[swichd]

I need a Mac that is very cheap, yet useable. My basic needs are: web browsing, office tasks, web editing, lite video editing, cd (someday, dvd) burning, and some game playing. I've used iMac 233's a lot. I've been told in another thread tha Beige G3=bad and B/W G3=Good. What do you think and what do you use?

[OreoCookie]

No, you should definitely get a G4. Don't take ones that are too old, they are usually not worth the money. What is your budget?

Even with a BW G3, you won't be able to benefit from the latest OS X technologies and your user experience will be severely limited. Quartz Extreme = no go, etc.

[swichd]

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
No, you should definitely get a G4. Don't take ones that are too old, they are usually not worth the money. What is your budget?

Even with a BW G3, you won't be able to benefit from the latest OS X technologies and your user experience will be severely limited. Quartz Extreme = no go, etc.

Well, $100-$150ish. I want to have a system to use for 1-2 years until I get a new one. Currently use 800 MHz PII sys and 2600+ AMD Athlon XP, along side my trusty 486. I have a Powerbook 5300cs, so I need something cool to use at home. I really don't care what color it is (you could put a G4 in a cardboard box for all I care). I don't mind patching systems together; I actually enjoy bulding systems.
So if someone finds a cache of parts lying around or cheap online, could I rebuild a system? I personally like the Mac OS much better than WINDOZE and Linux. I used to own a Powermac 5500/250, but it died 3 years ago, and a Powermac 6100CD/60, but gave it away. I've been looking to get a replacement for sometime now. I've played with other people's Mac, and think OS X is AWESOME.

[Arkham_c]

Originally posted by swichd:
Well, $100-$150ish.

You're going to have a hard time finding a good Mac for that price capable of running OSX, much less being able to do video editing.

You might be able to get an old 350MHz B&W G3 for $150 (maybe), but it will prove very slow. I use one as a server and it's fine for that, but the GUI performance is poor.

Realistically, your best bet is a discontinued eMac 1GHz for $500-$600, but that's out of the range you mentioned.

[Maflynn]

Originally posted by swichd:
Well, $100-$150ish. I want to have a system to use for 1-2 years until I get a new one.

I don't think your going to find any OSX capable mac for that price.

Mike

[swichd]

What can I get for $300?

[Groovy]

Originally posted by swichd:
What can I get for $300?

A used iPod



try here

http://www.powermax.com/cgi-global/g...ers+under+$500

[djohnson]

Get what you can afford. The newer, the better. If you only have $300 it will be tough...

[Lateralus]

For the love of god, please don't buy anything from PowerMax. Go eBay.

And a B&W G3 is about as good as you're going to do for under $300. You could probably get one for closer to $200 if you keep your eye open.

[jwblase]

I just gave up my B/W because my processor finally died. Before that, it was an excellent machine on 10.3.3. If you don't care about having the most up to date graphics capabilities for gaming, then it will work fine for you.

JB

[Groovy]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
For the love of god, please don't buy anything from PowerMax. Go eBay.

And a B&W G3 is about as good as you're going to do for under $300. You could probably get one for closer to $200 if you keep your eye open.

ebay is a rip off and you get no warranty and a hassle to bid etc... as well as
HOPING you do not get cheated.


i just looked at the prices on ebay and most are higher as well.
Heck some people bid crazy amounts for crap stuff.


i have purchased systems from both and PowerMax in the end is the better way to go

[swichd]

Any Good? Brand new from Apple store:
$599.00
1GHz PowerPC G4
256MB DDR333 SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
No optical drive
Is this a good deal?
-->They want $50 more for cd-rom. I can get usb 2.0 40x cd-rw from OfficeMax for $50ish after rebates.

[juanvaldes]

We have two of those in are CS lab. Work great. GUI is very responsive, and I doubt they will have a problem with video editing. But we have a gig of RAM and 80gig HD's.

If you can swing it that eMac would work great.

[discotronic]

Originally posted by swichd:
Any Good? Brand new from Apple store:
$599.00
1GHz PowerPC G4
256MB DDR333 SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
No optical drive
Is this a good deal?
-->They want $50 more for cd-rom. I can get usb 2.0 40x cd-rw from OfficeMax for $50ish after rebates.

