Hi...What limitations, if any, can I expect with this OS?

Hi, my name is not Fred and I'm a PC user. I'm very intrigued about Macs since buying and loving an iPad. Wanting to get more familiar with the Mac world, I just bid on and won a PowerBook on eBay. It is a 1.33 ghz G4 with OS X 10.5.8 and it has been Upgraded from 256 to 768 of RAM. Now, I'm not a very tech savvy guy, and I want to eventually buy a nice shiny new Mac one day soon, but until then, what limitations can I expect with this machine? I would like to get that new app store that everyones talking about, and be able to do most of the things I currently do on my PC on this Mac. I read that you need an Intel Processor to even install the app store, and I don't see where the processor in this PowerBook is an Intel, so if that is the case, can someone tell me what I can do to upgrade this? I don't like the way PCs constantly make themselves obsolete, and I would like to have a machine that can be upgraded for a feasible price, rather than buy a new PC every year or two... Anyway, thanks for any and all help.

The PowerBook is a great laptop but unfortunately its like almost every laptop out there
other than the hard drive and ram thats the extent to the upgrade. The future seems to be
in Intel for compatibility and OS upgrade.

The processor is an Apple one; PPC. As far as I know you can't upgrade, certainly not to an Intel one as the OS wouldn't take it. You also need Snow Leopard for the App store, which needs an Intel processor.

Use it to familiarise yourself with the OS, and then buy an Intel machine.

MightyGem said:

The processor is an Apple one; PPC.

Click to expand...

PPC was codeveloped by Motorola and IBM. This is a common misconception. The PPC architecture is still used in many computing platforms, and was not exclusive to Apple.

As far as I know you can't upgrade, certainly not to an Intel one as the OS wouldn't take it.

Click to expand...

It's not the OS - 10.4 and 10.5 both supported Intel and PPC. The big difference is the supporting chipset and EFI (firmware).

You also need Snow Leopard for the App store, which needs an Intel processor.

Use it to familiarise yourself with the OS, and then buy an Intel machine.

Click to expand...

Great advice, sorry to pick nits on the other two points. Just wanted to clarify...

I had until recently a 1.25GHz G4 iBook and it was a great little machine.

NotFred, you should find that your G4 is able to do all the "basics" slowly but just fine. If it's easy to do so, I'd recommend maxing out the RAM: not expensive and makes a difference.

Stay away from anything having to do with HD video or 3D gaming, and of course there's less and less software available for PPC-based Macs every day, but it could very well be a good workhorse computer for you -- it was for me for almost six years, and it is still running today!

Thanks to everyone for the advice.

I just got a g4 ibook 1.2/512 about 10 days ago and really love every minute spent with it, it is so much better than any windows system its not funny. I have plans to upgrade the ram to 1.25gb but even if i dont it is just about perfect the way it is!

I'm pleased to hear people say they are enjoying their six-year-old (plus!) Macs, but as for limitations -- well, it's a six-year-old (or more) machine. Today's modern Flash videos are going to be choppy, some services just won't work at all, and there is rapidly diminishing new software for machines that old as you'd expect.

That said, there's a lot of good software still around for them, and they can do most of the basic online and offline tasks pretty well, not fast enough for power users but good enough for normal people.

NotFred consider the PowerBook to be similar to say a Dell Latitude P4 1.6GHz processor running XP, and that will give you idea of where the PowerBook sits. Still plenty you can do with both machines but they are a little slow compared to newer Dual Core machines naturally.