is this a good buy?
so i've been looking into macs for about a year now. i've heard mixed things so i thought that instead of dropping 1500-2000 dollars on one that i really want, i'd get an older one to try out first and save myself a grand.
i bid on this one. the seller just said it has a cd-rom. i was under the impression that all G3 ibooks came standard with a cd-rw drive. i dunno that much about them. the way i'm looking at it, i wouldn't pay more than 450.00 for this laptop. what do you guys think?
i bid on this one. the seller just said it has a cd-rom. i was under the impression that all G3 ibooks came standard with a cd-rw drive. i dunno that much about them. the way i'm looking at it, i wouldn't pay more than 450.00 for this laptop. what do you guys think?
Comments
Good luck buying an iBook from eBay. Do it right and make sure you don't get scammed. Lots of people do it seems.
For slightly more money you can buy a used iBook from an Apple Authorized Reseller like PowerMax.
Does come with lots of nice software...
Originally posted by Cake
According to this page from Low End Mac, the entry level iBook came with a CD-ROM.
nice site. looks like it will come in handy on my quest.
For slightly more money you can buy a used iBook from an Apple Authorized Reseller like PowerMax.
seems like they have decent deals on there. but at that price, for a little more i can get into a low end desktop from the apple store and not have to worry at all. but there's a point where a little more is too much. i have 500 bucks to blow on this roughly. basically, this computer is a gift from my family. when i invest my own money into this, i'll buy one brand new from the apple store. but i refuse to sink 1500 bucks into something that i have no experience with just because other people tell me it's going to be better for me. basically, i've been looking for a good deal for over a year now. i've been ready to buy for about a month now. i was going to buy one locally for cheap, but i've been jerked around by this guy and he won't give me a definitive price. he knows i want his bad and i think he wants to hold out on a higher price. here's the whole story if you're interested.
anyway, i found some combo drives that will go in a G3 dual USB ibook for cheap. so that takes care of my cd burning worry. my only gripe is the airport card that it doesn't have. how much are those to buy? i want to go through the apple store for the airport card because i've been reading about a lot of reception issues when you self-install. advice on that?
sorry about coming off like a dick. i'm frustrated with this. thanks for the patience guys. i'm new to this and i hate not knowing everything.
Originally posted by :-)
Be ready to feed some memory to it, 196 is kind'a pushing it in OS X...
Does come with lots of nice software...
yea, the software is what's keeping me excited. the ram does seem a bit low. how hard is it to change the ram? is it a simple plug and play deal like my PC? or is it more complicated?
(not counting the G4 ibooks)
Originally posted by dex
how hard is it to change the ram? is it a simple plug and play deal like my PC? or is it more complicated?
I put in RAM in my G4 iBook and it wasn't difficult. However should you ever desire to change the hard drive you might be in for some work...
The only problem I've heard of regarding Airport reception is if the antenna cable isn't plugged in correct. When installing RAM in my machine I had to take out the Airport card to get access to the RAM slot, and I have had no problems with reception (compared to when it was pre-installed). This isn't the same system though, so I'm not sure if this applies to the machine you want.
Couldn't find the AirPort card at the Apple store (you would need the old AirPort card, not the Extreme), but they used to sell for $99. They might be able to get one for you at your local store or something.
:-)
Originally posted by murbot
eBay is the place where Mac users unload their shitty, about-to-die iBooks. Seriously.
(not counting the G4 ibooks)
i did some research on the seller. seems like he might be a new guy on ebay and maybe a small dealer. he has 37 transactions in the last 6 months. all of them were sales. not a single one had a negative feedback.
Originally posted by :-)
I put in RAM in my G4 iBook and it wasn't difficult. However should you ever desire to change the hard drive you might be in for some work...
The only problem I've heard of regarding Airport reception is if the antenna cable isn't plugged in correct. When installing RAM in my machine I had to take out the Airport card to get access to the RAM slot, and I have had no problems with reception (compared to when it was pre-installed). This isn't the same system though, so I'm not sure if this applies to the machine you want.
Couldn't find the AirPort card at the Apple store (you would need the old AirPort card, not the Extreme), but they used to sell for $99. They might be able to get one for you at your local store or something.
:-)
yea. thanks man. i read something about the cable and the way it overlaid something else being the problem if you don't install it correctly. i dunno. i'll just give it a try i guess. any links to some howto's would be appreciated. but i'll look anyway when i get home from work.
i did some research on the seller. seems like he might be a new guy on ebay and maybe a small dealer. he has 37 transactions in the last 6 months. all of them were sales. not a single one had a negative feedback.
I was referring more to the iBooks themselves, not the sellers.
Originally posted by murbot
I was referring more to the iBooks themselves, not the sellers.
no, i knew what you meant. i'm just saying that i would trust this more than any other seller's laptop because the guy doesn't just seem to sell his old shit just because it seems like it's on the fritz. near as i can tell, he's running a quasi-business. i dunno though. this is the first thing i've ever bought on ebay and i dunno what i'm doing i guess. doesn't matter because there's still about 20 hours left on the auction and i've already been outbid. if the bid goes much higher, i'm not going to be interested in it. i've only got about 500 to spend on this. i don't see a classified board on here, but does anyone know of a good mac forum with a classifieds board?
Originally posted by dex
but i refuse to sink 1500 bucks into something that i have no experience with just because other people tell me it's going to be better for me.
You can buy a brand-new 12" iBook G4, 1.2GHz, built-in Combo drive (aka CD-RW), built-in Airport card, for $999. $949 if you're a student. And that's one heck of a machine that will give you good service for a number of years. Spending even $500 for a 2-year-old iBook that's less than half as fast, without a CD-RW or Airport card, with a battery that's likely on its last legs, just doesn't make sense to me. I'm not sure where you get the idea that a "good" Mac costs $2000. Folks (like me) use their low-end iBooks for "real work" all the time, and get awesome milage out of them. Think of this this way. If you blow $500 on a used iBook (maybe plus $100 for RAM, $100 for an Airport Card, $130 for a battery, etc etc), you'll never get your money back. It will have cost you that much just to decide if you like Macs. Spend the extra few hundred on a brand-new low-end iBook, and you'll more than get your money's worth. If you decide you hate it, sell it on eBay at a loss of a hundred or two hundred bucks. That's a much more reasonable "cost of deciding if you like Macs" than blowing $500-800 on a used iBook plus updates.