thinking of switching....

I'm a big PC user but I'm thinking of giving mac a try. I've also wanted to get a laptop to be more mobile. A good buddy of mine is getting a ti powerbook and is willing to sell me his iBook. It's a iBook G3 600 (OS X.3.8), 256 ram, 20GB HD, combo drive (CD-RW/DVD), airport, 14.1" screen. He's asking $550.
Is this a good price?? and would this be a good 'starter' mac?? I'm just looking to do internet, IM, photoshop, watch movies, etc. on it....it would be a 'secondary' computer.

Thanks,
Mike


FYI, currently running a home build desktop (Athlon 1.33, 1GB ram, 90GB HD, 128MB Nvidia)

thats an ok price, Id get it as low as you can though. the specs are good for a starter mac, though I'd recommend adding more ram if possible, but that should be enough, also an external hd, 20gb isn't a lot of space.

I think that iBook would be sluggish for photoshop. And might have some minor slowdowns when running multiple apps. It is a good starter machine, but i high recommend you upgrade to 512 MB of ram. It will probably feel about the same speed as your PC right now.



edit: aww beat me to it macman

recenlty bought an iBook and it wasn't long before it became my primary computer. i would say never buy second hand computers, especially ones that are so out dated. just save up some more cash and buy a new one. you will regret buying that ibook for $550.

shaun89 said:

I think that iBook would be sluggish for photoshop. And might have some minor slowdowns when running multiple apps. It is a good starter machine, but i high recommend you upgrade to 512 MB of ram. It will probably feel about the same speed as your PC right now.



edit: aww beat me to it macman

Click to expand...

I still use Photoshop on my PowerBook G3 333Mhz and it runs fine with 384MB of RAM. Sure Photoshop is faster on my 1Ghz G4s, but as long as you max the RAM, Photoshop should run just fine.

JRV said:

recenlty bought an iBook and it wasn't long before it became my primary computer. i would say never buy second hand computers, especially ones that are so out dated. just save up some more cash and buy a new one. you will regret buying that ibook for $550.

Click to expand...

This is true. If you are willing to spend over $500 on a Mac, you could just get a Mini. Then you would have a new and current machine. Plus, if you already have a spare monitor, USB keyboard and USB mouse it would not make sense to pay $500 for a used Mac that is a couple years old. Yet if you are in the market for a laptop, I would think $550 is a good deal for the iBook with all the specs you listed.

i still say avoid that ibook. if you buy it for $550 you'll still need to upgrade the ram and compared to your current machine it will seem incredibly slow.