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Mac Daniel's Advice

Picking a PowerBook

Korin Hasegawa-John - 2001.08.06

If you are looking to buy a PowerBook, there are a lot of tradeoffs involved. Ultimate performance or size and weight? Cost or features? There are a lot of options. If you have money to spend, get an iBook or TiBook. However, if you want a portable to compliment your desktop machine or as a desktop replacement, there are several decent deals out there on older 'Books.

Desktop Replacement

For this you probably want a Lombard, a.k.a. Bronze Keyboard. Get the 400 MHz model because it has the DVD drive. PowerBook G3Don't pay more than about $1,500 on eBay. To the best of my knowledge you can't add a DVD drive to the 333 MHz model if it didn't ship with one.

Lombard already has SCSI and USB, so you may want to add a FireWire card. You can find new FireWire2Go cards from Newer Tech (out of business) for about $40.

The Lombard also shipped with a relatively small 6 GB hard drive, which you should probably replace. You can get a standard issue IBM TravelStar 20 GB hard drive for about $100.

While you have the case open to install the hard drive, add at least 256 MB RAM, for a total of 320 or more. That should cost about $50.

What else do you need? Well, a second battery is good. Add another one (for $130) and get about 6-8 hours of run time using both batteries! And since you have the advantage of the expansion bay, why not use it? Add an Xcaret expansion bay CD-RW for $300. It isn't the fastest, but it is definitely a cool gadget. Burn CDs internally with a PowerBook? Yeah!

While you are at MCE's website, get a Xcaret expansion bay hard drive carrier, so you can use your old 6 GB drive as an internal removable drive for backup. And what's a PowerBook without wireless networking? Add an AirPort compatible Lucent Orinoco Silver card for about $120.

Now you have a PowerBook G3/400 MHz that can potentially be upgraded to 667 MHz (if such is an upgrade is ever released), with 320 MB+ of RAM, a DVD-ROM drive, 20 GB internal hard drive, 6 GB expansion bay hard drive, expansion bay CD-RW drive, two batteries, SCSI, USB, FireWire, and AirPort for the nifty price of about $2,360. That's less than a 400 MHz TiBook. Granted, you don't get a G4 processor, 100 MHz system bus, 1"-slim-ness and light weight, and 15" screen, but you do get better battery life (with the dual setup), SCSI, CD-RW, AirPort and a handy backup hard drive.

Want to spend less? Just cut some things out, like the AirPort card and CD-RW.

Portability With Less Cost

Buy a PowerBook 2400. I own one of these, and I suggest you try the keyboard before investing. It has a nice touch, but the keys are a little small and some keys are placed differently or shaped differently. I don't have a problem with it.

The 2400 is a 603e-based portable running at 180 or 240 MHz. It has a maximum of 80 MB RAM and shipped with a 1.3 GB hard drive. They weigh 4.4 pounds and have a 10.4" active matrix screen.

I advise getting one with the full 80 MB RAM. A 2400 of that configuration will costs about $400-500. Next, replace the hard drive with a 6 GB hard drive for about $50. 2400s are hard to take apart; I recommend you get instructions or take it to an Apple Authorized Service Center (AASC).

Next is the hard part - finding a G3 upgrade. Check eBay. Newer Tech made 200 and 240 MHz upgrades, while Vimage made 240 MHz, 320 MHz, and a 400 MHz ones. Don't pay more than about $250-300 for a Newer 240 MHz card. Again, if you don't have instructions, take it to an AASC.

Try to get ahold of a second battery; they cost over $250 when they are sold new! Check for used ones. For a used battery with a guarantee, $100 is a good price.

Once everything is installed, you have a PowerBook G3/240 weighing 4.4 pounds with 80 MB RAM, a 6 GB hard drive, and two batteries (about 3-4 hours run time) - all for about $800. The performance is nothing like an iBook, but it has legacy ports and PC Card slots and can be upgraded to CardBus. If it's just a portable for use when you go on the road, performance is not that big of a deal.

There you have it. There are alternatives to the new iBook and TiBook if you look around.

Not sure if you should upgrade your old Mac or replace it? Check the Mac Daniel index to see if we've already addressed your problem.

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