When would be a good time to purchase an iBook?

larryclarryc
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Howdy everyone, I'm new here, I just discovered this forum a few days ago. I'm interested in purchasing a new iBook. I'm not in a situation where I 'must' do it now. I currently have a 500 MHz G3 based iMac and I am quite happy with it. I am a full-time student and I am majoring in Information Systems, I have one more semester after the current one and I will be finished with school, at least for now :-). I have a PC laptop that I bought for school and when I am finished with school I plan to sell it. With all the buzz about big changes at Apple and a new line of processors, I'm wondering if I should get one of the current iBooks when the new models come out or if I should wait to get one of the redesigned ones. Do you guys think that the newer ones will still be able to run OS 9? I use both OS 9.1 and 10.2.6 on my iMac. Has anyone heard or have any ideas what, if any, changes are coming for the iBooks? I'm hoping that the newer ones will be able to hold/use more that 640 KB of RAM and that they will finally have USB 2.0. A faster FSB wouldn't hurt either. Thanks for your input and suggestions.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    toweltowel Posts: 1,479member
    I think that now would be a good time to buy an iBook. Wait and see what happens at WWDC, of course, but the iBooks were just updated a couple months ago, and recent rumors have all been swirling around the Powerbooks. It usually takes a while for upgrades to trickle down to the iBooks, so I really don't see them getting a major overhaul (new motherboard, new CPU, more RAM, etc) until next year. Bassed on recent history (see MacRumors.com's buyer's guide), there'll probably be a speed bump in the late fall and a major upgrade next spring or fall.



    Apple's already dropped the price on the 12" PB, perhaps in anticipation of upgunning the 15" and 17" lines to the PPC970, but they notably didn't drop prices on the iBooks. Reports from IBM suggest that Apple might be planning to keep a G3 in the iBooks for a while yet. In any event, I'd be shocked if Apple didn't wait a least a year after introducing 970 PB's to debut a 970 iBook (or PB-lite, like the 12"). As for OS9, I'm pretty certain that none of the current iBooks can boot into OS9, and it's a lock that no future ones will either.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    larryclarryc Posts: 14member
    Thank you for the feedback Towel, I was unaware that you could not boot into OS 9 on the current iBooks. I really do wish that Apple would end the practice of soldering one RAM chip into place on the iBooks.



    Larry
  • Reply 3 of 6
    thegeldingthegelding Posts: 3,230member
    the current iBooks can boot 9 or X...i image that will change with either the next revision or the one after that..if you need to boot into 9 i just might buy the current one (after WWDC of course)...



    iBook tech specs here





    g
  • Reply 4 of 6
    toweltowel Posts: 1,479member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by thegelding

    the current iBooks can boot 9 or X...



    I stand corrected. I thought they disabled OS9 booting on all the lines in January (save the one old PM configuration), but it looks like the iBooks and the low-end eMacs still can.



    I agree that being able to put 1GB of RAM into an iBook would be sweet. It seems a little silly that even the 12" PB has the same limitation. If performance is a major consideration for you, you might want to wait and see what the new 15" PB's look like. If you really need 1GB RAM, you'll likely prefer a faster CPU, bus, GPU, etc. too. But if you're just thinking of the future, 640MB should do fine for the (IMO) three-year life expectancy of a laptop. I'm on a tight budget so I've only filled my iBook-600 out with 384MB, and though I ride it pretty hard it does just fine.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    murbotmurbot Posts: 5,262member
    No matter what you decide, wait until after WWDC at the very least. I don't expect a change to the iBook line, but stranger things have happened. It's only 9 sleeps away, so what the heck.



    I'll also slide this thread over to General Discussion, the forum for purchasing advice such as this.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    larryclarryc Posts: 14member
    My apologies Murbot, I'm kinda new here. It won't happen again. I'd like to thank all of you who took the time to respond to my post. Your replies have taught me some things and it has given me some stuff to think about.



    LarryC
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