[krillbee]

Do you guys think I got a good deal?
I paid $127.50 for it. I am picking it up locally.

Here are the specs:
G4 400 Mhz
128 MB Ram
No Hard drive
6x DVD drive
ATI Rage 128 video
Parallel port card
Apple Pro USB Keyboard (full size)
and Apple USB mouse


I think I could have gotten it for cheaper if I had done a better job at bidding. Last night the high bid was at $80, and I beat it and set my max for $110. someone beat out my max this morning, and i got in a little bid fight over it in the last few minutes, lol.
I was hoping not to go over $120 but oh well.

krillbee ( 6 ) US $127.50 Nov-12-05 10:23:40 PST
itscallediwin ( 23) US $125.00 Nov-12-05 10:21:54 PST
krillbee ( 6 ) US $122.50 Nov-12-05 10:21:05 PST
itscallediwin ( 23) US $120.00 Nov-12-05 10:19:18 PST
krillbee ( 6 ) US $120.00 Nov-12-05 10:20:38 PST
krillbee ( 6 ) US $115.00 Nov-12-05 10:20:23 PST
krillbee ( 6 ) US $110.00 Nov-11-05 23:09:07 PST
itscallediwin ( 23) US $110.00 Nov-12-05 10:18:56 PST
foodanp ( 0 ) US $100.00 Nov-12-05 10:18:25 PST
nygrl00 ( 54) US $89.00 Nov-12-05 10:14:28 PST
nygrl00 ( 54) US $85.00 Nov-12-05 10:14:13 PST
krillbee ( 6 ) US $84.99 Nov-11-05 23:07:25 PST
nygrl00 ( 54) US $82.50 Nov-12-05 10:14:03 PST
moriah1987 ( 28) US $80.00 Nov-09-05 18:13:08 PST


How can I bid smarter next time? Not bid at all till the last second? Do you think that bidding smarter would have helped make the price lower? Or is someone gonna pay a lot for these regardless?

[zacharydz]

I've had similar experiences as you. What I do now, is use the watch function and then bid at the last minute. Thus, unless the person is very liberal with their highest bid, you can usually get it. And of course, with ebay, you only get good deals if you are patient and just stop bidding if it goes higher than your limit; just wait for another auction. You might also want to check the classifieds. Sometimes you come across amazing deals. I got my Sawtooth for $55 a couple of weeks ago on Craigslist.

Originally Posted by krillbee

Do you guys think I got a good deal?
I paid $127.50 for it. I am picking it up locally.

Here are the specs:
G4 400 Mhz
128 MB Ram
No Hard drive
6x DVD drive
ATI Rage 128 video
Parallel port card
Apple Pro USB Keyboard (full size)
and Apple USB mouse


I think I could have gotten it for cheaper if I had done a better job at bidding. Last night the high bid was at $80, and I beat it and set my max for $110. someone beat out my max this morning, and i got in a little bid fight over it in the last few minutes, lol.
I was hoping not to go over $120 but oh well.

krillbee ( 6 ) US $127.50 Nov-12-05 10:23:40 PST
itscallediwin ( 23) US $125.00 Nov-12-05 10:21:54 PST
krillbee ( 6 ) US $122.50 Nov-12-05 10:21:05 PST
itscallediwin ( 23) US $120.00 Nov-12-05 10:19:18 PST
krillbee ( 6 ) US $120.00 Nov-12-05 10:20:38 PST
krillbee ( 6 ) US $115.00 Nov-12-05 10:20:23 PST
krillbee ( 6 ) US $110.00 Nov-11-05 23:09:07 PST
itscallediwin ( 23) US $110.00 Nov-12-05 10:18:56 PST
foodanp ( 0 ) US $100.00 Nov-12-05 10:18:25 PST
nygrl00 ( 54) US $89.00 Nov-12-05 10:14:28 PST
nygrl00 ( 54) US $85.00 Nov-12-05 10:14:13 PST
krillbee ( 6 ) US $84.99 Nov-11-05 23:07:25 PST
nygrl00 ( 54) US $82.50 Nov-12-05 10:14:03 PST
moriah1987 ( 28) US $80.00 Nov-09-05 18:13:08 PST


How can I bid smarter next time? Not bid at all till the last second? Do you think that bidding smarter would have helped make the price lower? Or is someone gonna pay a lot for these regardless?

[mduell]

Retrobox(.com) has the same thing with a 20GB HDD and warranty for $150, so I'd say you paid slightly over market price.

[krillbee]

Originally Posted by mduell

Retrobox(.com) has the same thing with a 20GB HDD and warranty for $150, so I'd say you paid slightly over market price.

