Thinking of buying a G4 15", would like opinions

I'v been playing around with my 12" 1.5Ghz PowerBook G4, Having upgraded it to 1.25Gb of ram and installed leopard It runs pretty well. Even the internet works pretty well (Apart from video)

I Haven't actually played around with it too much, but it seems to hold it's own

If you want a computer for day-to-day general use, a Powerbook G4 won't cut it these days.  Internet usage really is slow, pretty much anything video-related won't work and Office 2008 is horrid on any PPC machine.  Acers have a bad name, but you could always max out the RAM cheaply and upgrade the hard disk to an SSD.  Don't trust Geekbench for PPC vs Intel tests ... Powerbook G4s were great in their time but pretty much forgotten about by the masses once Intel MBPs came out - they really did run OS X so much better.

If keen for an Intel Mac, a budget choice would be the polycarbonate Macbook, 2009 - 2010 - I've seen these go for $200 - 300 on eBay and they are still spritely to run Yosemite, and apart from brittle plastic casings are reliable solid units.  Couple this with 8GB RAM, 250GB+ SSD and it'll be a cracker.

JB

MacBook Pro's from 2008 with nVidia 8xxx series graphics suffer from logic board failures. MacBooks don't really have as many issues like that, but you'd need the aluminum model from 2008 or the Unibody Polycarbonate model to really run 10.10 well (the non unibody plastic from 2008 and before won't go past Lion).

I was using G4 TiBook 1Ghz/1GB for a week, while waiting for some parts for my MBP and was quite satisfied with the performance. I was thinking about upgrading to SSD for those stock hard drives are slooow.

If you are not a flash-heavy user, then it should be alright. 

I have a G4 iBook 1.33Ghz which I've been using for the more intensive tasks, I'm expecting the G4 1.67ghz would be significantly more snappy.

> It looks like a really nice machine and after checking geekbench, I discovered the G4 1.67Ghz actually scores only 100-140+ points behind my Acer.

Are you comparing Geekbench 2 scores to Geekbench 3 results? (Any powerbook score would have to be Geekbench 2, 3 is intel only.) Results from the two tests are *not* directly comparable, at all.

Recently I picked an old Thinkpad T43 out of the garbage as a possible "upgrade" to my even older Dell D600 linux beater; the T43 is basically a contemporary of the last Powerbook G4s, early 2005 vintage with a 1.8Ghz Pentium M. Two points about that:

#1: On Geekbench 2 the T43 slaughters the Powerbook 1.67Ghz G4, 1524 to 966:

Thinkpad:  https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/998977

Thinkpad:  http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/991585

#2: The Geekbench 3 score(s) for the same Thinkpad are only 126/232:

https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/2374670

IE, about 1/10th as high as the Geekbench 2 scores. I can't possibly believe that any Acer bought last year, not matter how craptastic, can possibly be even remotely in the same ballpark as a Powerbook G4 considering it gets its rear whupped by Intel laptops of the *same age*.

Yeah, you don't buy a G4 expecting modern speeds.

Indeed. Just wanted to clarify it a bit that if you have a machine that scores 900-something on GeekBench 2 that's optimistically going to translate to more like a 90 on GeekBench 3, so in raw CPU throughput at least that Acer is very possibly ten times faster than a PBG4. Of course, if it's all loaded down with Windows **apware and feels like it's made out of melted down dollar store spatulas it still might not be a very satisfying computer.

Personally I'd slap Lubuntu on it for grins and see if enough of the hardware is recognized for the machine to be usable, since that plus Chrome should make a perfectly swell web computer, a statement I base on the fact that the aforementioned T43 is actually almost 100% okay for web use and is less than 1/5th as fast. (Only thing it won't do is play Youtube videos full screen very well. They're fine in a window. Fan comes on nice and loud, but...)

I was going to suggest uninstalling all of the extra crapplications would help speed the Acer up to some degree but someone beat me to it.

Can't help with the trackpad though...

I have a T43p and it is barely usable on the web (you need at least a dual core laptop these days T60 or better). Any PPC sucks browsing these days because of lack of video support.

The 15" G4 Powerbooks are nice (I just got one, 1.5Gzh) but the 12" models are more portable.

