# Solved: Worth buying a powerbook G4?



## gatewaypc700 (Oct 17, 2008)

Hi guys,

I am looking to go travelling in the near future and am looking for a cheap laptop to accompany me. I started looking at netbooks but have now seen that you can get a decent powermac g4 1.67ghz for a very similar price.

I was wondering if a powermac G4 would still be decent to run modern day Apple applications, browse the internet and watch YouTube. On the outside it has relatively the same specs as the netbooks I was looking at (all running single core atoms, not the 500 series.) I own an iPhone 4 and it seems like it would make a nice pairing as well as give me an easy to use laptop for on the road.

I've always wanted to own a mac but have never been able to afford one new! 

Cheers
James


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

I have never owned a Powerbook so my comments are from first hand knowledge of that model.

1) Battery life could be an issue. It's an old rechargeable battery that by nature get worse over time, it's old and it's only provided ~4 hours originally. (May or may not be good enough for you)

2) That model will only run up to OS X 10.5 (this could be an issue for some of your apps, need to check)

3) Can you be more specific to what applications you need to run?

4) If it's mostly internet browsing, you tube and an application you can get an app for, maybe consider a second hand iPad 1. They aren't too expensive, you'll get better battery life, hardware acceleration for youtube and perfectly fine for web browsing. (Unless your sites are Flash only)


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## gatewaypc700 (Oct 17, 2008)

Hi Headrush,

Applications I want to run are pretty much the basics. The big one is syncing my iphone through itunes, which is why I can't get an iPad 1 unfortunately. Prehaps iCloud through the iPad 1 if I got a 64gb model might work?

Obviously no iCloud on the g4 

In terms of other applications though I know that leopard support is getting pretty limited at the moment with all the new apple products needing Intel core 2 Duo systems and snow leopard unfortunately. I guess this is a pretty big one but I suppose id still like to be able to run an older version of Photoshop maybe cs3?

Battery life is not really an issue at the moment as I always seem to be able to get power.


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

I can't image using Photoshop is going to be fun with limited RAM and limited screen size, no matter which version.

Maybe someone with better first hand experience can lend some more info here.


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## gatewaypc700 (Oct 17, 2008)

After much deliberation I have found that the 1.8ghz core 2 duo macbook from 2007 are only $200 more than the powerbooks on trademe and it makes a whole lot more sense to buy one of those.

Thanks for your help!


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