I didnt see that site. Many websites on the internet that sell macs tend to do so at $250 or more! Some sites as high as $400!

Luckily I have my own hard drive, and also the person I bought it from is local. On the retrobox site, the price would have been $177 after shipping, so my deal is about $50 cheaper.

I agree though that I probably could have gotten it for cheaper if I was bidding smarter.

Originally Posted by zacharydz

I've had similar experiences as you. What I do now, is use the watch function and then bid at the last minute. Thus, unless the person is very liberal with their highest bid, you can usually get it. And of course, with ebay, you only get good deals if you are patient and just stop bidding if it goes higher than your limit; just wait for another auction. You might also want to check the classifieds. Sometimes you come across amazing deals. I got my Sawtooth for $55 a couple of weeks ago on Craigslist.

Zacharydz,

I'm going to try your strategy next time, of waiting. I checked out my local craigslist and the cheapest one was for $200! eeks! I cant believe you found one for $55, thats insane! I looked around on craigslist and there were no sawtooths for cheaper than 200 within the last month.

You are right though about how patience pays off and will almost always help you to find a cheaper deal. I guess I was getting sick of looking for deals (something I did this whole last week) and I wanted it soon so I could just stop thinking about it.

[krillbee]

any more thoughts?

[dave49er]

I got a Sawtooth local for $240 with 1GB RAM, Radeon 8500 64MB video, Sonnet ATA133 card with ATA133 Maxtor 120GB & 40GB drives, and an 8X DVD+-RW. Popped a Sonnet 1.2GHz CPU in it for about $235. It's a pretty nice machine for the price!

[krillbee]

hmm, an 8500 would cost me $30. a 120gb hard drive perhaps $70
The gig of ram, another $100, and the dvd burner $40.

Dang, yeah, you did get a good deal!!!

[dave49er]

Originally Posted by krillbee

hmm, an 8500 would cost me $30. a 120gb hard drive perhaps $70
The gig of ram, another $100, and the dvd burner $40.

Dang, yeah, you did get a good deal!!!

You did too. Not too long ago what you paid wouldn't get you a good B&W G3.

The Sonnet ATA133 card goes for about $60-75, and the 8500s I've seen on eBay are $85 + shipping (you're probably talking about getting a PC card and flashing it yourself, but you'd also need a PCI video card to do that).

[krillbee]

Originally Posted by dave49er

You did too. Not too long ago what you paid wouldn't get you a good B&W G3.

The Sonnet ATA133 card goes for about $60-75, and the 8500s I've seen on eBay are $85 + shipping (you're probably talking about getting a PC card and flashing it yourself, but you'd also need a PCI video card to do that).

As of last night my machine now as an 8500 flashed to work on mac. I had one that i was using in one of my PCs, and I just figured out how to flash it last night. So far its up and working with no problems.

This system is pretty cool now, I could just use about 512 mb more ram, and a much faster processor, (still at 400mhz, lol)


Not too long ago B/W G3s were that much? how long ago?

[SirCastor]

You got a fantastic deal. I've probably sunk $500+ into my Sawtooth on top of the $2000 I spent initially purchasing. I'm still using my original 400mhz in there. (I'm going to get a 1.2 ghz to hold me through until intel Powerbooks, when the money comes up.) It runs just fine (not a lot of gaming though.)
It's a great machine. It's run me through the past 5 years. It's an incredibly versital machine. I think the most expandable Machine that Apple's ever made.

[zacharydz]

I just put in an OWC 1.4 Ghz G4 with 2MB L3 cache in my Sawtooth yesterday; I'm quite impressed. I managed to sell off about $250 of old computer equipment that I wasn't using, so this cpu upgrade effectively only put me down about $50. This should hold be over for a couple of years.

Originally Posted by SirCastor

You got a fantastic deal. I've probably sunk $500+ into my Sawtooth on top of the $2000 I spent initially purchasing. I'm still using my original 400mhz in there. (I'm going to get a 1.2 ghz to hold me through until intel Powerbooks, when the money comes up.) It runs just fine (not a lot of gaming though.)
It's a great machine. It's run me through the past 5 years. It's an incredibly versital machine. I think the most expandable Machine that Apple's ever made.

[osiris]

Originally Posted by SirCastor

It's a great machine. It's run me through the past 5 years. It's an incredibly versital machine. I think the most expandable Machine that Apple's ever made.

It's an amazing machine. I've upgraded everything except the motherboard + power supply.

I may go to 2ghz next year, depending on how the first revision MacTels are.

