which mac laptops run OS X the best??

spookyfusion

spookyfusion

Registered
hey everyone..
here is a question (to take up some of your -valuable- time)... which mac laptops (powerbooks OR ibooks) do u suppose run OS X the best? i am going to buy a used laptop from sell-a-mac.com in the next few weeks (so's i can take it back and forth from skool), and i want to get the best thing for running lots of X apps. Right now I have a G4 400 tower and it runs X kinda crummy. i have tweaked it alot with a swap partition and lots of other attempts to cut down on how bloaty everything is, but the fact is - it is still slow with lots of stuff. however, i know some of the G3 ibooks run X nicely... does anyone have any suggestions on what i should look for when i pick out a used laptop?
thanks - lex
p.s. i guess i should mention i live off student loans and crummy assistantships so don't bother suggesting i buy the brand new $4000 G4 powerbook. :)
 
My G3 400MHz Prismo runs OS X like a champ. Super stable! My onlt complaint is battery life, but I think that is an issue for may PowerBooks and iBooks runnung OS X.
 
it's not the performence as much the battery life and the RAM

Get your RAM far past 128 and you'll be fine

Powerbooks have better battery life because with my iBook 500 Mhz i get about 2 hours on X and 4 on classic

big note about having a laptop
1) buy an extra power cord
2) make sure no one trips over your power cord
3) tell them that it's NOT a touch screen
4) talk to your system Admin about connecting to the network (if possable)
 
Although both a Pismo and a white iBook (first gen) have 500 MHz G3 processors, the iBook runs OS X better in all of my tests. I'd try and get one of the white iBooks or a TiBook 550/667, if you want a used one. Or just buy a new, cheap iBook... A new machine is always better.
 
i have heard the tibook 500 actually outperforms the 550 beause of the larger cache

:D

obviously a tibook will run osx better because of altivec, but newish ibooks are great too
 
thanks everyone for your replies!
this is very informative. i am leaning heavily toward a white ibook since i may be able to scrape the cash together and they seem so nice. also, they are TINY and that is exactly what i need to drag it back and forth from work and home. still, i am open to anyone's suggestion. :)
 
good choice! tibook 500 being faster than the 550: sounds nice for me, and it's true for the processor power, but not for the graphics power. and for the feel of os x, the graphics power may be of more importance...
 
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