• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

PowerBook 5300

jhorvath911

Well-known member
Not to me it isn't, last one I picked up was 49 (usd) including shipping off eBay and that was a 5300c not the cs.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

Carboy7

Well-known member
Are you kidding me? No no no no, a PB5300/c/s is NOT worth $184. Unless it is fully boxed, with all the manuals... Nope, a regular 5300/c/s won't even get you $100 unless it's spotless. That computer is so fragile.

In fact, with no internal CD drive, hinge cover cracking, and ribbon cable problems, why would you get one of those instead of a nice 1400 or G3 Wallstreet/Lombard/Pismo?

 

Trash80toHP_Mini

NIGHT STALKER
They've been rather scarce for a while now, but wait for a nice, clean 5300ce to add to your collection. 117MHz Proc vs. 100MHz and the first ever 800x600 active matrix display. Just drop dead gorgeous, besides, it saved the world in Independence Day!

5300ce would be on my gottahaveit list were it not that I've got two in the bag. Get a Zip module, we don' need no steenking CD! :rambo:

 

Anonymous Freak

Well-known member
I really want one of those mini CD drives from Independence Day, but I have a feeling that was a mockup, not a real thing.

 

bunnspecial

Well-known member
When I got my 5300c, I think that the seller had it listed at a price of $50+shipping. It came with the manual, two batteries(dead) and power adapter but works fine.

I bought it from someone cleaning out their collection in preparation for moving. I'd made a deal on $300 or so of other stuff, and the seller ended up throwing in the 5300c as a freebie since he could fit it in the shipping box and have it out of his way. No one else had even expressed interest in it.

 

bibilit

Well-known member
I got two of them (CS) one was free, the other i paid 10 € for it...

the first one was in very bad condition, but worked, Galgot supplied to me some spares so i have two nice units now.

 

mac-cellar

Active member
$50 sounds about right and the more that is included in that price, the better. 

Mine came with a fantastic Targus bag built for the 5300, and the internal power supply module for the expansion bay that allows you to bypass the notoriously fragile AC power connector in the back.  Throw in a working floppy module, the manuals, the boot disk, and a monitor adapter, and I had a pretty good score for about $50.

It is in fine physical shape, fires right up, and what's more, it was stamped as having gone through the long ago repair extension program to fix the power connector and the hinge plastics.

 

techknight

Well-known member
these things are horrible for the DC jack breaking too. I picked one up at the hamvention for I think it was $5 or $10. busted DC jack. 

Luckily there was enough of the DC jack left to resolder into place, and epoxy it back together. It did work after that. The AC adapter made a nice explosion noise inside when I plugged it in for the first time though. made me jump. Got another one and it was fine. 

 

Elfen

Well-known member
Ah yes. The 5300, an excellent machine for its time, despite its negatives. Still own my 5300ce I had since the 1990s and picked up two 190s along the way.

With a CF-to-PCMCIA adapter of a large enough PCMCIA Flash RAM Card, you can build a back up drive for it, and with a CF to IDE Adapter you can use it as a Solid State Drive. Just make sure it boots up on the PCMCIA first, and then just swap it to the IDE Cable. This works with both the 190 and the 5300.

But like everyone is saying, it is not worth over $150. Maybe 1/2 that and that depends on its condition and model. The 5300ce would be the best one to get.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

bunnspecial

Well-known member
these things are horrible for the DC jack breaking too. I picked one up at the hamvention for I think it was $5 or $10. busted DC jack. 

Luckily there was enough of the DC jack left to resolder into place, and epoxy it back together. It did work after that. The AC adapter made a nice explosion noise inside when I plugged it in for the first time though. made me jump. Got another one and it was fine. 
Interesting. A while back I bought one on Ebay that was advertised as non-working and the packing tape holding it together didn't leave me in much doubt :) . I actually bought it with a non-working 3400c so that I could rob the LCD off the 3400 for my working one with a bad screen.

In any case, the 5300 from that lot showed no signs of life at all. I just stuck it in the "assorted PowerBooks and parts cabinet" since I didn't have a lot of motivation to fix it. I might revisit that one.

 
Top