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Brian Live · Aug 21, 2007, 10:12 AM

iMac G4 (sunflower style)
17" wide screen display
60gig Hard drive
800Mhz processor
512 Ram
Superdrive

$400.

As a birthday present for my mother. She has a PC right now which gives her trouble (shocking!). She'd be using it mostly for surfing the web and word processing and syncing her iPod Nano (another gift from me). I've always loved the design of this version of the iMac. The iMac is underpowered by today's standards, but for her I think this would work well. I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks in advance!

Veltliner · Aug 21, 2007, 03:17 PM

It would be helpful to know what your mother does on the computer.

If she does a little bit of basic photo editing, e-mail and websurfing, this might be fine.

For the price, check out mac2sell.com, and follow the instructions. Also, go to e-bay, and check out the prices these computers get (macs usually get top prices on ebay). Also, check craigslist for pricing. This should give you an idea how much this computer is worth.

After all, on this forum therer are several people who like this iMac best of all (I personally prefer the white iMacs).

Check out the 17" white iMacs G5, and how much they are. If it is not much more, get her a g5. It will be much faster.

Brian Live · Aug 21, 2007, 03:51 PM

Right, like I said, it will be used almost solely for surfing the web, Email and word processing.

Seems to be a good price compared to most I've seen on CL and eBay. I guess I'm just looking for some positive reinforcement to spend $400 on a 5-6 year old computer as a used gift. Haha.

Originally Posted by Veltliner

It would be helpful to know what your mother does on the computer.

0157988944 · Aug 21, 2007, 04:28 PM

For that, I'd spend $200 on an eMac.

It has the same or better specifications, and the only difference is it's a little bigger and has a CRT screen.

P · Aug 21, 2007, 04:56 PM

Depends on which OS you'd put on it, but with 10.3 I think it will be an excellent combination.

Veltliner · Aug 21, 2007, 09:30 PM

Originally Posted by adamfishercox

For that, I'd spend $200 on an eMac.

It has the same or better specifications, and the only difference is it's a little bigger and has a CRT screen.

Good utilitarian argument.

But it also depends on the space his mom has available. An e-mac is quite big.

And, as a birthday present, a sunflower iMac looks nicer.

And for web surfing I'd prefer an LCD display. It's so much eye friendlier.

0157988944 · Aug 21, 2007, 09:31 PM

yeah, not arguing that I'd rather have an iMac, but if cost is an issue, nothing beats eMac.

Veltliner · Aug 21, 2007, 09:39 PM

Originally Posted by adamfishercox

yeah, not arguing that I'd rather have an iMac, but if cost is an issue, nothing beats eMac.

Absolutely. Still a nice machine for the money.

hldan · Aug 21, 2007, 09:50 PM

Originally Posted by Brian Live

Right, like I said, it will be used almost solely for surfing the web, Email and word processing.

Seems to be a good price compared to most I've seen on CL and eBay. I guess I'm just looking for some positive reinforcement to spend $400 on a 5-6 year old computer as a used gift. Haha.

LOL, seems like Veltliner was asleep at the wheel. The OP addressed his mom's needs and uses for the computer. Veltliner turn the power on.

imitchellg5 · Aug 21, 2007, 10:12 PM

Originally Posted by P

Depends on which OS you'd put on it, but with 10.3 I think it will be an excellent combination.

10.4 would be better.

Moonray · Aug 21, 2007, 10:23 PM

No reason to put 10.3 on it instead of 10.4 (except you just have 10.3 there). But you might want to double the RAM to 1 GB to speed up OS X.

I think that iMac has only USB 1.1 and it can’t be upgraded to USB 2.0, so data transfer from cameras or card readers will be a little slow and if your mom ever wants to connect an external drive it should be over FireWire.

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P · Aug 22, 2007, 05:45 AM

The reason to use 10.3 over 10.4 is RAM usage. 512 MB is OK for 10.3, but barely so for 10.4. If you upgrade to 768 MB or more, 10.4 is fine.

Considering that RAM upgrades on the sunflower iMacs are a bit tricky, you generally only want to upgrade the outer RAM slot. Do you know the exact RAM configuration?

JonoMarshall · Aug 22, 2007, 06:12 AM

It'll be 256 & 256 in an 800 no? Swapping out the internal RAM isn't so hard, you just have to be gentle and remember to re-apply the thermal paste where the chassis meets the base.

Moonray · Aug 22, 2007, 09:11 AM

Originally Posted by P

The reason to use 10.3 over 10.4 is RAM usage. 512 MB is OK for 10.3, but barely so for 10.4. If you upgrade to 768 MB or more, 10.4 is fine.

Interesting point. Is there a source where you can read more about the RAM usage of the different OS X versions?

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bearcatrp · Aug 22, 2007, 09:52 AM

I would suggest you spend an extra hundred bucks and get a mini (refurb) from apple. More and more apps are being written for the intel chips and the mini will last longer. You can find a cheap monitor and keyboard anywhere. If you shop around on ebay or here, you might find a core duo for around 400 to 450.
Randy

0157988944 · Aug 22, 2007, 11:09 AM

512 usn't bad for web surfing on Tiger. That's what I'm using while I wait for my iMac.

P · Aug 23, 2007, 05:43 PM

Originally Posted by Moonray

Interesting point. Is there a source where you can read more about the RAM usage of the different OS X versions?

I'm not aware of one - I just remember it happening when I upgraded the G3 iMac with 512 megs of RAM. Disabling Dashboard made a big difference, but not quite all of it.

Moonray · Aug 23, 2007, 06:06 PM

Well ok, I didn’t think about Dashboard, that’s of course one app more to run. But just for the “pure” OS processes I wouldn’t think there’s much of a difference.

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iREZ · Aug 23, 2007, 06:34 PM

get a mini or 17" imac intel...sure its a few bucks more, but i cant see anybody spending that much on a computer that A. is slow by todays standards B. isnt covered under warranty C. is outdated in things other than processor speed (ie. max ram, usb speeds, etc.). if youre a mac collector, great buy...if not, dont bother IMO.

MichiganRich · Aug 23, 2007, 06:46 PM

Okay, the iMac does come with the LCD that you will have to budget for. The mini, however, is SO much faster in everything that she will do. I bought one for me lovely mum a few months ago, and she couldn't be happier. She had been using a 600mhz G4/1GB RAM upgraded B&W that I handed down to her, and she never really complained. Now, she can't say enough about how much faster the average web browsing and emailing and IMing experience has been. When I had it here on my desk, the mini was surprisingly fast in day-to-day stuff, and it benchmarks very closely to the lower end G5 PowerMacs of not too long ago.

$400 is a good price for the iMac, but that kind of money is sooo close to a refurb mini, which is what I could not recommend highly enough.

p.s.- iRez is right on this one

Moonray · Aug 23, 2007, 11:10 PM

As a birthday present the sunflower iMac will look way more impressive

and it really can do more than just web surfing, some email and word processing. Hovever like mentioned above, for a little more money there's a good bit more power. Try to find out how the chances are that she gets into heavy video editing anytime soon.

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