Mac book vs ibook G4

This is a very tough question to answer... the two machines that you are asking us to compare are totally different. They don't share a single common component. Looking at the specs you provided for the iBook, that machine is about five years old... nearly an eternity in the computer world. Performance-wise, the best comparison would be like going from a horse drawn carriage to a modern sports car. Is there something specific you would like to know about the new model? About the only thing that you might notice with the new MacBook is that it will get much warmer than an iBook G4 and you will hear the fans revving up now and then (that almost never happens on an iBook G4). The main reason for this is the fact that the processors in the new MacBooks are MUCH more powerful than what is in your iBook... as a result, they get warmer requiring the fan to run more often. This is the case with every modern notebook. Current processors just get too warm to rely on passive cooling. This isn't a bad thing... just progress. I'm only pointing it out since you are looking at machines that are generations apart.

The new MacBook is MUCH better in every conceivable way... and as you're talking about the white version, you'll have firewire as well (which your iBook has) if you need it (the new aluminum MacBooks do not have firewire any longer).

Well - all the iBooks have discrete graphics processing units with dedicated memory, although they're older generation with limited amounts of VRAM. The native resolution is higher with the MacBooks. An older iBook only has Bluetooth 1.1.

I can tell you that my experience with my iBook G4 1.42 is that it can't handle high-def video, I can't install Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 (only available for Intel Macs), and many Java/Flash embedded web pages (especially CSTV's GameTracker) get really, really slow. I would imagine the iBook G4 1.07 would have all those difficulties, only worse.

My MacBook does have some problems with video performance, but the newer one with the NVIDIA GPU is supposed to be light years ahead in performance.

The fan was mentioned. All the iBooks operate normally without the fan on, but they can turn on and get really, really loud if you've got enough processor power continuously being used.

The G4 processor was pretty much outdated at the time the iBook G4 came on the market. The G5 had so many problems with heat and power consumption that Apple was probably never going to get a G5 portable on the market. They had to liquid cool some of the desktop versions. The move to Intel was in part because of the difficulty in getting a higher performance processor for portable applications. Here's an article on the G5.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_970

boose wrote:
Thanks. You told me what I need to know. My ibook died yesterday and I need to buy a new computer. I was looking at the lowest price Macbook (budget constraits) and just wanted to make sure it would do all the things my ibook G4 does now. Mostly I use it for photo storage, email, internet, etc.

That's it? The new white MacBook will blow away your iBook in nearly every respect. About the only thing that might not is if you've got a 14" display. That's a bit larger if it's important to you.

Benchmark comparisons should show multiple times higher performance from the MacBook compared to an iBook G4.