Share Posted May 24, 2008 Thanks for all your help. Been looking on ebay and it seems that I can get a Macbook Pro for about £400 more then a Powerbook G4. I just have to see how much money I'll be earning when I finally get a job. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/106475-thinking-of-buying-a-powerbook-g4/#findComment-757134 Share on other sites More sharing options...
dvdivx Posted June 1, 2008 Share Posted June 1, 2008 Unless you have a large need to run classic apps I'd skip the G4. I have a Powerbook G4 and a Dell Vostro (only $800) and between the two the Dell runs OSX 10.5 faster than the Powerbook can run 10.4. Only big difference is I can run classic on 10.4 and it works fine. The Dell can also run Windows/Linux. Support for PPC linux is just not the same as x86 or even x64 and any Penryn should run both x86 and x64. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/106475-thinking-of-buying-a-powerbook-g4/#findComment-767002 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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