Best Powerbook out of these?

[Johnnya101]

Hi all,

I am going to be in a trade with someone, and in it I am getting a Quadra 700 and a powerbook. The person has a few different models. But only chargers for the 100 series. Im trying to figure out which is the best...

2x 170 (Not enough max ram in my opinion. Rebuilt battery, same below)

1x 140 (Not enough max ram in my opinion)

1x 165c (Love it, but small battery life and okay screen from what Ive read. Rebuilt battery)

1x 520c (No charger, but the best out of them? Rebuilt battery)

What do you guys think? Are the 520c chargers hard to find?

I love the square body type of the 100s along with that ball vs trackpad. What would you guys choose? 

 

[jsarchibald]

I have a 165c, and think it's great.  Turned it on yesterday and there's something up with the trackball, but apart from that, it runs like a champ.  The 520 would be nice, maybe see if you can get them both (or all)?

 

[Johnnya101]

Well it's either the 520 or the 165... What would I do about the missing charger with the 520?

 

[Byrd]

I'd go for the 170s provided they have good screens that don't vignette with 8MB RAM, this is more than enough for a B&W System 7.1 environment.

The 140, 165c, 520c = all passive displays that I'd prefer to not look at

 

[Rajel]

I'd go with the 520c. Moar rams.

 

[Carboy7]

Blackbird power bricks are hard to find by themselves. You might want to buy another machine with power brick included and use that as a parts machine if all you are looking for is a power brick...

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

I'd go for the 165c. The 170's LCD panel is subject to the same moisture issue as the 180.

 

[jsarchibald]

I get what you mean about the display on the 165c.  With mine, you just need to find the sweet spot between the brightness and contract controls, and it's actually pretty good.

 

[Johnnya101]

Thanks guys! I'm going to stick with my original choice of the 165c then.

Is the passive matrix that much worse than an active?

 

[Rajel]

Is the passive matrix that much worse than an active?

Image quality-wise, yes. Huge difference.

Passive-matrix seems to have withstood the test of time better though, a lot of the active matrix displays have a ton of moisture issues.

 

[danikayser84]

Own a pair of 180c (active matrix version of 165c), as well as a trio of Blackbirds (520, 520c, 540c)... pretty good machines but be careful of the 2.5 SCSI hard drives (1xx/5xx don't have any logic board caps I know of, only the LCD and inverter I believe, as well as the 5xx power bricks)

Color active matrix screens (540c/280c/180c) AFAICT do not give tunneling issues like the mono ones, but caps and backlights dying are an issue on these era displays; also keep in mind some early mono passive displays develop the purplish pink cracks on the panel (believe on the 100/140/160 mainly)

Also, 5xx do not support 24 bit addressing even under pre-7.6 OS versions so if you're running some old software/games that need it, 1xx/2xx would be a better bet

 

[just.in.time]

I personally would also go with the 165c from that list.

Yes, the image quality on a passive matrix vs active matrix is hugely noticeable, and the 165c also uses the odd 640*400 resolution instead of 640*480.

That said, it is a neat machine with (as far as I understand) a decently reliable design. A working PowerBook is almost always better than a dead PowerBook Depending on how much RAM it has installed it would make a great 7.1 to 7.5.5 machine.