I have found the link off of this website before, but have not been here in quite some time and cant seem to find it. Apparently the link showed what G3's had the clear plastic shell (with the painted on white) and which ones did not. i just came accross a friend who is selling her old G3 ibook and i searched this site to see if hers in the one that has that capability or does not.
Please help me out here, if you cant find the link, if you know of the product numbers that do, please give me any information you know of on this, i would like to make my version of the Tron-book. however i would most likely keep it clear, so it'd be like the one in HACKERS.
plus it'd be pretty cool to have for my senior year in college.
It's actually easy to tell from the case just by looking at it. If the palm rest/keyboard frame isn't silver, then it's not clear. You should also be able to look at the edge of the case around the screen when it's open and see the screws and screw hole though it if it's clear. I could be wrong, but I think the line is the 600/70MHz iBooks (16VRAM) of early 2002 and the 700/800MHz of late 2002. As a matter of fact, Apple calls the late 2002 models "Opaque 16 VRAM" on the specs page.
i thnk that info is right, but yea it's really easy to tell by looking at the plastics on the screen. the solid white will be distinctly solid around the screen bezel, and the clear will appear dark in low light and may also act somewhat like a fiber optic with how it transfers light. this allowed me to tell instantly that mine had a clear case when i got it.
oh excellent, thanks guys.
i know this is a late answer, but do you know if the 500mhz G3 is a clear case model?
-ive been eyeing one of my friends for awhile now and just didnt know one way or the other.
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As I posted above, the models that shifted from painted clear to opaque were 600/700 16VRAM to 700/800 Opaque 16VRAM, so a 500MHz obviously falls before the switch to opaque.
well i only ask becuase i see many pictures of the 500 models and they appear to have clear/opaque cases, you know like when the screen is up. but thanks again for the info.