I'm not saying I'd recommend a t43 to anyone as their main computer, I'd just say it's... surprisingly okay considering it's a ten year old computer running modern software. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it over a 1.67ghz G4 given it's 50 percent faster and the latter is distinctly lacking in up to date software options.

(The Pentium M CPU is almost single handedly responsible for killing the PPC Macintosh. It's astonishing how completely the 2003 crop of "Centrino" laptops put their G4 counterparts in the shade, and Apple never closed the gap. Just imagine being an Apple engineer in mid-2004 and learning that the intel roadmap was to go all in on slapping multiples of that core on a single die...)

Apple was screwed when they went with the G5 for desktops and had nothing for mobile use so they have to keep using the G4. Then you have multiple core CPUs coming out for laptops and that ended any hope Apple had with PPC. Was there any work done of dual core G4 designs?

Don't feel bad, even AMD had nothing really to compete with Intels dominance of the laptop CPU. I have a pretty large laptop collection and other then an HP model with a K6-2+ and a NEC V20 Tandy every CPU everything is Intel.

Yeah, AMD had a leg to stand on in the Desktop market until Core came out when it came to sheer performance, but AMD never really cracked power management/efficiency. There were a few mobile Athlon laptops, and they were probably superior in some areas to the truely awful Netburst P4m models, but unless you really needed maximum plugged-in performance from a brick of a machine intel's mobile Pentium III chips were a better bet.

I should probably make a few things clear.

I was considering the G4 PB because I am A. Getting sick to the back of my teeth with the latest version of windows B. Tired of the lackluster performance of the Acer and the crap build quality. One thing you can say about the last line of PowerBooks, is they looked good and from what I've read, were build pretty damn well too. Probably a damn sight better then this plastic Acer

I have a very nice dual core HP DV7, which while a little old, runs circles around the Acer. The HP is the laptop I use for gaming or anything I'd remotely consider a desktop PC task, it's a beast of a machine and not very portable. Which is why I got the Acer, I didn't want something as fast as the HP, just something I could type my blog on, do light surfing (without stuttering) and a bit of photoshop.

For the past 2 days I've been using my G4 1.33ghz iBook and getting on with it pretty well, ok it could do with being a little quicker, maybe an SSD would solve this. It feels just as quick as the Acer and Tiger is a millions times kinder on the eye then the latest winblows OS 10. Someone suggested Linux, much as I like and support Ubuntu, I dont want to try running my regular apps through Wine. The Acer has already demonstrated it can't handling running Firefox natively without struggling to scroll down pages. Plus I'd want to back up the partitions and on a machine with no optical drive, I'd be left wasting an entire USB pen for the backup. Which frankly I think is dumb, when I could use a cheap DVD writable media for a tenth of the price. How USB pens work out more economical then disc's I'll never know!

I think for now, I'll install a spare SSD I have, in to the iBook and see how I fair using that machine.

.

Hey guys

Still thinking about the Powerbooks G4, what is considered an acceptable price for the 1.6Ghz 15" model?

Unless it's the Hi-Res model I wouldn't do more than $100, and that being in very good shape. I might see $115 max for the HR. They're just not useful anymore.

They seem to be selling for more then that over here in the UK and the worst being that people dont seem to look after them, all the one's on ebay seem to be scratched or dented.

BTW how do you tell the difference between the normal and hi-red models?

Hi-Res has DDR2 and a different model number.

I would go for the HR 15" if you can afford it.

My 15" 1.5ghz G4 was $30 shipped (mint but sold as is). A new battery was $14 shipped and I added a 1GB SODIMM I had laying around so probably another $8. Still need to replace the DVD drive or take it out and look at it. New power bricks are under $10. Quite a few 15's on ebay are beat to hell, you just cannot drop the 15" and 17" models or they go to hell.

1280x854 is the normal 15"

1440x960 is the HR, nice but nothing earth shattering.

LEM says you are stuck with 2GB MAX on both models so DDR1/DDR2 is not that big of an issue.

Well, that HR 15" is better than the 17" G4 or 15" MBP, resolution wise.

