Get an Apple iBook for $399.99

Apple's Netbook-like iBook is on sale for just $399.99 shipped.

(Credit: Buy.com)

Apple has yet to join the exploding Netbook market, right? Wrong: It joined the market nearly six years ago. It may have even pioneered it!

OK, let me explain. The Apple iBook G4, which debuted in late 2003 and has since been discontinued, has specs that remind me a lot of modern Netbooks. Pokey processor, smallish screen and hard drive, compact design, low price--sound familiar?

Buy.com has refurbished Apple iBook G4 laptops for $399.99 shipped. There are caveats, yes indeed, but this might be just the Apple Netbook you've been waiting for.

The iBook sports a 1.33GHz PowerPC G4 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a 12.1-inch LCD. It's perfect for the basics, right? You won't do a lot of video editing on it, but word processing, Web browsing, e-mail, and the like are fair game.

At five pounds, it's obviously heavier than most Netbooks, but there's a reason for that: the slot-loading DVD/CD-RW drive. That's definitely something you won't find in a traditional Netbook, but do you mind having one?

I'm no expert when it comes to Apple systems (CNET is--check its review of the iBook G4), and I have no hands-on experience with this model. I do know it comes with OS X 10.5, so at least you're getting (almost) the latest and greatest version of the Mac OS. (FYI, Snow Leopard, a.k.a. 10.6, will not run on PowerPC Macs.)

The only major hiccup here is the warranty: a scant 30 days (and provided by Buy.com, I'm guessing). I'm sure that'll be a deal breaker for some people, and perhaps rightly so, but think about it: The slot-loading drive is the most likely trouble spot, and if it breaks, the iBook is that much closer to a typical Netbook. (How's that for a positive spin?)

Anyway, let me know what you think of Apple's almost-Netbook. Or if you think I'm cuckoo for making the analogy.

[FusedArtist]

I would'nt run 10.5 on a G4, I'd rather spend the money on an HP netbook and get 10.5 installed on that.

[zmnatz]

I have this exact system. 10.5 runs great on it. In fact, 10.5 runs better than 10.4

[kangotang]

I have an old 12' PowerBook G4 1.5Ghz - it has been an amazing machine. I bought it around the same time I bought my 3GHz P4 tower. Despite being half the clock speed, the G4 held its own.

It was small, well built, powerful (at the time), and one of the sleekest laptops I've ever owned, or seen.

Still, I wouldn't pay $400 for PowerBook now, much less an iBook. When it comes to number crunching the G4's are still comparable to today's netbooks, but I would have to think multimedia performance would be much better on a new CPU.

My powerbook usually got 3 hrs of battery under moderate load - 4 hrs. if I dimmed the screen and set the CPU performance to "reduced."

[MrZook]

but no snow leopard... or any future mac os. Solid laptop though.

[solitare_pax]

A bit pricey for a 5-year old system which cannot run the latest - or future - updates of Mac OS 10.6. It's a classic case of "Penny Wise and Pound Foolish" here.

But if you have the system (I have an older version, bought refurbished in 2003) it does make a good netbook substitute.

[eeee]

Hi Rick Broida: you are not cuckoo and thanks for informing us; pretty much anything goes in the field of comments now so who is to label you cuckoo for saying anything you want: every other person and colmunist and so called "expert' can say what they want so can we.

It is 9/24/09 2:13 PM as I write this and they are sold out but they are a good deal and why not get one if they re-appear? I know the slot load drives are cool but troublesome (Acer had some for a while but their latest lines mostly dont have slot loads now) but you take a chance. I wish I had read it sooner.

[terminalblue]

thats interesting, but you could get are refurbished thinkpad from that period for that same price and get oodles more functionality out of it...not to mention alot less weight

[Slats66]

How ironic is this? Last month I purchased an Atom-based netbook w/ Win XP. Well after the first week, I was so incredibly disappointed with the performance of the netbook doing really simple tasks such as: changing my desktop theme would take 45 seconds to update and Office 2007 ran like a dog.
Plus, and it's awkwardly small keyboard was more cumbersome than I initially thought.
So I happened to visit my local Mac reseller they had a couple of refurbished 12" iBooks spec'd exacly as listed above for $360. I took a chance and could not be happier. I installed Mac OS 10.5 and Office 2008 and it's surprisingly snappy. Plus, a friend fixed me up with some PPC-based games like Halo and Unreal Tournament 2004 and it's gaming performance on older games is better than I expected. Its actually become the dominant device I use.
Again how ironic you wrote this article as I have just lived it.
My Netbook is currently for sale on Craigslist. :)

[josh81]

Just sold my netbook and bought an iBook of the same specs (but nowhere near the same amount of money)!

