The PowerBook 5300: In-Depth Review of a Candidate for Worst Apple Laptop. Famously Bad!
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- Опубліковано 21 лип 2024
- The PowerBook 5300 is very reflective of its era. 1995 was a terrible year for Apple, thanks in part to products such as this that promised heaps but delivered little. Shoddy build quality, poor performance, dodgy system software and an inappropriate price made this machine one of the most notorious Laptops that Apple ever produced.
Nevertheless, YesterYears Mac’s delves into a 5300c to try and get a good feel for what this machine is actually like, and within the review, tries to figure out if its worth acquiring in the modern age.
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Just stumbled across this video. I worked as an apple hardware technician back in the 90’a to mid 2000’s. I got a chance with a colleague to work on Tom cruises laptop when they were in Sydney filming Mission Impossible. His laptop was a 5300cs or ce (can’t remember) and his battery leaked to the point where it destroyed the motherboard. The cost of the repair was the same as the cost to replace the laptop - around $10K Australian dollars at the time. The laptop was still very new and the motherboard and other components were hard to get at the time.
My memory of these ‘back in the day’ was when I used to help at a repair centre doing software installs etc. after hard drives died. Your keyboard failure was a typical manufacturing fault. 5300s came in all the time for replacement plastics even when they were a new item. Hinges often broke free, the ribbon cables would work loose resulting in vertical lines on the display, power supplies went pop.
The replacement display housing with the bronze coating inside was supplied with all possibilities for the snap-in rectangles that cover the screws, so you ended up with lots of leftover bits saying Macintosh, PowerBook 5300ce, 5300c etc. to drill holes in and make keyrings.
Also it was common to replace all the screws with new ones having blue threadlocker on them, since the originals would work loose, especially for the keyboard or the display hinges (which caused the cracks to start). So you usually had a dozen screws leftover too.
I had been saving up for a PowerBook 540c (more likely a 520c) and then this model came out. Initially the PowerPC didn’t seem to run any faster than the solid performance of the best 040 models. In all the expensive confusion I decided to build a PC desktop instead
I owned a 5300c for about six or eight months (or something like that) and ultimately was able to trade it in, with several hundred dollars more, for a PowerMacintosh 7200/90.
Everything you said in the video about this unit is true. It was my first ever laptop, but it ultimately had far too many issues and shortcomings to ever be considered good.
I totally LOL'd over your comment about the video port. The only thing I can say is that at the time, the DB-15 connector it adapted out to was the standard for video cables for Macs of that era (even though that same type of port was exclusively used in the PC world as a gaming port for joysticks and such) so even though it might seem uncommon or oddball now, it really wasn't then.
I have six of the PowerBook 5300 series, one 5300c, two 5300cs models and three 5300ce models. I haven't used them for years. I purchased them for my five kids to use when they were young and for me to mess around with. I purchased them all used. I was just setting a couple up to be used in my wife's preschool class and looked up UA-cam videos and came across your video. At least a couple of these models from 1995-1996 will still be used this year 2019. Years ago I opened the battery cases and removed the batteries and then melted the cases back together and inserted them into the battery bays. The old batteries only held a short operational charge, so I just use the laptops plugged in when I use them. I also have about six of the Powerbook 3400 series also. My two and a half year-old granddaughter has been playing some old educational CD's on them, as I have a collection of about 300 educational titles for babies to Calculus, which I purchased years ago at thrift shops and such.
I had one of these. It was my first laptop. I remember having a little 28.8 pc card for dial-up internet access. The 5300c wasn’t perfect, but it served its purpose for a year or 2..until I spilled soda on it.
I have a 5300cs model. Yes, I know it's a "Road Apple" by some people's definition. That being said, I love it.
I actually recently finished a 7 month long project where I essentially took a PowerBook 190, 2 190 CS’s, and a 5300, stitched them all together, and eventually managed to get one working PowerBook 190CS out of all that work.
I have exact same unit and i love it, i mostly just use it to make older floppies for my macs. I also rebuilt the battery with new 2500mah AA's and put in a 2gb sd to ide adapter. Mines also suffered from battery damage and i had to solder a new tab for the battery so it would work, now it charges and lasts for almost 2 hours on a charge
AAs? Neat! Any guides for doing that sorta thing?
Great video!
My first laptop was one of these. I got a used one for Christmas in maybe 2000 and I would have been about 14. I think it was the passive matrix version and it had a bad SCSI port off the bat. Basically immediately got a board replacement, I think, as I needed to use my SCSI CD-ROM drive with it. Then the power socket broke. New board again? My dad was in charge of the repairs. Then my friend resoldered it for me and it just kept breaking. It was a horrid design, so it made sense. I don't remember it acting crippled but I would have been coming from a Mac IIsi with a grayscale monitor, so it was a huge improvement, especially because it had a modem. Can't remember if it was 28.8 or 36.6, but it was my own personal computer to go online with. Eventually I got a hand me down 1400, but I still have fond memories of my first laptop.
