What were PowerBook G4 laptops made of 20 years ago ?

[trs96]

It wasn't Aluminum or plastic. It was Titanium. I was not using any Apple laptop back in 2001, just desktops. The first Powerbook G4 I ever got my hands on was back in 2004. A friend let me try it out for a few hours. I was really impressed by the build quality and the OS. Mac OS X Tiger was light years ahead of Windows XP. There was just no comparison in regard to the GUI, ease of use and polish that it had. It was like a conversion experience those few hours I had used it.

It wasn't at all like that in 2001. Those first Titanium G4s literally fell apart and had many problems. They looked great but that was about all they had going. Mac OS X was not very good in those early days either, it was still buggy and had many issues. I got my first Powerbook G4 experience at exactly the right time. Had it been back in 2001, my first experience with a Mac laptop would have been very different. I bought a G4 Mac mini in 2005 that came with Tiger pre-installed and have used OS X and MacOS ever since.

This video goes into detail about the transition of Apple laptops from the black plastic G3 cases to metal based G4 ones.

 

[pastrychef]

My first laptop was a PowerBook Pismo. It was a fantastic laptop. Durable, flexible, and easy to upgrade. I even had it sent in for a third party G4 upgrade.

I never own the Titanium models but I did work on a few to repair broken hinges. I always felt they were inferior to the Pismo and the palm rests all looked like a mess after a while.

I never owned an aluminum PowerBook either but, again, worked on quite a few for friends to do upgrades and/or repairs. Although an improvement over the Titanium models, I still felt they were inferior to the Pismo.

After hanging on to Mac OS 9.2.2 for dear life for as long as I could, I finally made the transition to Mac OS X with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. This was around the time I got my first iBook. These things were terrible! A lot of body flex led to the ATI GPU solder joints being broken. They were also seemingly held together by a hundred screws with each being a different size.

I upgrade to a polycarbonate MacBook when the Santa Rosa versions were released and these were leaps and bounds better than the iBooks but still had a lot of body flex and also had some trackpad problems.

Next, I got the Aluminum Unibody MacBook and this one was finally able to match the Pismo for durability. It was also much easier to work on internally than anything I had before. Eventually, I had to get it replaced due to it only supporting a max of 8GB RAM...

Edit:
Almost forgot about the iBook G3 Clamshell... These were very well built and I never noticed any body flex with them. They were also quite easy to work on internally. The one major flaw was the abysmal 800x600 resolution LCD panel. It made using the laptop a painful experience.

 

[trs96]

After hanging on to Mac OS 9.2.2 for dear life for as long as I could, I finally made the transition to Mac OS X with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. This was around the time I got my first iBook. These things were terrible! A lot of body flex led to the ATI GPU solder joints being broken. They were also seemingly held together by a hundred screws with each being a different size.

I'm currently working on a 13" 2011 MBP that has hinge problems. The clutch cover had cracked in many places so I had to take it apart to replace that. I've also decided to replace the hinges now too. It's probably a lot easier to work on than any of the pre-MacBook Pro laptops.

 

[pastrychef]

I currently working on a 13" 2011 MBP that has hinge problems. The clutch cover had cracked in many places so I had to take it apart to replace that. I've also decided to replace the hinges now too. It's probably a lot easier to work on than any of the pre-MacBook Pro laptops.

Oh yeah. The Intel based models were much much easier to work on internally. The only problem with those models were the dying GPUs... If your model had one of those overheating AMD GPUs, it was just a matter of time before the laptop bites the dust. Apple extended the warranty and did logic board replacements but that just bought you more time because the GPU will eventually fail again.

 

[trs96]

If your model had one of those overheating AMD GPUs, it was just a matter of time before the laptop bites the dust.

Yes, I know all about that. This 2011 MBP has an i5 with HD3000 and no AMD GPU. It's mostly used for internet access and web browsing so it's adequate for those uses.

 

[pastrychef]

Yes, I know all about that. This 2011 MBP has an i5 with HD3000 and no AMD GPU. It's mostly used for internet access and web browsing so it's adequate for those uses.

Over the years, I learned to stick with IGPU on laptops when possible. Lol.

Since I never played games on my laptops, it wasn't a big deal to me.

 

[Gigamaxx]

Oh yeah. The Intel based models were much much easier to work on internally. The only problem with those models were the dying GPUs... If your model had one of those overheating AMD GPUs, it was just a matter of time before the laptop bites the dust. Apple extended the warranty and did logic board replacements but that just bought you more time because the GPU will eventually fail again.

This may have been one of the reasons for Nvidia and Apple parting ways as well. The Nvidia cards also had issues, the cheap solder joints led to overheating and failure. Nvidia tends to move on with their graphics cards and supplying Apple with 3-4 year old cards is not likely on their priority list. I have an old 2008 MacBook core2 with a dead Nvidia video card. I keep it around for visiting family with toddlers that want to be keyboard monkeys.

 

[trs96]

Over the years, I learned to stick with IGPU on laptops when possible.

I've never seen any Intel iGPU fail on any laptop or desktop in the past ten years. They are super reliable.

 

[pastrychef]

This may have been one of the reasons for Nvidia and Apple parting ways as well. The Nvidia cards also had issues, the cheap solder joints led to overheating and failure. Nvidia tends to move on with their graphics cards and supplying Apple with 3-4 year old cards is not likely on their priority list. I have an old 2008 MacBook core2 with a dead Nvidia video card. I keep it around for visiting family with toddlers that want to be keyboard monkeys.

It's too bad Nvidia was forced to stop working on the Nforce chipset. That's what was in my Unibody MacBook and it proved to be very reliable.

 

[pastrychef]

I've never seen any Intel iGPU fail on any laptop or desktop in the past ten years. They are super reliable.

Yup. I've never even heard of IGPU failing.