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Apple Archive

Can a Low-end Mac be a Suitable Only Mac?

- 2001.11.23

While I do have high-end equipment at home, I decided to take my aging PowerBook 5300cs with me on vacation to California. The 5300 is the slowest PowerPC-based PowerBook, and at only 100 MHz is considered quite slow by today's standards. I hadn't used my 5300 in a while, probably because of a problem I'd been having with the screen. However, I decided to try it again - and after running it for many hours, it seemed like the problem had sorted itself out. I reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled Mac OS 8.5 (I didn't have time to update to 8.6).

I installed some of the applications that I often use, such as Microsoft Office. I also installed an MP3 player, GreyAmp, and iTunes (yes, on 8.5) for Internet radio. I installed the software for my PCMCIA ethernet card and hooked it up to my cable modem to make sure the software was all working properly. I was amazed that Internet performance was actually acceptable. Internet radio worked fine. I then connected my 28.8 PCMCIA modem and was able to get on the Internet without much trouble. I tried out the Internet radio feature in iTunes, but the connection kept dropping, and it had to reconnect to the server, so I didn't play with it much.

Right now I am on a plane heading toward San Francisco, and unfortunately it looks like the screen problem has started appearing again. The upper half of the screen gets taken over by these red, green, and yellow vertical lines. When you press on areas of the back, they lessen or go away (if you're really lucky). Other than that, the 5300's screen is decent. It is passive matrix, which means that it is of not as high quality as the active matrix version, and using a computer with this type of screen tends to make the computer feel "slow," as things (menus, dialogue boxes) appear on the screen more slowly than they would on an active matrix screen and leave slight shadows after they go away. An advantage to passive matrix is that anyone sitting next to you cannot see what is happening on the screen, so your laptop is more personal.

The other thing I like about the 5300 is its small size. It fits easily under my arm and in my backpack. Some of today's laptops are so large that they have trouble fitting in small spaces, which is important to me when it comes to portability. This is why the "ice" iBook is almost the perfect laptop (add a couple PCMCIA card slots and it would be perfect). Sure, a large screen is really nice, but when the screen makes the computer so large that it won't fit anywhere? I'd rather take a smaller screen so I can have a smaller laptop. This is why I like the 5300. The "ce" model would be just about the perfect low-end laptop, as the screen is a decent 800 x 600, instead of 640 x 480 like all of the other 5300 models.

Unfortunately there aren't any processor upgrade options for the 5300 series. I can't tell you why, but it is unfortunate because the 5300 was popular, and I am sure that many owners would have been interested in upgrading theirs - although it is a bit late now, since many owners replaced theirs with a G3 or G4 PowerBooks. A processor upgrade would not really be economical anymore because the RAM in a 5300 can only be upgraded to 64 MB (mine has 48 MB), and there would be no OS X support.

Even though a G3 upgrade isn't available, the 5300 is still a useable machine. I will see how it gets me through the next few days. If you get to read this, I have been successful in getting it set up for email and the Internet in California.

Recent Apple Archive articles

iPods, notebooks, and other modern electronics more readily replaced than repaired, 12.07. Whether it's an intermittent failure or a broken display cable, more often than not it's cheaper to replace a broken electronics device than repair it.
Options for replacing your older iPod, 11.19. Whether you've run out of space on your old iPod or want features it doesn't have, here are your options in new and used iPods.
Could the $200 'green' PC with gOS Linux become a threat to Apple?, 11.14. The low cost, low power Everex desktop comes with a customized version of Ubuntu Linux, has a Mac-like Dock, and sells for $400 less than the Mac mini.
Leopard different, a bit buggy, but worth the upgrade, 11.02. Leopard on a Power Mac G4 and a MacBook Pro: It runs well on both computers, but each has some odd bugs, and some of the changes are a step backwards.
More in the Apple Archive index.

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Best Time Capsule and AirPort Deals, 11.23. Used 802.11g AirPort Extreme, $49; 500 GB Time Capsule, $150; new, $190; 1 TB dual-band, $280; 2 TB, $469; 802.11n AirPort Extreme, $170.
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