[krillbee]

Originally Posted by SirCastor

You got a fantastic deal. I've probably sunk $500+ into my Sawtooth on top of the $2000 I spent initially purchasing. I'm still using my original 400mhz in there. (I'm going to get a 1.2 ghz to hold me through until intel Powerbooks, when the money comes up.) It runs just fine (not a lot of gaming though.)
It's a great machine. It's run me through the past 5 years. It's an incredibly versital machine. I think the most expandable Machine that Apple's ever made.

but you've had your sawtooth for a lot longer
its expected that things get cheaper over time.

Yeah I was also impressed by reading how highly upgradable these were.

I original got and b&W g3 from my school for $15, which was a good deal i thought. it only was a 300 with 64 mb, and a crappy 8mb rage64 video card, lol. I am going to sell that machine. This sawtooth I have now seems a lot nicer.

[SirCastor]

I have had mine for longer, so price is noted, but my point is, my computer will be reasonably competitive for being five years old when I sink another few hundred bucks into it. You can get what I've got for a total of about $700-$800. I'll be $3000 in

[wondermac]

Hi, I just bought a sawtooth on eBay too. Did I pay too much for it? Does anybody mind commenting on this? Thanks!

G4-400 Sawtooth, 512 MB RAM, 60GB hard drive, DVD-ROM, SCSI card, Tiger 10.4.3 on it (No Tiger disk), I do plan to make this legal with a purchase of Tiger. Panther 10.3 disks are included.

Winning bid: $ 206.00
Shipping: $28.69
Insurance: $1.20

Total: $235.89

-wondermac-

[ChrisF]

Originally Posted by wondermac

Hi, I just bought a sawtooth on eBay too. Did I pay too much for it? Does anybody mind commenting on this? Thanks!

Considering that ebay shows that some G4/400s have sold for considerably less than $100, yeah, you paid too much. Then again someone paid $227.50 for a 10GB/256MB/10.2 config, so you could have done worse.
A tip for Ebay buyers: often the seller will include something like the 10.3 install disks to boost the value of the auctioned item. If you're planning not to use those, look for a different auction. It'll generally save you money.

[galarneau]

I don't think the deal you go was too bad. The 512MB of RAM and 60GB hard drive is worth something.

[SirCastor]

As I've said. I think the G4/400 is the most expandable mac ever made. So paying between $100 and $250 seems pretty good. The only thing that really holds back this machine is it's bus.

[wondermac]

Thanks for the comments. Yeah, I thought I might have paid a little too much for it but I thought for the amount of 512 MB of memory and the 60 GB hard drive was a decent deal. I have two sticks of 256 MB that I can put in and that would raise the ram amount to 1 Gig. I'm holding out for a new mac and wonder how much the sawtooths will drop in value when the Intel Macs come out? Thanks!

-wondermac-

[krillbee]

Originally Posted by ChrisF

Considering that ebay shows that some G4/400s have sold for considerably less than $100, yeah, you paid too much. Then again someone paid $227.50 for a 10GB/256MB/10.2 config, so you could have done worse.
A tip for Ebay buyers: often the seller will include something like the 10.3 install disks to boost the value of the auctioned item. If you're planning not to use those, look for a different auction. It'll generally save you money.

Some sell for less than $100??? Full and complete systems? Are you serious? Is this when the world is out taking a snooze? lol

Can you provide links to some of these auctions? I'm still in disbelief. I paid $127, and mine didnt even come with a hard drive, lol.

[ChrisF]

Originally Posted by krillbee

Some sell for less than $100??? Full and complete systems? Are you serious? Is this when the world is out taking a snooze? lol

Can you provide links to some of these auctions? I'm still in disbelief. I paid $127, and mine didnt even come with a hard drive, lol.

Use the search completed option on ebay; sort by price.

[bbales]

Originally Posted by SirCastor

As I've said. I think the G4/400 is the most expandable mac ever made. So paying between $100 and $250 seems pretty good. The only thing that really holds back this machine is it's bus.

Well, five years later, I'm still using mine. Upgraded the hard drive finally about 10 months ago, replaced the original video card (with something still pretty low-end -- an ATi with only only 32 MB) on Sunday and upgraded the processor quite some time ago. But it still works fine.

I think you did fine on your deal.

[krillbee]

Originally Posted by ChrisF

Use the search completed option on ebay; sort by price.

DOH!!
I didnt even know that option existed until just now!

[dark3lf]

I think it's a great deal, even though I have a DP 2.3 I still use my G4 400. Just buy a new HD and up the RAM and you're good to go.

[Madrag]

I bought mine ~five years ago and it costed about $2.200!
now people are getting it for less than $100!

Enjoy it, it's a lovely machine!, I won't sell mine (although it's inside a closet now, the G5 is the work horse now )

BTW, it works great with tiger!