If they can find an early MacBook, that would work, but considering i just sold my perfectly fine Powerbook 12” G4 1.5ghz with only 1.25gbs of ram maximum allowed, that was running Leopard PERFECTLY, and considering the OP’s budget, a G4 should work perfectly.
The iBook G3’s were junk but a well kept, last revision iBook is still a fast machine and runs Tiger no problem. They shipped with Tiger, as you may know.
I gave away my trusty 15” powerbook 1.25 with the G4 to a marine who served for two tours in Iraq.
But I wouldn’t go out and buy one now. And I wouldn’t advise someone to do so. It’s just not the way to go. You don’t get a previous generation processor for the future.
I also had Leopard running fine. But with the new OS coming it will probably no longer be the case.
The G4 has reached its lifespan use. It’ll continue for a spell but buying one now is just illogical IMHO.
I just replace the powerbook last month with the last Macbook Pro Al type. It’s like the other one in appearance but under the hood with lots of details much different.
It has the Intel 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo and I bumped it from 2 to 4 GB of RAM.
It’s night and day. A great machine born of the 2003 breeding. I will go and see the new notebooks this weekend, but I got this one “new” as a refurb from Apple. It was like new out of the box.