[chriscooksey]

I had been thinking about this the other day when I came across my old iBook. I ended up giving it to my 10 year old brother, and he uses it to type out his essays, check hw etc. Its a viable option for anyone wanting a quality apple product, but it would still be cool to see apple resurrect the same iBook form factor but with updated specs and maybe in aluminum?

[cdlenfert]

ibooks are great laptops, they run like a champ and have very few issues. The G4 is particularly great for a 12 incher. My only warning, and it comes from experience, is to beware of the video chip issue. There is a common problem with ibooks G3 and G4 that involves the video chip loosening from the motherboard over time. Anyone who wants to travel extensively with a small laptop is taking a pretty big gamble with equipment this old and a common issue such as this. If it's working fine at first and you are gentle with it everything should be fine. But I'd do some research before pulling the trigger.

[douggdangger]

"Apple has yet to join the exploding Netbook market, right? Wrong: It joined the market nearly six years ago. It may have even pioneered it!"

LOL!!! Spin baby spin!

The point of a netbook is to get a small computer with a slow, low battery consuming processor in a small package that is AFFORDABLE.

That refurbished ibook had one of Apple's "best" cpu in its time, despite it being slow. It ate through batteries like Oprah does a turkey leg. It was also very EXPENSIVE in its time. Did I mention that it burned people's lap when it would get very hot?

I had a Toshiba laptop 10 years ago that fit the profile of what a netbook is in 2009 so Toshiba invented the Netbook, not Apple.

I love it when Apple is spun to have "invented" something that existed long before they even think about it. Apple is known for taking current technology and ideas, giving it a ridiculous name and just make a slight tweak and market is as "revolutionary". LOL!

[bmccorm2]

Couldn't agree more. Take the specs of any 10 year old computer and it is suddenly transformed into a modern netbook! The fact that this 6 year old computer is selling for $399 is ridiculous! Get a 6 year old PC for half the cost, throw any flavor of Linux on it, and you then have yourself a netbook for a fraction of the cost.

[Slats66]

Doug, like Rick stated in his article above, you should read the CNET review on the iBook before you threw out your comments on battery life. CNET found the iBook G4 excelled in their Labs' battery-drain tests, playing a DVD for an exceptionally long 4.4 hours. I couldn't even surf the web on my Netbook for longer than 2 hours.

[Seaspray0]

Rick Broida, if you had done some digging, you would have discovered an even older predecessor to the netbook: the compaq M300. You did well by discovering the apple laptop, but you should have checked your resources better before making a comment on who pioneered the netbook market.

[rickbroida]

@Seaspray0: I wasn't speaking literally. Obviously lots of other netbook-like portable PCs preceded the iBook. I just thought that while everyone's waiting for an "Apple Netbook," here's an old model that already comes close.

[douggdangger]

"I couldn't even surf the web on my Netbook for longer than 2 hours. "

Maybe you should disconnect your refrigerator from your netbook so the battery would last longer.


I get 6 hours from my netbook without turning any power settings down.

I don't buy anything CNET has to say about Macs. They're more biased than CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, CBS and NBC combined.

[rickbroida]

No netbook with a three-cell battery (which was standard for first- and even some second-gen models) would run longer than two hours. If you're getting six hours, then you undoubtedly have a 6- or 9-cell battery.

[scrubbingbubbles]

really?

[josh81]

I have an HP Mini 1030NR (with the 3 cell battery) and I get about 2:30 with the screen automatically dimmed. That's simply surfing on wi-fi.

I would trade mine in a heartbeat to one of these iBooks - the Mini is just about useless for anything more than VERY BASIC surfing, though I do love its size/weight.

[sticknam50392]

Actually, I have a netbook (Asus) with a 4-cell battery that lasts more than 5 hours on normal performance with Wifi on...I doubt taking one cell off that battery would drop it by 3+ hours.
And my sister has a netbook (Dell) with a 3-cell battery and a hard drive (mine has an SSD!) that lasts around 4 hours on normal settings with Wifi on.
Have to say I'd disagree with 3-cell battery giving only 2 hours.

[rickbroida]

I should probably clarify this a bit further. I was thinking about posting a 12-inch Lenovo netbook priced at $379, but then I spotted this. It's remarkably similar, except that it has an optical drive and, well, it's a Mac. And when do you ever see any kind of Mac system at this price point? Never.

Granted, the warranty bites, and this is indeed a five-year-old system. I just found it striking how close it comes to the modern definition of a netbook.

Don't read any more into this than what's here. I just thought it was an interesting deal.

[crescentdave]

I have a 10 year old pc which has netbook performance. Woot! Personally, I like the idea of a new machine at that price point that carries a warranty and will run non-mac programs. But hey ... it is an interesting deal for a mac fan. They, after all, have absolutely zilch in the way of an affordable netbook (their only model is the airbook beginning @ $1400). Given that landscape ... ANYthing would be interesting.