17" HS G4 is 1680x1050

The regular 17" I meant.

The 17" looks kind of awkward to carry around, more like a desktop replacement then a laptop. Plus I think they had major defects.

One thing to note: the 15" (at least, dunno about the 17" inchers) are prone to having one of the two RAM slots die, and anecdotal evidence suggests it is *not* a rare issue. I personally had at least half a dozen 15 inchers covering most of the model variants (from 1.33ghz to 1.67, I didn't bother saving any 1.0 or 1.25 Als because they all had bad screens thanks to another bug that inflicted those models) and at least half of them lost a slot. I still have an HR 1.67 lying around I never use, dunno if the problem affects the DDR2 model.

Honestly, I would strongly, strongly suggest you not spend money on one of these things. If the slot goes it'll go with no warning. As noted, they also go completely to hell if they're dropped; they're not QUITE as fragile as the TiBooks, but that's faint praise indeed.

What is the model number for the HR?

I'm seriously wonderingwhether to place a wanted add on the forum. Shipping is going to be the killer.

A hot air workstation can fix the bad slots (Thinkpad T30's also had the same issue with one of the RAM slots going bad from using non lead solder).

Yep, and we all have a hot air soldering workstation just sitting around gathering dust, amirite?

Late models also suffer from NAPS; Narcoleptic Aluminum PowerBook Syndrome, which is a concern. Oh, and the low resolution models also have a good likely hood of defective LCD panels, like many PC's and the white iMacs suffered from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_G4#Quality_issues_2

Every line of notebook has its issues. I won a couple more parts 15" to play with, they are cheap enough.

Just wanted to thank everyone for their input, I'm still interested in getting one. As it has been said, most of the apple laptops have some issue or another, mig not post a wanted add on the forum. eBay seems to be far to pricey, compared to the $100 price range someone said I should be looking at.

Unknown_K said:

Every line of notebook has its issues. I won a couple more parts 15" to play with, they are cheap enough.

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I think to a large degree the point that's laboring to be made here is that:

A: The G4 Powerbooks, no matter how good or bad they may have been relative to their competition at the time, do have some known issues that are depressingly common in some instances, and:

B: Those issues were showing up back when the units were three or less years old. Now even the very youngest PBG4s are pushing over the decade mark. There may be some exceptions but generally speaking electronics don't improve with age. (Particularly when some of the known failure modes involve the cracking of lead-free solder which, again, started cropping up when the machines were still AppleCare-able, it's sorta silly to think that said solder joints just stopped being lousy at some indeterminate point after manufacture.)

In any case, these facts probably don't matter much in the case of someone wanting a laptop as a "toy", but where the discomfort comes in is it's been expressed that the desire for this laptop is founded at least in part in wanting to use it as a "daily driver" in place of an, again, 10 year newer machine. Anyone who buys a PB G4 should go into it expecting that it'll fall down dead tomorrow, so if it costs more than funny money, well... you're asking for regret.

(What constitutes "funny money" is of course subjective. For some people $100 may well be funny money. Doesn't sound like it here, though.)

haemogoblin said:

Someone suggested Linux, much as I like and support Ubuntu, I dont want to try running my regular apps through Wine. The Acer has already demonstrated it can't handling running Firefox natively without struggling to scroll down pages.

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But, wait, Linux is out because you don't want to run your "regular apps" through WINE, but you somehow are going to run those same apps under Tiger on a G4?

Re: the performance question way back, the Geekbench 2 results for the ACER would be around 3,000, vs. 966 for the very, very fastest Powerbook G4. (I searched for results from the same CPU.) And note that this actually understates the performance advantage of the Intel box; Geekbench 2 was sort of notorious for favoring PowerPC over Intel because it assigned very low weights to things like memory bandwidth and high weights to certain Altivec-friendly floating point and transform functions. The Celeron in the Acer is more like six times faster than the G4 in memory and stream tests, which are rated heavier in Geekbench 3. I'm almost certain the cruddy performance you're seeing on your new machine is due to it being positively riddled with bloatware, not because the hardware intrinsically sucks.

