The unibody and shift away from moving parts really did do wonders for Mac laptop durability in day to day usage. This naturally affects the conditions these m

The unibody and shift away from moving parts really did do wonders for Mac laptop durability in day to day usage. This naturally affects the conditions these machines are available in on the used market. Any of the pre-TiBook plastic models are likely to have cracked plastic with bits that have chipped off due to growing brittle with age. PowerBook G3s are likely to have their exteriors scratched up. Fruit flavored iBooks commonly have parts missing. As you noted, TiBooks have big problems with paint chipping and had bad hinges. Once you get into the aluminum models things improve quite a lot… the PowerBook G4s and MacBook Pro’s, both pre and post unibody can easily be found in great condition. The counterpart white plastic iBook G3s/G4s and MacBooks also fared better, but are sometimes subject to yellowing. These generally don’t have mechanical issues and usually just need to have their spinning rust swapped out for an SSD and a thermal paste change to get them running nicely again. That said, the pre-unibody alu Powerbooks and white plastic iBooks/MacBooks are a pain in the butt to work on. So many screws. If one doesn’t have much patience for that kind of thing and doesn’t explicitly need PowerPC one of the unibody MBPs with at least a Core 2 Duo is a no brainer when selecting an old Mac to tinker with.