I completed my MPhil on a 100MHz PowerBook 5300 (non-colour). It was.. survivable. The 500MB drive could barely fit Mac OS 8.1 and the extras I needed so a lot of software was diverted to Zip disks. Fortunately it had 40MB of RAM and a video card, so I could avoid VM and hook up a second (15" Sony) monitor. But I wish I'd never swapped it for my PowerMac 4400!
Would love to add one of these to my collection for its use in Independence Day. But the battery leak issue with its age sounds a bit risky. God what a way to fail saving the Earth due to a manufacturing flaw.
We have one of these. If you have the 'SCSI disk mode adapter', you can hook it to another Mac as an external drive - sort of like the 'Target Disk Mode' of Firewire OS X Macs...
I'm kinda glad it was featured in Independence Day, I'm considering picking one up for myself just because I'd wanna see if it can run Diablo compared to that of the 1400C.
You got the same idea as me.
Plus I kinda want to have it as memorabilia because I love Independence Day so much.
Just want to see how different this thing is.
You gotta do more hardware videos, these are amazing!
The only silver lining for the 5300 is that it helped stopped an Alien invasion along with the heroism of Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum
4:43 That Windows 3.1x looked a bit diiferent. May you please tell me if some kind of shell or utility was being used?
Theres an old enterprise system running underneath it from its original life as a business laptop. Its a bit of a nuisance as it imposes some restrictions as to what it can do but I don't think I want to get rid of it as I feel its become a distinctive part of this particular machine.
I watched the MacAdvocate CD videos all around System 7 and the Powerbook, even the Duo, but had no idea some were this bad.
With this laptop being Product-Placed in the first Mission Impossible movie, I gotta wonder how many costumers felt ripped off when they didn't get the flashy UIs the movie had. Lol, the exploding batteries wouldn't have been out of place in that movie either.
This was a good video! I just picked one these up for dirt cheap. Waiting on a charger to arrive to see if it even works.
Any leakage in the battery Dept?
@@YesterYearsMacGames I'll have to check. Didn't think to look
@@YesterYearsMacGames I finally got around to checking my unit. The battery leaked a lot and there's a lot of corrosion in the battery compartment. Don't know if it damaged anything else. Here's some pics imgur.com/a/FtKPtwJ
That actually doesn't look too bad, all the connector pins are still intact so it may just be that sheet of copper on the bottom of the bay
@@YesterYearsMacGamesOnce I get a power supply, I'll see if it works. I hope it does because it'd be a neat addition to my collection.
got an old CS with sony diskman+cable around 1999 for few $ (kept it) got a 1400 (kept it) then a G4 867 (kept it) .
so dedicated OS 7,8 & 9.
lol 80quid, it was like $5,500 new for the c with active matrix.
Nice video! I haven't used one of these, but I'll be sure to steer away from one unless I get one for free or something. :P
what is that crappy but interesting crystal quest clone at 1:47?
macintoshgarden.org/games/space-debris
Its quite a good clone. I played this long before I found out that Crystal Quest existed
Could you please tell me what game you're playing at 9:42?
It looks familiar; I'm pretty sure I've played it before.
Burnin' Rubber
@@YesterYearsMacGames
Thank you!
I had one, blah it wasn’t bad. Upgrade the ram and optimize the OS and no issues.
We're missing the most important feature of this machine: it saved the World in 1997. If one recalls, in Independence Day (1996-1997), the World was saved by a (computer) virus (ironically, we are now fighting against a virus). That virus was developed and deployed in a PowerBook 5300 by a cable guy.
www.starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=54
Besides, it seems that this computer starred in quite a number of movies...
I have a 190 which had a screen or mainboard that started smoking. I've gutted it since it's dead and am going to put a Raspberry Pi in it
I was going to buy one of these recently :/
I still have a functioning monochrome version.
the 500 series had swappable bays, and preceded this.
I have a box of dead 5300's and 190's. I had over 5 of them, only 2 worked, and those failed catastrophically. By far this series is the worst laptop Apple ever made. Good video.
to be fair, it led to the 1400, which was the most upgradeable, reliable portable they ever made up until that point. You could upgrade CPU/GPU/HD/RAM dual bays etc. may be one of the best they ever made.
This thing is trash. Utter trash. Gimped 603e, shoddy cheap components. Apple really messed this up, alongside the 190 which was just insulting. The comparison with the Thinkpad was very appropriate; most PC laptops in this price range of this time had swappable components and plenty of ports with no need for dongles.
The 1400 was so much better.
I found one of these at a flea market for $5
The battery leak destroy mine ;-;
Depressing music goes perfectly for this depressing product.
This computer saved the world, with it we were able to insert a virus into the alien computer of the mother ship of the invaders in the movie Independece Day.
Independence Day brought me here
Independence Day
P-P-P-POWERBOOK
if it's so bad, sell it me:)