I agree a newer commodity laptop is better for a daily driver under most circumstances. Still if you don't want to watch youtube videos on it a last generation G4 would be that bad IF you have a bunch of usable PPC era software laying about.

The people around here vary in how technical they are. I figured if you can recap a 68k and troubleshoot it then getting a laptop back in operation will not be that hard. But from a never touch the hardware type of user I would stay away from PPC anything as your main machine.

Unknown_K said:

The people around here vary in how technical they are. I figured if you can recap a 68k and troubleshoot it then getting a laptop back in operation will not be that hard. But from a never touch the hardware type of user I would stay away from PPC anything as your main machine.

Click to expand...

Perhaps I'm pessamistic but my guess is that a fair majority of people who "casually collect" old computers, Mac or otherwise, turn all to jelly at the thought of touching something with a soldering iron. There's also the fact that a good brand-name hot air station's going to run you at least a couple hundred bucks (yes, there are ones floating around out there for as cheap as $60, but I'm guessing those... sorta work once, and then burn your house down) and there's no guaruntee whatsover that pointing it haphazardly at the base of the DIMM sockets is going to solve your problem. (After you've literally spend hours clawing the board out the laptop, which is a process charitably described as "difficult".) So then you're left blowing money on eBay for replacement logic boards and other dinguses hoping they're better than the one that just melted... *shrug*

As I've said before this is not to be a daily driver, this is for light surfing and writing my tech blog.

One of the reasons I'm looking at the last generation powerbook is partially for collecting and also because I have a decent number of apps for PPC already. If i bought an intel mac I would have to start buying all new software wouldn't i?

Atm I'm using a G4 1.33Ghz iBook and a 500mhz Pismo, I'm no stranger to repairing machines or trying to repair g3 iBooks with BGA failures.

Ah, that's different then. I mean, I just picked up a 1.42GHz iBook I'll be using lightly (so nice to have a CI capable PPCtop). And I just got a Pismo I use for writing.

I'd be patient, you'll be surprised what sometimes comes up.

I love the Pismo, it's a great little machine and with its 500mhz G4, I manage to get most of my writing and photshop work done without issue. The 12" G4 iBook is a lot quicker and the screen is great, I think if i dont find a decent powerbook, I'll just keep using the iBook for the more demanding stuff.

In regards to the Acer running slow to bloatware, I've been thought this machine and removed most if not all of the Acer bloatware and it still runs dog slow. I'm not the only person to experience this, reading reviews online, many of them mention the performance isn't groundbreaking. Seriously surfing on the acer isn't much quicker then on my iBook. At least the iBook as a much better keyboard and touchpad, that doesn't leave me wanting to pull off my fingers. I'm currently typing on the Acer now and it's driving me bonkers. Had I been able to do more then try finger typing in the shop, I would never have opted for this laptop, as it's dreaful for typing and the trackpad is £$"$%.

If bloatware slows this machine down this easy, I cant imagine running Ubuntu or the lighter less resource hungry Xubuntu would help much. Running photoshop via wine would be painful.

haemogoblin said:

If bloatware slows this machine down this easy, I cant imagine running Ubuntu or the lighter less resource hungry Xubuntu would help much. Running photoshop via wine would be painful.

Click to expand...

You do know it's trivial to just slap a Live distribution on a USB disk and find out for yourself, right? Just sayin'.

Your Acer experience remind me of one of my few Dell experiences:

Sometime in mid 2009, I got a new Dell Studio 1737, because I thought it would be somehow better at audio recording/playback and a few other specialized tasks than the Late 2006 and Mid 2007 MacBooks I was using at the time. It came with Vista (which, by SP2, wasn't really *that* bad), but I needed XP on it, because of a software program I needed to run (it had *very* specific OS requirements).

Anyway, the thing was terrible. WiFi and Bluetooth would randomly stop working, the trackpad would have convulsions every now and then, and it was slow, even with a fast 7200 RPM hard drive and max RAM thrown at it (I did some research, and found that this particular model was known for being stupidly slow, despite its good-on-paper specs (2 GHz Intel Core2Duo-based something-or-other (Celeron, maybe?) on an 800 MHz FSB)).

