Hey all.. well as an owner of two iPods (20GB 3G and a 512MB Shuffle) i'm really desperate to purchase some kind of entry level Mac as a compliment to my PC. I thought Mac Mini for a while as they are pretty special, but I recently got to thinking about an entry level iBook so that whenever I go to my mates WiFi enabled house I can bring something to surf the net on too.
I've looked on eBay and there are a few places doing 500MHz/256MB RAM refurb style iBooks for about £300 'Buy It Now' and I just wondered if you guys would consider them powerful enough to run OSX at a good, usable speed, or whether i'm making a huge compromise buying one of those over say a Mac Mini.
Any suggestions?
Full Version: Thoughts on 500MHz iBooks?
I recently bought a 600MHz iMac (640MB RAM, 40GB HDD, CDRW & Airport card) for £150 delivered as a low end machine.
Only thing it needed was a PRAM battery (under £5) and it was all working perfectly.
It runs 10.4 pretty well, and imo, was much better value than an iBook. It's not the as portable, but, it is transportable.
Most G3 iBooks have had the Airport cards removed from them as well, so, you'd need to add at least £50 to most of them to get wireless networking on it.
The Mac mini has pushed down prices on desktop machines, but, iBooks aren't amazing value used, as a brand new 1.2GHz G4 iBook is £700
Only thing it needed was a PRAM battery (under £5) and it was all working perfectly.
It runs 10.4 pretty well, and imo, was much better value than an iBook. It's not the as portable, but, it is transportable.
Most G3 iBooks have had the Airport cards removed from them as well, so, you'd need to add at least £50 to most of them to get wireless networking on it.
The Mac mini has pushed down prices on desktop machines, but, iBooks aren't amazing value used, as a brand new 1.2GHz G4 iBook is £700
Interesting, and you're right - some good deals on iMacs on eBay.. but.. space is a major consideration for me hence considering iBook or a Mac Mini! 
The 500MHz iBook is great. I had a 700MHz version of and it was plenty fast for most tasks.
Might be a tad bit slow nowadays, but for the internet & chatting, it's a fine machine.
Might be a tad bit slow nowadays, but for the internet & chatting, it's a fine machine.
I'm not really after something thats gonna run Photoshop.. music, surfing, chat, that kinda stuff... if an iBook can hack that lot, that might be enough. Wouldn't mind trying one really though to be sure! Spose I could buy one and then just resell it back on if it wasn't good enough..?
I agree. Mine was originally 500Mhz, but I messed up the motherboard trying to overclock it some, so I bought an 800Mhz board to put in it instead. At least I got more onboard RAM and a better video card out of the deal, as well as a faster processor. Even before that it was a decent performer, easily faster than my Dell.
Moral of the story: don't try to overclock an iBook unless you can afford to buy a new board!
Moral of the story: don't try to overclock an iBook unless you can afford to buy a new board!
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