well, you have 3 types of early 2000s macs, likely 2002 era.
The MacMini might be ideal for you to transport, its small and you conect it up to any monitor, Keyboard and Mouse, the Powerbook is a complete laptop of the time, and he PowerMac is a tower system.
So The Powermac is not so portable if hat's what you want.
The Powerbook is most portable, but the Mini is small and cool if you have peripherals at two different locations.

The G4 is stll adequate for business apps, but is fading into history, if the CPU is faster than 1.0 Ghz then you can still run 10.4 well enough.
If you can find a Powerbook with a 1.2, 1.5 or 1.67 or Mini with a 1.5Ghz G4, you should do well. iBooks also came with a 1.2, 1.33 and 1.4Ghz G4 them, so those might work for you..
PowerMacs came with G4s from .350 to dual 1.4 Ghz
be sure not to pay too much for this 5 year old technology, well the mini is likely 3 or 4 at most with the G4.
The new Intel Mini is $650, so keep that in mind. sometimes Apple offeres 1.8 Ghz Core 2 Duo mini for $539 on their refurb site.
That would be your best deal and get you a basically new Mac

I find most used G4 Minies to be overpriced and sell overpriced, considering what you get. But if you find a 1.4-1.5 Ghz G4 mini for $350, I would think about it.

 

One thing to remember is that PowerBooks were designed to be moved regularly. The other two on your list were not.

If you are talking about moving it once at the beginning of the school year, then moving it again at the end of the school year. Or at the other end of the age scale and moving it to Florida at the beginning of winter and back at the end of winter I'd go with any of the three.

If you're moving it more than 3-4 times a year, I'd go with the PowerBook, especially if it has a CPU over the 1.0 MHz level. I purchased one of the last G4 model PowerBooks exactly 3 years ago this month. It is a 1.67 and is now my backup machine and still performs beautifully. It was replaced with a 2.5 Intel MacBook Pro in June of this year.

 

I teach night classes at a highschool in toronto. I was thinking about a mini, because i have a CRT on my desk and i can hook it up there. And I could easly dis-connect everything and bring it back and forth. But then again the power book was made for power. Still stumped

 

I teach night classes at a highschool in toronto. I was thinking about a mini, because i have a CRT on my desk and i can hook it up there.

There's nothing preventing you from hooking up that CRT to a PowerBook either.
Personally, I'd go the laptop route. You'll be glad when you need it in a pinch at a coffee shop where the Mini can't go.

Also, look for refurbished or pre-owned Intel MacBook as many are trading up to the new ones. Granted, they are more expensive but also run the latest Mac OS.

 

`i would stick with a laptop!
They even have some for sale right here in the want ads!
John

 

I would also go the powerbook route. If size is too much of a problem, there are the 12" powerbooks (or the cheaper iBooks). The 15/17" powerbooks are much nicer and boast more expansion and video abilities, but generally cost more for the 1Ghz+ range.
If you can wait, I am sure the price of the G4s will go down significantly once Snow Leopard is released as PPCs will not be supported with the new OS. Mind you that may be a long wait, depending when apple decides to release it.

 

Is there some reasoning you've used to whittle it down to just these three?

Of the three, and reading what else you've written, the PB seems like a no-brainer to me. The mini is fun to bring in for a while (using the original box as your carry-case, never fails to get a LOT of attention from PC users!), but eventually you will want a laptop for that constant moving around business, so just get one.

 

A laptop may be best suited to your needs, but eBay is a terrible place to be buying a laptop.

A laptop is worthless unless the screen is in good condition. There's no way to confirm this unless you can evaluate the screen in person. That's not really possible from a picture on ebay.

If you have to go the eBay route, I'd choose a desktop or mini since it's less risky.

 

From what you are describing, a laptop seems to be the way to go.

In the older laptops, the earlier iBooks and PowerBooks had different heat dissipation systems. This was causing some iBook failure. Later the two were brought into sinc. I am not sure when that happened.

I am running a 12", 1.5 GHz G4 Powerbook. I'm pretty good friends with my dealer. I remember he was very happy when that was the model I chose because over time, the 12" PowerBook had given him the absolute least problems.

I run an external monitor on my PowerBook all the time. I also have it hooked up with a USB keyboard and mouse. So it functions as both desk top and lap top.

 

I love you guys!

It seems the seller of the mini forgot to list some things about the computertptptptp So I decide to go with a 15" Powerbook G4 Excellent Computer! Right now am writing this post with it .

It seems pretty light and very easy to use in desktop mode when am at work.

Thanks for you suggestions!