I put Ubuntu on it (figuring that maybe it was a problem with Windows or something), and that helped *slightly*, but the WiFi/Bluetooth and trackpad issues remained, so I ended up just shelving the thing after grappling with it for at least two frustrating years.

So, if you're experiencing inexplicable slowness with your Acer, despite your efforts to clean up the OS and install a fast-ish hard drive, then you might as well get something else rather than wasting your time on something that's inherently broken by design.

If you want a cheap Intel Mac laptop of some kind, there are plenty out there that are relatively cheap which would be far superior to any PowerBook in terms of modern-day performance. And any machine that can run Snow Leopard should be able to run all your PPC stuff well enough thanks to Rosetta (I think even a 1st gen MacBook can actually run PPC software almost as well as a PPC Mac, so you shouldn't have too many performance issues).

I'm one to talk, though. For about half of this last spring's school semester, I slogged along with a 1.33 GHz a 12" PowerBook, and it did what I needed quite nicely (albeit slowly), so you can definitely still slide by with one if necessary.

Hope this helps!

c

A Core Duo MBP can power through just about everything under Rosetta; I can run Halo at medium high under emulation at 1440x900 just fine. G5 tuned applications are rougher but there weren't many of those.

As I said before, I don't want to use Linux on this Acer. It's a mobile processor, so running Photoshop through wine would be like pulling teeth. For the past week I've been using my iBook for everything I was 'trying' to do on the acer. Even with the books intermittent trackpad issue, its still easier to use.

I might actually look in to the early macbook pro, I didn't know it could run ppc software! Thanks!

If the job you need to accomplish is running Photoshop fast, why not either spend the money that a MacBook would cost on a substantially faster used PC laptop or, well, if you don't absolutely need portability get a desktop? The 2008 vintage Core Quad Q6600-based desktops I saved from a dumpster and set up for my kids are almost half again faster than that laptop of yours. Or to put it another way, what's your budget? It's pretty easy to find off-lease 2012-ish vintage "Business class" PC laptops for around $200, and this particular model is twice as fast as your Acer. On the local Craigslist that money... well, it might get you an okay 2009 Macbook (if you hunt *really hard), or a beater MacBook Pro. (Most of the ones I see for that price are the ones with the dreaded 8600GT graphics chip.) So... I guess it circles around again, what do you want here? Something that runs an *oooold* version of Photoshop pretty well, or something that runs the Windows version better than your Acer? They're kinda mutually exclusive.

If you read what I wrote initially that explains why I'm looking at the PowerBook.

I read it, but still sorta confused since your priorities seem to ping-pong around between "I'd totally be fine running an 10 year old version of photoshop on PPC if only I had a better built laptop" and "It's MISSION CRITICAL that I be able to run Photoshop as fast and easily as possible!". Is running Photoshop, like, a job thing, or just a hobby? I guess if it's the latter and you're fine with... what's the last G4 compatible version, CS3?, then I guess go for it.

Well, there was also the web browsing thing, but if you swear it's okay on your iBook I'm in no position to argue that a slightly faster PowerBook wouldn't be better. I would simply caution, going *way back* to this:

I have a G4 iBook 1.33Ghz which I've been using for the more intensive tasks, I'm expecting the G4 1.67ghz would be significantly more snappy.

Click to expand...

As I mentioned earlier, I've had a *heap* of experience with 15" PowerBooks, all the way from the 400mhz Titanium to the 1.67HR Al, and so far as I'm concerned all the Als from the 1.33's to the 1.67ghz "feel" pretty much the same speedwise. All of them were a noticable leap from a 867mhz Ti (fastest one of those I've used) but between the Als themselves the difference was pretty much negligable. (Yes, the faster one will render a DVD or something 20% faster, but for general use vs. wall clock-able tests they just don't "feel" any faster.) 1.33ghz iBooks and Powerbooks are within a few points of each other on GeekBench; granted, there are tests like Cinebench that give the Powerbook a bigger advantage because of their better video cards, but be sure to keep your expectations for improvement within bounds.

