August 24, 2000
by Stephen Hildreth
Editor-in-Chief

You're looking for a G3 PowerBook, but you really can't afford to spend more than $1000. Does this sound like you? Unfortunately, Wall Street, Lombard, and Pismo PowerBook G3's are selling for well over $1000 on the used market, with the exception of 233MHz Wall Street models, which can be had for around $1K. But what if you want more power and more portability? Your only other option is to find a used PowerBook 1400 and upgrade the processor with one of the available G3 upgrades. The 1400 is significantly smaller and lighter than any PowerBook G3 or iBook (a major plus for frequent travelers), yet remains attractive to power users because of its flexibility. Let's take a look at an example.

As we mentioned earlier this week, Mac of all Trades has the PowerBook 1400cs/166 available for $499. Granted, that model has a passive-matrix display, but it's still one of the lowest prices we've seen for a used 1400. Taking a page from our PowerBook Processor Upgrade SuperGuide, you can see which processor upgrades are currently available for the U.S. market:

(Outpost.com has the 333MHz/1MB cache card available for $429.95 including free overnight delivery. That's a $70 savings over Sonnet's price)

Depending on the particular processor, you can get a PowerBook 1400/G3 for as little as $898. One of the reasons that the 1400 is still so popular is that it's so easy to upgrade. Nearly anyone can upgrade the processor on their (clean) kitchen counter if they carefully follow the directions. The PowerBook Source has a nice installation guide too. Check out some of the reader comments in the User Reports Database on CPU Upgrades at Accelerate Your Mac for some ideas on what folks have discovered in terms of performance with a Sonnet card.

If you really want a G3 PowerBook for under $1000, an upgraded 1400 is a fine way to go.