A good Second hand buy (Apple iBook G4 M9846B/A)

Member Name: Henrydidyoudoo

Product:	Apple iBook G4 M9846B/A
Date:	09/09/08 (591 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good build quality

Disadvantages: Not as fast as new MacBook

As a new member of DooYou I thought I'd write my first review about the one piece of equipment that underpins the very reason I'm here at this site, my Apple iBook G4.

Brief Specifications-
Model-PowerBook 6.3
12" LCD screen
PowerPC G4 (3.3) processor
640 Mb RAM, 80 Gb HDD
AirPort Extreme (wireless) card
CD-DVD RW optical drive.

I've had this lovely little computer for over four years and although I've toyed with the idea of buying one of the new Intel based Macbooks I just don't have any reason to do so as everything I need to do is taken care of by this machine.
One of the best reasons to buy a Mac is the fact that they have a long 'shelf life' compared to PC's. Apples technology is both innovative and reliable. The hardware is built to a very high standard and components are not chosen simply on the basis of cheapest price like so many PC manufacturers products.
The reason I decided to write this review is because there will be many of these machines in the second hand market for some time to come and anyone who has not used one before may be wondering whether it's worth the investment.
If you have the money, it's a no brainer, go buy a new macbook. If you don't, an ibook/ibook-pro is a great second choice.
What they say about Apple soft ware is true. You don't have to mess about setting the machine up to work the way you want it to. You don't even need anti virus software. I have never used anti virus software in the ten years I've been using macs.
This little machine has been used all over the world, even in places where temperatures have been in excess of 45 Celsius without problem. I've whacked it full of photos on some serious photo shoot expeditions, used all kinds of editing programmes including RAW photo format, Drawing programmes such as Turbo CAD and am now using MS Office 2008 (a huge and galumphing programme which takes a lot of memory) and still it keeps up with whatever I need it to do. These are just a few examples of software I've used in addition to the brilliant Apple applications that come along as standard with the PSX operating system.
Sure, a newer machine would be faster and give rise to new opportunities including running Windows software but why should I invest in a new one when it's really not necessary.

Battery life- when new the battery would give me between 4 to 6 hours of use depending on the CPU power demand. Now it's four years old I can still get enough life out of it to while away an hour and a half or so on the train. Most brand new PC's won't even give you an hour. My work PC struggled to give me 45 mins from new.

By the time this machine really is past it's sell by date and I have to buy a new model I think I will have saved myself a small fortune by not having had to replace the laptop where others have had to either because of hardware failure or sheer frustration that their PC simply won't keep up with the demands of ever changing/upgraded software.

In short, if you come across a G4 iBook at an affordable price, don't pass the opportunity lightly. If you've never used an Apple operating system, you've just been making your computer experience much harder than it should be.
Buy the highest hardware spec that you can, fill up any spare memory slots with the largest amount of RAM you can get then simply sit back and enjoy, for a very long time.

Summary: If your budget is limited, take a look at one of these...

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