Thinking of buying a G4 15", would like opinions

[CC_333]

Your Acer experience remind me of one of my few Dell experiences:

Sometime in mid 2009, I got a new Dell Studio 1737, because I thought it would be somehow better at audio recording/playback and a few other specialized tasks than the Late 2006 and Mid 2007 MacBooks I was using at the time. It came with Vista (which, by SP2, wasn't really *that* bad), but I needed XP on it, because of a software program I needed to run (it had *very* specific OS requirements).

Anyway, the thing was terrible. WiFi and Bluetooth would randomly stop working, the trackpad would have convulsions every now and then, and it was slow, even with a fast 7200 RPM hard drive and max RAM thrown at it (I did some research, and found that this particular model was known for being stupidly slow, despite its good-on-paper specs (2 GHz Intel Core2Duo-based something-or-other (Celeron, maybe?) on an 800 MHz FSB)).

I put Ubuntu on it (figuring that maybe it was a problem with Windows or something), and that helped *slightly*, but the WiFi/Bluetooth and trackpad issues remained, so I ended up just shelving the thing after grappling with it for at least two frustrating years.

So, if you're experiencing inexplicable slowness with your Acer, despite your efforts to clean up the OS and install a fast-ish hard drive, then you might as well get something else rather than wasting your time on something that's inherently broken by design.

If you want a cheap Intel Mac laptop of some kind, there are plenty out there that are relatively cheap which would be far superior to any PowerBook in terms of modern-day performance. And any machine that can run Snow Leopard should be able to run all your PPC stuff well enough thanks to Rosetta (I think even a 1st gen MacBook can actually run PPC software almost as well as a PPC Mac, so you shouldn't have too many performance issues).

I'm one to talk, though. For about half of this last spring's school semester, I slogged along with a 1.33 GHz a 12" PowerBook, and it did what I needed quite nicely (albeit slowly), so you can definitely still slide by with one if necessary.

Hope this helps!

c

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

A Core Duo MBP can power through just about everything under Rosetta; I can run Halo at medium high under emulation at 1440x900 just fine. G5 tuned applications are rougher but there weren't many of those.

 

[haemogoblin]

As I said before, I don't want to use Linux on this Acer. It's a mobile processor, so running Photoshop through wine would be like pulling teeth. For the past week I've been using my iBook for everything I was 'trying' to do on the acer. Even with the books intermittent trackpad issue, its still easier to use.

I might actually look in to the early macbook pro, I didn't know it could run ppc software! Thanks!

 

[Gorgonops]

If the job you need to accomplish is running Photoshop fast, why not either spend the money that a MacBook would cost on a substantially faster used PC laptop or, well, if you don't absolutely need portability get a desktop? The 2008 vintage Core Quad Q6600-based desktops I saved from a dumpster and set up for my kids are almost half again faster than that laptop of yours. Or to put it another way, what's your budget? It's pretty easy to find off-lease 2012-ish vintage "Business class" PC laptops for around $200, and this particular model is twice as fast as your Acer. On the local Craigslist that money... well, it might get you an okay 2009 Macbook (if you hunt *really hard), or a beater MacBook Pro. (Most of the ones I see for that price are the ones with the dreaded 8600GT graphics chip.) So... I guess it circles around again, what do you want here? Something that runs an *oooold* version of Photoshop pretty well, or something that runs the Windows version better than your Acer? They're kinda mutually exclusive.

 

[haemogoblin]

If you read what I wrote initially that explains why I'm looking at the PowerBook.

 

[Gorgonops]

I read it, but still sorta confused since your priorities seem to ping-pong around between "I'd totally be fine running an 10 year old version of photoshop on PPC if only I had a better built laptop" and "It's MISSION CRITICAL that I be able to run Photoshop as fast and easily as possible!". Is running Photoshop, like, a job thing, or just a hobby? I guess if it's the latter and you're fine with... what's the last G4 compatible version, CS3?, then I guess go for it.