No CD-ROM? How are you supposed to install the OS? Over a network would be the only way. If I'm not mistaken you can't use a USB or firewire drive to do an OS install on a Mac.

With the things that you want to do, the eMac would be a great choice. If all you were doing was the basics like surfing the net, typing papers and iTunes a B&W or even an older iMac would work just fine. If you want to play games and edit video you are very limited when using an older machine.

What about taking out a loan?

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by Groovy:
ebay is a rip off and you get no warranty and a hassle to bid etc... as well as
HOPING you do not get cheated.


i just looked at the prices on ebay and most are higher as well.
Heck some people bid crazy amounts for crap stuff.


i have purchased systems from both and PowerMax in the end is the better way to go

eBay is a rip off? How?

Some of the best deals I have ever gotten in my life have been from eBay.

And the only people who I have ever seen get cheated are those who left themselves open to getting cheated by not going with a seller who has extensive feedback and paying for items without pictures.

I conducted well over $5,000 worth of buying and selling on eBay in the past year and I have yet to have a bad experience. Proven sellers, products pictures, there you go. And as far as there not being a warranty, that is incorrect. Any item that is sold as 'working' by the seller must work when it arrives.

PowerMax charges more for their old Macs than I have ever seen anybody willingly pay anywhere else. More over, PowerMax has had several complaints filed against them with the Better Business Burea because of the quality of their support and the often horrible condition of machines that they sell.

PowerMax is not in any way the best way to go unless you want to pay far more than a machine is worth and not see pictures of it before buying it.

[angelmb]

What about the Apple MUG Store?, anyone buying from there?

[Groovy]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
eBay is a rip off? How?

Some of the best deals I have ever gotten in my life have been from eBay.

And the only people who I have ever seen get cheated are those who left themselves open to getting cheated by not going with a seller who has extensive feedback and paying for items without pictures.

I conducted well over $5,000 worth of buying and selling on eBay in the past year and I have yet to have a bad experience. Proven sellers, products pictures, there you go. And as far as there not being a warranty, that is incorrect. Any item that is sold as 'working' by the seller must work when it arrives.

PowerMax charges more for their old Macs than I have ever seen anybody willingly pay anywhere else. More over, PowerMax has had several complaints filed against them with the Better Business Burea because of the quality of their support and the often horrible condition of machines that they sell.

PowerMax is not in any way the best way to go unless you want to pay far more than a machine is worth and not see pictures of it before buying it.

I never said there were no good deals on ebay.
i was talking in the general sense and you know it. I also never said powermax
was the best prices you could find. They are not but again i was talking in
what you get overall in the general sense compared to ebay and what you have
to do to get it. look at all the hoops you ADMIT to have to jump through to use ebay


$5000 geez no wonder you think that. You are small fry and just a few
transactions. if you do a half dozen and they all go fine of course you think
ebay is awesome. try doing hundreds and having someone with a top rating
and thousands of transactions screw you over. When that happens to you
you will understand and change your tune. ebay will not be there to back you
as I found out.

Anyway I just looked on ebay and people ARE spending MORE than going to
powermax so you are incorrect. heck everyone knows if you want to get top
dollar for your old mac stuff sell it on ebay.

[swichd]

Originally posted by angelmb:
What about the Apple MUG Store?, anyone buying from there?

What is the Apple MUG store?

[chris v]

This should do the trick, out of the box. It'll be dog-slow, but it'll run:

http://www.megamacs.com/v1/index.php...&pid=65818

That's within the budget of 300, but you'd be well advised to put at least another 128 mb of ram in there.

CV

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by Groovy:
I never said there were no good deals on ebay.
i was talking in the general sense and you know it. I also never said powermax
was the best prices you could find. They are not but again i was talking in
what you get overall in the general sense compared to ebay and what you have
to do to get it. look at all the hoops you ADMIT to have to jump through to use ebay


$5000 geez no wonder you think that. You are small fry and just a few
transactions. if you do a half dozen and they all go fine of course you think
ebay is awesome. try doing hundreds and having someone with a top rating
and thousands of transactions screw you over. When that happens to you
you will understand and change your tune. ebay will not be there to back you
as I found out.

