iBook G3 500MHz good enough?

Hi guys,

I've found an iBook G3 (500 MHz, 320Mb RAM, no airport card) for sale locally for £400 (should be able to talk her down to £300) and I was wondering if it was powerful enough to easily handle regular laptop activities (internet/email, MS Office, DVD viewing etc.) without any trouble. Also, the owner currently has OS 10.3 loaded up on it. I know this is a new OS, so does the old G3 handle this without problems? Finally, what kind of battery life can I expect?

it should handle these tasks easily, more ram is always a plus, so its up to you if you wanna upgrade, though you should be fine if you dont. as far as running 10.3, it should run better than ever with 10.3 installed. as for the battery, Im not sure, but maybe someone else can answer tat.

Batteries can be bought. A google search will give you a lot of stores. For what you do the laptop should be perfect.

i bought this g3 600 Mhz used off ebay to see if i wanted to make the mac switch and i love it, all i do on it is internet, email and itunes but it it handles all those tasks fine. Im waiting to sell my pc to get a new iBook or powerbook but i will still keep this for for all those things because it does a great job at all of those tasks.

Thanks for the replies guys. If you'll forgive an Apple newbie for a minute, can anyone tell me the rough Intel clock speed equivalent of a 500 MHz iBook just so I have a frame of reference?