Well, there was also the web browsing thing, but if you swear it's okay on your iBook I'm in no position to argue that a slightly faster PowerBook wouldn't be better. I would simply caution, going *way back* to this:

I have a G4 iBook 1.33Ghz which I've been using for the more intensive tasks, I'm expecting the G4 1.67ghz would be significantly more snappy.

As I mentioned earlier, I've had a *heap* of experience with 15" PowerBooks, all the way from the 400mhz Titanium to the 1.67HR Al, and so far as I'm concerned all the Als from the 1.33's to the 1.67ghz "feel" pretty much the same speedwise. All of them were a noticable leap from a 867mhz Ti (fastest one of those I've used) but between the Als themselves the difference was pretty much negligable. (Yes, the faster one will render a DVD or something 20% faster, but for general use vs. wall clock-able tests they just don't "feel" any faster.) 1.33ghz iBooks and Powerbooks are within a few points of each other on GeekBench; granted, there are tests like Cinebench that give the Powerbook a bigger advantage because of their better video cards, but be sure to keep your expectations for improvement within bounds.

 

[haemogoblin]

Hi Gorgonops

Photoshop and CGI have long been a hobby of mine, so i enjoy sitting down with CS2 and doodling. Over the years I've been able to produce some pretty impressive things with just my Pismo, I bought the iBook for the better screen and faster G4 1.33. Yes I want photoshop to run smoothly and yes when your running CS2 on a 10 year old machine, it does run pretty well, at least that is my experience. I was looking at the later Powerbook because the Acer I have is cheesing me off. Windows 8.1 and 10 are dreadful to use and no matter what Microsoft say, 10 runs just as slow as 8 on my hardware.

Aside from heavy sites working like youtube and facebook, my online experience with the Acer isn't that much better then my iBook. In addition, the cheap feeling trackpad leaves me wanting to tear off my own fingers when ever I use it for more then a few seconds, something I've never had with the iBook!

So I thought why NOT get a G4 Powerbook, its the last of the PPC laptops Apple made, the build quality will no doubt be a damn sight better then the Acer. Your getting a machine that used to cost over a grand new, at the very least the trackpad will be better.

I could go for an intel mac, now that I know they'll run my PPC apps. Installing Xebuntu on the Acer V3 is also an option, but it wont change the fact it's a steaming pile of donkey droppings with a utterly useless trackpad. In truth I might just stick with the iBook, I've been using it a lot more recently and if what you say about the speed difference is true, then going from a 1.33 to a 1.66 wont feel like much of a bump. The one thing the Powerbook would give me would be a larger screen.

Btw thank you for the reply, this thread has been really useless and I've learned quite a bit from it

 

[haemogoblin]

*Snigger* I obviously meant useful! Thanks auto correct, thanks a lot!

Btw thank you for the reply, this thread has been really useless and I've learned quite a bit from it

 

[Gorgonops]

Man, don't get me started about autocorrect.

Ah well, to be clear I didn't mean to badger you too much. It's just a thing we've seen before where someone ends up spending too much money on a PPC Mac because they're not really clear about its unsuitability for certain "you sorta expect a computer to do that these day tasks" and, well, sadness ensues. By all means for what you're doing if you see a cheap PB go ahead and pick it up, the screen *is* a big improvement over the 1024x786 checkerboard of an iBook, but if you're not seeing anything for fun money I'd say pass until you do.

We could probably start a whole new thread about the early Intel MacBooks (and Pros); my shorthand contribution to it would be, well, approach with caution. Honestly with few exceptions all the pre-Unibody Pros are sorta lemons to some degree or another. The 2006 models had some notorious build quality bugs, there were all the issues with the Nvidia-equipped models, and none of them age particularly well. (Their physical construction is basically the same as that of the Aluminum G4s but they're even thinner, so they dent, they bend, they warp, and I've also encountered some annoying material quality issues with them. For instance, I had to tear the "dust curtain" around the DVD drive slot out of my 2008 15" model because the material became stiff and brittle enough to interfere with disk ejection.) Overall not super impressed. They were certainly better than your Acer when they were new, I guess, but there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then.