Anyway I just looked on ebay and people ARE spending MORE than going to
powermax so you are incorrect. heck everyone knows if you want to get top
dollar for your old mac stuff sell it on ebay.

People are paying more than $110+Shipping for 7300/200s on eBay? Where? Please, show me.

I doubt you've ever used eBay before.

eBay is not a big scary monster. Seriously.

[tooki]

eBay is fine for used gear, all the scammers are the ones dealing in new models.

Anyway, to the original poster:

- you want a G4
- you want a machine that can do Quartz Extreme (this means a Radeon or nVidia graphics card)
- you absolutely, postively, no-way-can-you-get-around-this MUST have more than 256MB of RAM for OS X to be minimally responsive. 512MB and up is better.

An eMac is probably the most cost-effective way to go.

And remember that if you're a student or Federal employee, you can get nice discounts from Apple on new gear.

tooki

[macintologist]

Originally posted by chris v:
This should do the trick, out of the box. It'll be dog-slow, but it'll run:

http://www.megamacs.com/v1/index.php...&pid=65818

That's within the budget of 300, but you'd be well advised to put at least another 128 mb of ram in there.

CV

Just add a 256mb ram chip in there for a total of 384. Or even better, add a 512 chip. Whatever is the best price for your needs.

But 128MB of ram will be atrociously slow.

[OreoCookie]

To get a Mac for $100-$150 running the latest version of OS X decently is like finding a PC that runs XP Pro in an acceptable manner.

Especially if you want to do video editing. Don't, just don't. Save your money till you can get a machine that is much newer (e. g. an eMac or a used G4 QuickSilver, etc.).

[italiano]

If you don't use Ebay you're missing a gold mine... I have bought and sold on Ebay for years (I'm a Power Seller) and it's a great place to buy hardware - wake up...

[swichd]

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
To get a Mac for $100-$150 running the latest version of OS X decently is like finding a PC that runs XP Pro in an acceptable manner.

Actually I got a P-III for 15 USD from a rummage sale, which runs XP-Pro quite nicly

[angelmb]

Originally posted by swichd:
What is the Apple MUG store?

Is a store aimed to the Macintosh Users Groups (MUG), but as I live out the United States I can not buy from there.

www.applemugstore.com

That G4 seems nice. You can buy an inexpensive LG DVD 8x burner that works under Mac OS X, but no with Mac OS 9, or you can search for a combo drive someone sells due he/she upgrade his/her Mac with a dvd burner, I got one combo drive for my G3 B&W PowerMac. Check www.xlr8yourmac.com to know about recent dvd drives that would work under Mac OS X.

Good luck!

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by swichd:
Actually I got a P-III for 15 USD from a rummage sale, which runs XP-Pro quite nicly

Awesome deal!

[j mars]

I am using a B&W with a 600MHz G4 and a Radeon 7000 in the 2x PCI graphics slot. It runs Panther quickly for me and should be current and usable for some time to come. I complained to Daystar the other day about there not being a 7455 chip of over 1GHz available for a ZIF Mac and they replied that the 7410's @600MHz are the equivalent of the faster 7455s because of the larger cache size so the B&W is not quite as slow as the specs make it out to be.

[swichd]

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
Awesome deal!

I know! People don't know what's good. Another time, I got a P-pro system for free and I also got my 5500/250 for FREE!!! (the previous owners said it needed a new logic board, but all it needed was a PRAM battery! LOL!!

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by j mars:
I complained to Daystar the other day about there not being a 7455 chip of over 1GHz available for a ZIF Mac and they replied that the 7410's @600MHz are the equivalent of the faster 7455s because of the larger cache size so the B&W is not quite as slow as the specs make it out to be.

Simply untrue.

That may hold some water when comparing a 7410 to a 7455 without L3 cache, but I don't know of any 7455 upgrade that doesn't have L3 cache.