Hi Gorgonops

Photoshop and CGI have long been a hobby of mine, so i enjoy sitting down with CS2 and doodling. Over the years I've been able to produce some pretty impressive things with just my Pismo, I bought the iBook for the better screen and faster G4 1.33. Yes I want photoshop to run smoothly and yes when your running CS2 on a 10 year old machine, it does run pretty well, at least that is my experience. I was looking at the later Powerbook because the Acer I have is cheesing me off. Windows 8.1 and 10 are dreadful to use and no matter what Microsoft say, 10 runs just as slow as 8 on my hardware.

Aside from heavy sites working like youtube and facebook, my online experience with the Acer isn't that much better then my iBook. In addition, the cheap feeling trackpad leaves me wanting to tear off my own fingers when ever I use it for more then a few seconds, something I've never had with the iBook!

So I thought why NOT get a G4 Powerbook, its the last of the PPC laptops Apple made, the build quality will no doubt be a damn sight better then the Acer. Your getting a machine that used to cost over a grand new, at the very least the trackpad will be better.

I could go for an intel mac, now that I know they'll run my PPC apps. Installing Xebuntu on the Acer V3 is also an option, but it wont change the fact it's a steaming pile of donkey droppings with a utterly useless trackpad. In truth I might just stick with the iBook, I've been using it a lot more recently and if what you say about the speed difference is true, then going from a 1.33 to a 1.66 wont feel like much of a bump. The one thing the Powerbook would give me would be a larger screen.

Btw thank you for the reply, this thread has been really useless and I've learned quite a bit from it

*Snigger* I obviously meant useful! Thanks auto correct, thanks a lot!

haemogoblin said:

Btw thank you for the reply, this thread has been really useless and I've learned quite a bit from it

Click to expand...

Man, don't get me started about autocorrect.

Ah well, to be clear I didn't mean to badger you too much. It's just a thing we've seen before where someone ends up spending too much money on a PPC Mac because they're not really clear about its unsuitability for certain "you sorta expect a computer to do that these day tasks" and, well, sadness ensues. By all means for what you're doing if you see a cheap PB go ahead and pick it up, the screen *is* a big improvement over the 1024x786 checkerboard of an iBook, but if you're not seeing anything for fun money I'd say pass until you do.

We could probably start a whole new thread about the early Intel MacBooks (and Pros); my shorthand contribution to it would be, well, approach with caution. Honestly with few exceptions all the pre-Unibody Pros are sorta lemons to some degree or another. The 2006 models had some notorious build quality bugs, there were all the issues with the Nvidia-equipped models, and none of them age particularly well. (Their physical construction is basically the same as that of the Aluminum G4s but they're even thinner, so they dent, they bend, they warp, and I've also encountered some annoying material quality issues with them. For instance, I had to tear the "dust curtain" around the DVD drive slot out of my 2008 15" model because the material became stiff and brittle enough to interfere with disk ejection.) Overall not super impressed. They were certainly better than your Acer when they were new, I guess, but there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then.

This is why I initially struck intel Macbooks off my list of potential replacements. I'd rather use an older 2005 PPC mac, that might have fixable issues, then a system that has serious design flaws. I really like the plastic macbooks and because of my affinity with my Pismo, I did consider getting myself a black macbook. But then i found out about the brittle plastics on the palm rest and the top of the screen. Needless to say, i wasn't impressed and it put me off the idea.

Even looking a the PPC aluminum Powerbooks, most of them had dents or bent edges. I know people says it's easily done, but I've never dropped a single one of my laptops, I've had one flop over when i propped it up on its side, but thats about it.

I think it's fair to say anyone buying a G3 or G4 now can't go expecting blinding performance. I can't speak for G5's as I've never used one, but I'd say we are getting to the point where even G5's are showing their age. I have a perfectly good large 17.5" hp, which is great around the house. But too cumbersome for carrying around with me when I'm out and about, I wanted something portable, that I could take around in a rucksack. I've a fondness for old Macs and always liked the Powerbooks, the 15" would be handy for photoshop with it's large screen.

Believe it or not, 15" PowerBooks still play modern video formats quite decently, if carefully tuned.

I had mine tuned such that I could play most h264 and MP4 stuff relatively well via VLC on Leopard (I tried VLC on Tiger, but for some reason, I couldn't get video working quite right).