[rapier1]

When do you see a Mac system at this price? When its 6 year old obsolete technology that's no longer supported. That's when. Don't get me wrong, I like my 12" PB - it was a fine machine that I used as my daily for 4 years. Trying to wedge it in to the netbook category is a hard sell though.

[jusben1369]

Yes Rick I think it's a good article and fair question. I think people are missing the central point:

- The market for Netbooks exploded because many people only use a computer for checking email and surfing the web or typing up a college paper. Gaming? No, Multimedia? No. iTunes with speakers for music? Maybe
- If those are your requirements then here is a sub $500 machine to fit the bill called a NetBook and it's exploding
- If those aren't your requirements then this discussion is moot
- If those are your requirements then here is a Mac that fits the bill.

Seems fair all round to me. Saying you could spend that money and get a multimedia capable PC sort of misses the point. It's a whole other tangent that opens up "Well spend $250 more and get much more power" and so on.

And for those people who inject "You could get one running Linux" it always sounds kind of..........desperate. This is the consumer world.

[loose_screw]

Can you install WinXP on this thing?

[protagonistic--2008]

Sure you can, just be sure to also buy a MS licensed copy of Virtual PC for Mac. :-)

[MattC867]

If by install you mean natively boot, then no, you cannot since it has a PPC processor. MS does make virtual pc for mac, but I don't think they sell it anymore. I could be wrong though. Not to mention we're talking about a pc with a 1.33ghz single core processor and 1gb of ram, so while certaintly possible, virtualization seems pretty impractical.

I do think you can find some PPC linux distros out there if OSX isn't for you.

[CornerStone__]

Windows XP does NOT support the PPC architecture. Do not expect this to run any type of windows, getting specific ppc types of linux/unix might run on the power PC based laptop.

[loose_screw]

Thanks guys. I was thinking of Bootcamp, but this seems no can do.

[douggdangger]

Apple fans have to settle for a 6 year old refurbished unit to have something "affordable".

They're refurbished, meaning they broke down and were defective 6 years ago. After more than half a decade in fixing and repairing them... they're being sold as "ground breaking" (no pun intended).

So much for Apple hardware "quality".

[MattC867]

well affordable is a relative term, isnt it?

Besides, did you read ricks commet? A 12 inch similar lenovo was approximately the same price.

And what exactly is your point about Apple hardware quality? I could make the same comments about any piece of 6 year old hardware.

[theveggiedude]

"So much for Apple hardware "quality"."

Nothing is 100%, but in the support area, Apple commands 80% approval rating while the pc competition comes in far behind at around 60%. I'm sure this reflects on the quality of hardware as well.

[Seaspray0]

Hey, hey. Back up the insult train folks. I know plenty of people who can only afford to get refurbished or used computers or not have one at all. I myself used to rely on an old compaq lte 5300 laptop up until a few years ago (pentium 133 mhz, 40 mb ram, 2 gb hd, Windows 98) and beleive it or not, it would get me on the internet when I traveled without problems (it was still running great when I gave it to a hurricane refugee). While most of the putzes believe computers are broken or useless in 3 years, I have seen too many examples where your discards have gone on running fine for well over a decade.

quality indeed!

[pjcamp]

If you don't mind the fact that Apple has dropped support for PowerPC from their OS . . . . .

[douggdangger]

I remember the time when Apple fans praised PowerPC chips and ridiculed and spat on Intel PC chips.

...my, how times have changed. ;-)

[josh81]

I would gladly take one of the newer IBM Power6+ chips over an Intel any day. Its Apple that quit PPC< not Apple fans. I wish there was still the option...

I clearly remember (side-by-side) my dual 500 MHz G4 could smoke my P4 2.0 GHz (both had 512MB RAM back then...)

[kangotang]

Performance wasn't the main issue when Apple switched to Intel. It was mostly due to power consumption and heat problems; Apple promised its customers a laptop with a G5, but the engineers at both Apple and IBM couldn't make it work.

[montex66]

When the PPC chips were in their prime, Intel's CPUs were only mediocre with multiple fans blowing away making a sound that was like having a lawnmower under the desk. Intel's chips have vastly improved in the past 5 years and Mac users are proud to have them in their computers. It's not about computers as religion, it is and always has been about having the best hardware and best software combined for the most elegant computing experience.

[Seaspray0]

@douggdangger. As someone who actually has programmed in assembler, the motorola 68000 series processors (which the power PC's were based on) really was a better processor from an archetectual standpoint. They just never kept up with the speeds that intel was making their chips. And I prefers PC's.