 

[haemogoblin]

This is why I initially struck intel Macbooks off my list of potential replacements. I'd rather use an older 2005 PPC mac, that might have fixable issues, then a system that has serious design flaws. I really like the plastic macbooks and because of my affinity with my Pismo, I did consider getting myself a black macbook. But then i found out about the brittle plastics on the palm rest and the top of the screen. Needless to say, i wasn't impressed and it put me off the idea.

Even looking a the PPC aluminum Powerbooks, most of them had dents or bent edges. I know people says it's easily done, but I've never dropped a single one of my laptops, I've had one flop over when i propped it up on its side, but thats about it.

I think it's fair to say anyone buying a G3 or G4 now can't go expecting blinding performance. I can't speak for G5's as I've never used one, but I'd say we are getting to the point where even G5's are showing their age. I have a perfectly good large 17.5" hp, which is great around the house. But too cumbersome for carrying around with me when I'm out and about, I wanted something portable, that I could take around in a rucksack. I've a fondness for old Macs and always liked the Powerbooks, the 15" would be handy for photoshop with it's large screen.

 

[CC_333]

Believe it or not, 15" PowerBooks still play modern video formats quite decently, if carefully tuned.

I had mine tuned such that I could play most h264 and MP4 stuff relatively well via VLC on Leopard (I tried VLC on Tiger, but for some reason, I couldn't get video working quite right).

A 12", I don't know. I've never tried.

Actually, I have one of the HR PowerBooks, but it's quite a fixer-upper, and I haven't gotten around to working on it (I think it needs, at a minimum, a battery, top case, and RAM *just* to power it on).

If you don't mind assembling it yourself, you can have it free for shipping.

c

 

[haemogoblin]

That would be great! Sure! can you pm me details? maybe a pic of the machine?

 

[flecom]

I still use a 12" Powerbook 6,2 ~ 1Ghz w/768MB ram... you can browse the net but it's kind of painful... I mostly just use it to run Plex... my server transcodes any of the high bit-rate videos down so I can actually watch my media on it, but I mostly use it as a nightstand music player with headphones on and for SSHing into linux boxes at work... I put a 32GB IDE SSD in it so its completely silent and a little less painful to use... but using it as a daily driver... think I would slit my wrists to be perfectly honest...

 

[Cory5412]

I would be completely unsurprised to find that an Acer Aspire V3 is ten times faster than a last-generation PowerBook G4.

To put it simply, nothing Apple built in that timeframe was fast or even very well put together. It's best, in my experience, to just sort of pretend Apple totally mysteriously didn't build laptops at all between when they stopped making the Pismo and the 500/600MHz Rage graphics iBooks, until late 2008 when the unibody MacBook/Pros came out. If there was ever proof that throwing money at a problem isn't always the best solution, it's early-mid 2000s Apple. Just because you tossed $2500 into a PowerBook G4 and got an expensive computer doesn't mean that you got a good computer.

So if you're looking for something cheap that's about a decade old that will feel better than your Acer computer, then a ThinkPad or Latitude is going to be a good system to look at. I personally favor ThinkPad T/R 60-series and 400/600 series with Core2Duo CPUs. I have a T400 I bought new in early 2009 and it still does everything I need just fine. It has since been outpaced by what are essentially netbooks, but Merom and Penryn Core2 hardware is now "cheap or free" class and you can typically easily upgrade and maintain these types of systems, especially business notebooks such as ThinkPads or Latitudes.

If "fast" is the priority above all else: you already have it, and perhaps you should investigate making an image of the drive and trying out Linux. If it works properly, WINE shouldn't actually slow down the execution of Photoshop, etc, since you're still running Intel code on an Intel CPU.