A 12", I don't know. I've never tried.

Actually, I have one of the HR PowerBooks, but it's quite a fixer-upper, and I haven't gotten around to working on it (I think it needs, at a minimum, a battery, top case, and RAM *just* to power it on).

If you don't mind assembling it yourself, you can have it free for shipping.

c

That would be great! Sure! can you pm me details? maybe a pic of the machine?

I still use a 12" Powerbook 6,2 ~ 1Ghz w/768MB ram... you can browse the net but it's kind of painful... I mostly just use it to run Plex... my server transcodes any of the high bit-rate videos down so I can actually watch my media on it, but I mostly use it as a nightstand music player with headphones on and for SSHing into linux boxes at work... I put a 32GB IDE SSD in it so its completely silent and a little less painful to use... but using it as a daily driver... think I would slit my wrists to be perfectly honest...

I would be completely unsurprised to find that an Acer Aspire V3 is ten times faster than a last-generation PowerBook G4.

To put it simply, nothing Apple built in that timeframe was fast or even very well put together. It's best, in my experience, to just sort of pretend Apple totally mysteriously didn't build laptops at all between when they stopped making the Pismo and the 500/600MHz Rage graphics iBooks, until late 2008 when the unibody MacBook/Pros came out. If there was ever proof that throwing money at a problem isn't always the best solution, it's early-mid 2000s Apple. Just because you tossed $2500 into a PowerBook G4 and got an expensive computer doesn't mean that you got a good computer.

So if you're looking for something cheap that's about a decade old that will feel better than your Acer computer, then a ThinkPad or Latitude is going to be a good system to look at. I personally favor ThinkPad T/R 60-series and 400/600 series with Core2Duo CPUs. I have a T400 I bought new in early 2009 and it still does everything I need just fine. It has since been outpaced by what are essentially netbooks, but Merom and Penryn Core2 hardware is now "cheap or free" class and you can typically easily upgrade and maintain these types of systems, especially business notebooks such as ThinkPads or Latitudes.

If "fast" is the priority above all else: you already have it, and perhaps you should investigate making an image of the drive and trying out Linux. If it works properly, WINE shouldn't actually slow down the execution of Photoshop, etc, since you're still running Intel code on an Intel CPU.

Of course, I personally think that the best solution may be to use the Windows 8.1U1 installation media (which you already created, along with a backup of your system, because you have a tech blog, right?) and using that to set up your system in a stable state, with none of the included junk ware from Acer. If the system just has a bad trackpad, it may not fix that, but it'll probably fix the performance problems as well as any lingering issue caused by junk software, such as unreliability, etc.

Just looked more closely into the Aspire V3-112P. There seem to be two versions -- one has a Celeron N2940, and the other has a Pentium N3540. Both are impressive chips, all things considered, and as Gorgonops suggested, you probably found GeekBench 3 scores for the Aspire, and GeekBench 2 scores for the G4. Ultimately, I would not at all be surprised to find out that this thing is ten times as fast as the G4, at just about everything.

User experience means a lot though, and it sounds like the real core problems here are...

1. keyboard
2. touchpad
3. web pages load slowly

You can probably fix #3 by changing your web browser and perhaps fixing up (or re-doing) your installation of Windows.

My best and most honest solution for the keyboard and touchpad, however, are to get a different computer, or to give up on portability and "dock" this system with a desktop keyboard and mouse. I've given up faster systems than the aforementioned ThinkPad T400 because I didn't like using them, but going all the way back to a G4 would be completely ludicrous.

For an example of how bad the performance on a G4 really is, I got a midrange ThinkPad T30 from 2002 (the 1.8GHz model) and for funnies, ran Cinebench on it. It got the same score that the 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 from 2005 gets. A ThinkPad from 2005 will outgun it by that much more.

If this is a productive kind of computer, I think the real question I'd be asking is why bother with a Mac if a PC will be faster, and to be perfectly honest, if you're going to  seek out a good business-class PC, why bother with something from 2005, when things from 2009 are free or cheap, at this point?

But if this is purely a hobby machine, and you just like puttering around in CS2 and it doesn't really matter that the machine might fall apart at any moment and it doesn't actually matter how fast it goes, and so on... then what does it matter what you spend on it, if it makes you happy?