[alexacker]

I had a G4 iBook for about 3 years and then it died. I wouldn't get one again -- too heavy, too slow and the white was scratched horribly too. Spend a little more and get 'new'. It's worth it. Computers aren't better when they're vintage, like a Gibson Les Paul -- just a whole lot slower.

[Seaspray0]

The model mentioned in the article is no longer in production. The only way to get it is refurbished.

[CornerStone__]

Rick, fyi buy.com and some others have been accused by some including Leo Laporte to use unscrupulous practices. I heard they keep credit card on file and offer your credit card # to third parties, while they advertise to you, and could lose big time. so buyer beware.

[chillaxed]

heh, were still using iBook g3's in our video editing class......... there are only a few who were lucky enough to use a g4

[crescentdave]

I'd get my money back. It's a whole new world of video editing and it's pretty obvious your particular school isn't anywhere near up to the challenge.

[jaydark]

I've had the 14.1" version of this laptop for, going on 5 years now & it is built like a tank. I've taken it on deployments to the Middle East, accidently knocked it off of hotel beds, tripped on and yanked the power cord countlessly as it crashed to the floor and it keeps working flawlessley. As to speculation that the slot loading super drive is the weak link, it still works without a hitch. I've been waiting for it to conk out so I can get another macbook, but it won't die. If anyone wants a 'book that could take some punishment, consider this G4.

[PeteyBrian]

Thanks Rick - Interesting idea. Still waiting for a better low cost netbook deal for me to pull the trigger. Primarily to travel so it has to be 2.5-3 pounds and 12" screen is about right.

[minijedimaster]

They already have those, they're called notebooks. You won't ever see a netbook with a 12" screen because then it's no longer a netbook. So why would they make a netbook that's say $400 with a 12" screen when all it would do is kill sales of their 12" notebooks that cost way more? Good luck waiting, it's gonna be a while.

[rickbroida]

Actually, there are numerous netbooks with 12-inch screens.

[douggdangger]

"I would gladly take one of the newer IBM Power6+ chips over an Intel any day. Its Apple that quit PPC< not Apple fans. I wish there was still the option"

Intel's Core architecture was urinating all over PowerPC chips.

Did you forget that PowerPC chips were committing suicide by burning themselves to death?

I was an AMD fan during the era of the P4s.

[josh81]

Yeah, that's right - for the Power architecture that was in use at the time - G4s and G5s. The newer Power chips, much like Core vs. P4, are much better. Too bad they're energy hogs, though - as was stated above by kangotang, heat and power kept the G5 out of a PowerBook, and in a way, forced Apple's hand. I'd love to see a Power architecture Mac Pro, though. ;-D

[jsnowbordr47]

Great laptop, but too high of a price IMO. And I'm an Apple Fan. Now maybe a Powerbook G4, but not an iBook.

The old PowerPC Mac Laptops will always have a special place in my heart. In fact my parents still use my old Powerbook G4 laptop today and it runs everyday tasks (internet, word processing, basic video editing) better than the HP Vista based laptop my mom got from her work with a dual core AMD 64bit processor.


But $399.99 is too much for an iBook.

Actually the last gen PowerPC based Apple notebooks haven't held their value very well compared to the older black Apple laptops. You can find old Powerbook G3 Pismo's and Wallstreets on Ebay and craigslists for well over $250. Not bad for laptops made in the 90's.lol

[crescentdave]

How about a Macbook 13.3" 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo White for $440 with a 30 day warranty? 9 month, 1, 2 or 3 year extended warranties available.

http://www.gainsaver.com/Catalog/Detail.aspx?ciCode=121636&cattree=yes&cid=103&sid=MB061LL/B&medium=gbase&term=103&version=103

[josh81]

GainSaver? Please...

[crescentdave]

Please what? Please buy me one? If you have some specific info on why these guys are bad news ... pass it on ... do your community here a favor. Otherwise ... who do you expect is gonna sell old macs? Some shiny brick and mortar? I personally wouldn't touch one of these with a 10 ft pole, but like the man said ... for applets with no options re: netbooks, it's an interesting idea.

[josh81]

Gainsaver is notorious for a cheap entry price to get your attention. Look at adding the proper upgrades to the machine and see where your price is then. Also, at least according to the specs listed, they are REMOVING items from the machine. For example, look at a Macbook on Gainsaver - it lists NO AIRPORT (add it) and only a CD-ROM (add a Combo/Super). Apple never sold machines with such options, which leads me to wonder exactly what Gainsaver is doing to these machines.

Thus the reason for my original "Please..." Sorry if that offends you - check reputable eBayers instead.

[bobbybob3680]

aha. u kidding me? i would NEVER even pay 300 for am ibook. look on craigslist, please. theyre dirt cheap. heck you can get a powerbook for that price