Stopgap Mac, will it do?

Hi,

I'm sick to death of my Toshiba Portege 512mb RAM 1.4ghz centrino laptop. I have been wanting to switch for a couple of years now but I am now desparate!

I will be getting a MacBook in about 3 months as i'm getting some funding from university . However, I need a laptop until then and I have found this...

12 " APPLE G4 ALUMINIUM/SILVER STUNNING POWERBOOK
867 MHz PROCESSOR,640MB MEMORY,40GB HARDDRIVE,DVD/CDRW,WIRELESS AND BLUETOOTH.

Am I going to get frustrated with it or will it do the job? I know that OSX is more memory efficient than Windows, but that is where my knowledge ends.

Thanks for the help everyone,
Ant

Will it do what job? Plenty of people on here are still using Powerbook G4s. They are not the fastest machines available, but they are still Powerbooks. They were once top of the line machines. I think that if you aren't going to be doing anything that requires lots of power, then you will LOVE it.

You didn't mention what you are using it for, so I assume it is the basic email, web surfing, iTunes, etc. It will do just fine. Besides, you do plan on it being a temporary machine, right? When you're done with it, put it up for sale on here. I'll be interested in it. However, you may get it and realize that it is all that you really need. Many of us are just guilty of wanting the new stuff, since Apple is really on a roll lately. I know I am. I love my MacBook and I just sold my 20" iMac G5 to get a 24". I don't need either of them. I would've been very happy with a Powerbook. But no. I had to have the new stuff. Trust me. You'll like the PB.

what are you expecting this computer to do?
-chris

antjessopuk said:

12 " APPLE G4 ALUMINIUM/SILVER STUNNING POWERBOOK
867 MHz PROCESSOR,640MB MEMORY,40GB HARDDRIVE,DVD/CDRW,WIRELESS AND BLUETOOTH.

Click to expand...

Another point is how much are G4 PB's worth nowadays and how much are you going to pay for this particular PB.

I have a G4 667 TiBook, similar to the one you mentioned. I have not had any problems with it, it does evreything I need it to (Internet, email, MSN, light photoshop, movies/music, GarageBand, and it can even play Call of Duty on it). The 867 is obviously a bit faster than mine, so if you're doing anything similar to mine, you shouldn't have any problems.

I'll be paying about £300 - £350 for it, although it does have Tiger on it. Bare in mind that the lowest spec MacBook is £750.
I'll be doing some basic web design, email, web browsing, iLife stuff.
I'll also be exploring tiger, as i've only used panther before and even that was rarely. I'll be interested to discover whether wigets are actually useful or just a gimmick.

Cheers for the help so far,
Ant