Is a 500MHz Ibook enough?

Greetings fellow members, I am a new Mac user, well not yet but I just ordered a used mac which has the following specifications.

iBook G3 12"
Processor: G3 500Mhz
RAM: 192MB
Hard Drive; 20GB
Mac OS 10.3, Panther
CD-ROM

I am interested in using this book mainly for listening to music (with I tunes 7), watching a few videos (like youtube), surfing the net (Safari 3), and a little word processing (with Office for mac). Since this iBook is rather old, will it be fast enough to serve these needs? Also if not is there anyway I am upgrade processor and ram and OS? Thanks.

Welcome.
You're stuck with the 500Mhz processor. It's built into the board so the only way to replace it is to replace the whole computer basically.
RAM can be upgraded with a 512MB stick.
You can update to 10.4.9 (the latest OS)
And yea, it should be fine. The videos I cannot say for certain. I've haven't tried watching them on an iBook that slow but I've watched movies, so it should be no problem if you max the RAM.
Bryan
If you know how to take apart computers, a bigger, faster HD will do some good. A nice 7200RPM 80GB drive will do wonders.
bryan

Thanks, for your suggestions.

Like bryphotoguy said, upgrade that RAM. 192 is way too little even for 10.3 Panther. Go as far as you can go if you can afford it. Like was stated, you can add a 512 Meg stick.

I have never used a 500Mhz G3 iBook myself, but You Tube videos played decently on a 400Mhz G3 Blue and White Desktop with 16 Meg ATI PCI Video. Should work.

First thing though, more RAM.

This URL will tell you a bit more about the iBook and the type of RAM you need.

http://www.lowendmac.com/pb2/ibook3.html

Okay thanks everybody, so I will need PC100 SO-DIMM RAM. Is it impossible for PC133, I looked at Ebay and it seems to be the only kind that is available at 512mb.

iBook2007 said:

Okay thanks everybody, so I will need PC100 SO-DIMM RAM. Is it impossible for PC133, I looked at Ebay and it seems to be the only kind that is available at 512mb.

Click to expand...

In general PC133 should work. All I know is that with some older PC's (Say older Pentium 3 or before, some PC133 with higher density chips would not work. With that iBook you should be fine but wanted to bring that up just in case. In general PC133 is Backward compatible with PC100. It's just that whole High Density thing that has caused issues for me with older machines. Most will work. Check Crucial.com and use their memory finder for your machine. See what they say.

Thanks for the info. I have rechived my iBook today and I am using to post right now. I am surprised to see that it is a pretty solid machine. However, I have ordered some memory but I never upgraded memory in a notebook let alone a mac. So if anyone can could I get some suggestion or info on how to install memory in an iBook?

Here ya go buddy =)