What motivates the purchase of something people use for hobbies or for nostalgia purposes tends not to necessarily make sense from a purely economical and numbers standpoint. I put a few hundred bucks into an Apple IIgs setup, but it's not because I expect the IIgs to be "the best" at anything I do, or even the most fun computer I have to use. 

If you view PowerPC Macs that way, then I don't think there's anything unreasonable in doing that.

Having said all of that: I personally think it's a terrible idea to use old versions of Mac OS X on the Internet, and if you're looking at an Internet computer, I personally recommend sticking with a "pretty recent" version of Mac OS X, which will run well enough on a perhaps surprising range of hardware.

It's a calculated risk and there are ways to mitigate it, but there's more interesting things to be done with a G4 than to check your webmail, and faster and safer hardware on which to check your e-mail.

I can also recommend the Thinkpad T60, I still use mine daily... with 2GB ram and a 120GB SSD it runs Windows 8.1 just fine

T61's seem to be cheap these days. I just picked up a T61 NV140 1680x1050 screen with 3GB RAM and N wireless for $17.50 shipped (just needed a HD). The T60 series seems to have better hinges and keyboards. 15" G4 Powerbooks will cost you more in the same condition as a T61 and are much slower with less expansion (2GB vs 8GB RAM, IDE VS SATA HD, G vs N wireless on some models). Also it is a pain to get HD mounting hardware on a G4 compared to any Thinkpad.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I installed windows 10 on the Acer and was surprised to find Microsoft have managed to make an even LESS appealing operating system :-/ Even if i installed Linux on this Acer, it still wouldn't alter the fact its a badly designed pile of c3$p. I've now resided to using my G4 1.33Ghz iBook for writing and doing the odd bit of photoshop when I'm out and about.

If a G4 Powerbook comes up cheap, then I might go for it, but for now I'm coping pretty well with the iBook

Cory5412 - I dont think I'd be on 68kmla if i didn't have a love for old macs and finding ways to keep them going.

After playing around with G4 ibooks and G4 12" and 15" AL Powerbooks I would say a widescreen 15" AL Powerbook would be the one to go with. The backlit keyboards (when they work), 2GB RAM, 1.67Ghz Processor and larger screen are nice to use.

Unknown_K said:

The backlit keyboards (when they work), 2GB RAM, 1.67Ghz Processor and larger screen are nice to use.

Click to expand...

Yep, the 2GB of RAM is great until you lose that upper memory socket. Which *will* happen eventually.

I have 3 units and 2 have both slots working. if its just the solder cracking a hot air reworkstation should fix that up easy enough (and give me a reason to buy one). I have some Thinkpad T30's with the same issue of one slot going bad.

Yes, you've mentioned the hot air station thing already. So why not fix your broken one and show us all how easy it is?

I will try on a T30 when I get around to buying the rework station  (next year most likely).

Well I finally bit the proverbial bullet and nabbed a very tidy looking 15" A1106, for just shy of $70. Unless mister postman uses it for football practice, it doesn't have any dints, just a couple of minor scuffs on the underside. I took in to account a lot of what was said here, much of it was very helpeful, so thank you to everyone who shared their experience and knowledge.

Ultimately what swung the deal was price, there is a substantial gap between the G4 and intel version of the 15" PB. The best one I could find in decent cosmetic condition, was going for three times the price of the PPC version. As a fan of pre intel Apple machines, I have to confess to liking the idea of owning the last of the PPC Powerbooks I'm not expecting lightening speeds, nor am i expecting youtube or facebook to run that good. But perhaps not having those distractions will force me to get on doing my writing and art, instead of faffing around online lol

 

Hmm, were you still interested in my fixer upper?

At least you'll now have a nice, working G4, regardless. The A1106 is a nice machine, being decently fast for what it is.

c

Hi buddy

I saw this unit only recently on eBay, with it being local / good condition / working, I figured it would probably cost less in the long run then shipping the one you have over to me and then buying the bits to get it functioning. I was going to email you this morning

At least with it being PPC, all my existing software will work with it.