Buy new or old iBook?

Pylonman

I want to replace my wife's trustworthy Lombard with an 12" iBook.
Must be able to run iPhoto5 with flying colours. So, I'm thinking at least 1 Gz with 512mb or more ram. Should I go order a brand new 12" iBook from Apple and pay the tax, or look at an used model? Or should I wait for the Mactels?

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• Home-Hackintosh 2.4 GHz Quad core
• On the road- 2.4 Ghz Macbook Intel Core 2 Duo
• Work- 27" iMac- 3.06 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
Print and Web Designer

dona83

My 1.2 Ghz I bought new back in July flies with iPhoto, I don't see how 1Ghz should be too much slower. Might want to up the RAM to at least 768 tho.

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eMac G4 1.25Ghz (six years young) - Dell Vostro V13 Intel SU7300 - iPhone 3GS 16 GB Black Fido

"There are only two great tragedies in life, one is to lose your heart's desire, the other is to gain it." -George Bernard Shaw.

HowEver

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Lars

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

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Apple Certified Technician ACMT|ACHDS 10.3-thru-10.5|10.6+
Mac mini (Early 2009) 2.0GHz|4GB|500GB|NVIDIA Geforce 9400M|AP|BT|Mac OS X 10.6.4
Sound System Audio Engine A2 2.0.
iPhone: 3GS 16GB

HowEver

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nxnw

Late summer - added standard internal bluetooth, more RAM, the system that parks the drive heads if it senses imminent shock, speed bump, and other useful enhancements. It was a nice update.

Pylonman

Hey, thanks for the link.
So how reliable are the new iBooks? I hear about logic board failures.
Also, why would I purchase the iBook from a reseller, instead of Apple.ca?

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• Home-Hackintosh 2.4 GHz Quad core
• On the road- 2.4 Ghz Macbook Intel Core 2 Duo
• Work- 27" iMac- 3.06 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
Print and Web Designer

Strimkind

Don't forget a video card that supports Core video. I believe the G4 iBooks are much less prone to logic board failures than the G3 white ibooks (although it does still happen). I think new would be better with the purshase of applecare (or an older unit that already has applecare).

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Mac Mini Core 2 Duo 2Ghz (Mar 2009)

Duo 230, 190cs, 190, 2x1400cs, 5300cs

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rummyd

Just a side note: If you're worrying about iPhoto 5 performance, BE SURE to use an iPhoto library manager such as iPhoto Buddy ( http://nofences.net/iphotoBuddy/ )

Up until a few weeks ago, I had over 7 GB of photos sitting in one library on my 14" iBook 1.33, and it was terribly slow to load, prone to crashing, etc. After using iPhoto Buddy to split my library into manageable 300 MB to 1 GB sized logical libraries (albums based on vacation, subject, etc.), iPhoto 5 is well and flying again and the stability issues have subsided.

I wouldn't run iPhoto again without it, and it'll alleviate any performance hits you're taking with getting an iBook with a lesser amount of RAM.

Rummy.