iBook G4 for £200 - worth?

Hello. My colleague is offering his iBook G4 (4-5 years old, 1.42 ghz, 1GB ram, 60 gb HDD) for around £200. I haven't used a Mac before but would like to try one out. Don't have £700 to shell out on a new one. Is this a good deal? Anything i should check/look out for? I'm really looking to have a play on a Mac before I save up and buy one. Many thanks.

Hi. Well that's the upper end of their worth I would say, but they are great little machines for sure.
The biggest issue with iBook G4's is logic board failure, though older models like this one are less prone, and it's a fixable thing usually, as it's specific to one solderable chip.
Be sure that if you buy that you get the OS install discs with the machine, you never know when you'll need them.
I would say offer £180 and go from there.

Thanks Kevriano. I was thinking of making an offer of £150. But he does not have the installation discs as they are in his other home in the US (I'm in UK). I don't have much idea of mac software so would help if you think this is a major issue not worth compromising over. It seems a good deal given ebay has iBook G4s with slightly inferior specs for at least £250.

Hmm. Not having the install discs is no biggy until it comes to needing to reformat a drive, or run diagnostics, when you will need them to get access to all of Disk Utilities features.
Now, it's quite possible that you won't ever need them, but if you don't have them, chances are you will, and buying them is not cheap (depending on the OS version).
Yes, eBay does have lower spec machines for more money, but those rarely sell, they are always on there, because to be honest, it's not too much of a further stretch to buy a Powerbook at those prices (I paid £300)
I think if he's willing to send the install discs over at a later date then you should go for it. £150 may be a little low though, but as he's a friend, mates rates apply

It's not a bad deal by any means and it'll give you a taste of OS X - which OS version comes with it?

The biggest issue with the old G4s is that the HDD are so painfully slow (4200rpm).

Kevriano, he does say he will try to get the discs later. I was sort of hoping to do a clean re-install.

Zoolook, it's Leopard (machine says mac OSX 10.5.8 (9L31a).

Thanks for your help.

Well that's good - it'll feel sluggish with 1GB of RAM, but it'll be a great intro. Have fun with it.

G4 Debut

I bought an American G4 whilst travelling in Australia at the beginning of 2007 and it was already a couple of years old... I bought it from eBay.com.au... I have since moved back to the UK, it has been dropped, slung in a backpack more times than I can remember... and it still runs like new... no glitches, no crashes no freezing... The only thing I do every now and then to maintain online smoothness is empty the cache and clear the files then restart.

It's running 1.5 GHz, 1GB DDR, OS X 10.4.11 and although it's old, it runs Adobe CS2 well, and I've been doing some basic sound editing which works fine... watching a DVD is smooth...

The 80GB Hard Drive is nearly full though but they can be upgraded easily enough...

It's a no brainer, especially if you can get it for 150... Remember, there are no guarantees with old technology but I can certainly testify that G4s can go the distance...

We've agreed on £175. Very excited and can't wait to get my hands on it. Thanks for all your suggestions. Will be back soon asking lots of newbie questions.

Very cool. Great price, you will enjoy it immensely. Congratulations on joining the community.