Of course, I personally think that the best solution may be to use the Windows 8.1U1 installation media (which you already created, along with a backup of your system, because you have a tech blog, right?) and using that to set up your system in a stable state, with none of the included junk ware from Acer. If the system just has a bad trackpad, it may not fix that, but it'll probably fix the performance problems as well as any lingering issue caused by junk software, such as unreliability, etc.

 

[Cory5412]

Just looked more closely into the Aspire V3-112P. There seem to be two versions -- one has a Celeron N2940, and the other has a Pentium N3540. Both are impressive chips, all things considered, and as Gorgonops suggested, you probably found GeekBench 3 scores for the Aspire, and GeekBench 2 scores for the G4. Ultimately, I would not at all be surprised to find out that this thing is ten times as fast as the G4, at just about everything.

User experience means a lot though, and it sounds like the real core problems here are...

1. keyboard
2. touchpad
3. web pages load slowly

You can probably fix #3 by changing your web browser and perhaps fixing up (or re-doing) your installation of Windows.

My best and most honest solution for the keyboard and touchpad, however, are to get a different computer, or to give up on portability and "dock" this system with a desktop keyboard and mouse. I've given up faster systems than the aforementioned ThinkPad T400 because I didn't like using them, but going all the way back to a G4 would be completely ludicrous.

For an example of how bad the performance on a G4 really is, I got a midrange ThinkPad T30 from 2002 (the 1.8GHz model) and for funnies, ran Cinebench on it. It got the same score that the 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 from 2005 gets. A ThinkPad from 2005 will outgun it by that much more.

If this is a productive kind of computer, I think the real question I'd be asking is why bother with a Mac if a PC will be faster, and to be perfectly honest, if you're going to  seek out a good business-class PC, why bother with something from 2005, when things from 2009 are free or cheap, at this point?

 

[Cory5412]

But if this is purely a hobby machine, and you just like puttering around in CS2 and it doesn't really matter that the machine might fall apart at any moment and it doesn't actually matter how fast it goes, and so on... then what does it matter what you spend on it, if it makes you happy?

What motivates the purchase of something people use for hobbies or for nostalgia purposes tends not to necessarily make sense from a purely economical and numbers standpoint. I put a few hundred bucks into an Apple IIgs setup, but it's not because I expect the IIgs to be "the best" at anything I do, or even the most fun computer I have to use. 

If you view PowerPC Macs that way, then I don't think there's anything unreasonable in doing that.

 

[Cory5412]

Having said all of that: I personally think it's a terrible idea to use old versions of Mac OS X on the Internet, and if you're looking at an Internet computer, I personally recommend sticking with a "pretty recent" version of Mac OS X, which will run well enough on a perhaps surprising range of hardware.

It's a calculated risk and there are ways to mitigate it, but there's more interesting things to be done with a G4 than to check your webmail, and faster and safer hardware on which to check your e-mail.

 

[flecom]

I can also recommend the Thinkpad T60, I still use mine daily... with 2GB ram and a 120GB SSD it runs Windows 8.1 just fine

 

[Unknown_K]

T61's seem to be cheap these days. I just picked up a T61 NV140 1680x1050 screen with 3GB RAM and N wireless for $17.50 shipped (just needed a HD). The T60 series seems to have better hinges and keyboards. 15" G4 Powerbooks will cost you more in the same condition as a T61 and are much slower with less expansion (2GB vs 8GB RAM, IDE VS SATA HD, G vs N wireless on some models). Also it is a pain to get HD mounting hardware on a G4 compared to any Thinkpad.

 

[haemogoblin]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I installed windows 10 on the Acer and was surprised to find Microsoft have managed to make an even LESS appealing operating system :-/ Even if i installed Linux on this Acer, it still wouldn't alter the fact its a badly designed pile of c3$p. I've now resided to using my G4 1.33Ghz iBook for writing and doing the odd bit of photoshop when I'm out and about.

If a G4 Powerbook comes up cheap, then I might go for it, but for now I'm coping pretty well with the iBook

Cory5412 - I dont think I'd be on 68kmla if i didn't have a love for old macs and finding ways to keep them going.