[DeepDish]

My 400mhz G4 is still running strong. We upgraded the memory and added a slave drive. But that is it. We are running 10.2 and publishing our magazines through classic on it.

Great machine. I see it going for another two years. Sure I would love a new G5, but for now our 400 G4 is still rock solid and fast enough.

[gunnar]

I've always found Mac hardware to last longer in addition to the user experience remaining viable for longer. Every PC person I know has had a component fail within the first year or two and I've rarely seen anything go wrong with the Macs.

[Roy]

This is a topic I have to get into -- although a different angle from the original post. We use both Macs & Windows boxes in my school office & have done since the early 1990s. There's no debate. Windows boxes need to be replaced every few years (2-3 usually) because they are left behind by the software up-dates (especially drivers).

Of course, for work use, we want the latest machines of any flavor, and the switch from OS 9 to OS X meant a big re-investment in software, but that doesn't mean that our old beige Macs can't be used. They're excellent teaching machines, much of the new software for OS 9 still works, and as low volume web & mail servers, they can't be beat. I have a IIvx box running my printers and virtual IPs that I haven't turned off or shut down more than 1-2 times in the past 8 years.

Recycling Macs means putting them to different uses. Recycled Windows machines are great for door stops, and can be a lot of fun if you drop them out of high story windows (in the name of science, of course)

[Ra]

Originally posted by jld:
Well I'm on the switch train at the moment. First an ipod, then a 12" PB, and now I'm thinking about a desktop. I've had a bunch of macs before, in the old days, and I've got this nagging feeling that Macs get outdated much faster than your average PC. I guess I feel like I could spend $1000 building a pretty respectable PC, and it would be a decent usable computer for at least 3 years. By that time it will be old and slow, but since I mostly surf the web, email, and word process, it's ok. My current desktop is a Pentium 3, 700mhz, XP Pro, 512MB SDRAM, and 80 Gigs of HD space. It's just getting a little old. I guess I feel a little strange spending at least $2K, and feeling like a couple years from now it will just be slow and outdated. What should I be thinking?

-------------------------
I wish I had all that money to spend on computers!

Well...maybe I am cheap, because I am still using a 7300 (G3-400MHz upgraded). Yep, the same computer I bought in 1994. However, I have been thinking about a G5...maybe by the end of the year if all the software and hardware bugs have been taken care of.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by Ra:
7300...1994

1997.

[QSG4867PM]

In the course of my lifetime, I have had close to 50 different Macs since I have discovered them in my early teens. Most recently, I have just sold my "Wallstreet" G3 Powerbook (which was the top of the line then) which I have had for close to 5 years. In that time, I have assembled close 10 different PC from PII's, PIII's, AMD K6's, Cyrix, NexGen, IDT, and currently an AMD... uh... well it is running at 1 GHz. I have hardly turned on that unit at all. As of last year, I may have turned it on 5 or 6 times. In that span of time, I am currently running a Quicksilver G4-867MHz w/1.5BG of RAM. I love my QS. I have a total of 6 HDD in it. Two of which is on a RAID setup. The 2 others are on IDE connections and the final 2 are UltraSCSI 160. Just to let you know, I have had this Mac for a total of 4 years now. I am may keep it for another 2 or 3 more years before I decide to sell it. I am tempted to upgrade the processor, but for now, it is just perfect for me. How's that for longevity.

[christ]

Originally posted by Kenneth:
Dual 533?
Am I missing something over in the AI board?

Be nice now - I have one of those, too, and it is still working much better than the 1-year-old DELLs at work.

[krassy]

Originally posted by jld:
Well I'm on the switch train at the moment. First an ipod, then a 12" PB, and now I'm thinking about a desktop. I've had a bunch of macs before, in the old days, and I've got this nagging feeling that Macs get outdated much faster than your average PC. I guess I feel like I could spend $1000 building a pretty respectable PC, and it would be a decent usable computer for at least 3 years. By that time it will be old and slow, but since I mostly surf the web, email, and word process, it's ok. My current desktop is a Pentium 3, 700mhz, XP Pro, 512MB SDRAM, and 80 Gigs of HD space. It's just getting a little old. I guess I feel a little strange spending at least $2K, and feeling like a couple years from now it will just be slow and outdated. What should I be thinking?

my G4/400 is 4 years old and i'm running os x 10.3 and all the newest apps on it just fine. it costs me 1600 euros when i bought it four years ago and right now i can sell it for 400 euros... what can you get if you sell your pentium 700 ??? *lol*

[The Godfather]

I'd say that OSX is going through a revolution, and it is bound to leave the Mac hardware behind. In the Windows world, PCs have to deal with the same OS from 2001.

When OSX stabilizes, you will be able to keep your Mac for five years with no problems. When MS Longhorn arrives, you will see everyone throwing their Athlon PCs to the trash can.

Also add that the progress of the Mac in the G4 era was ridiculously slow. Don't expect the same progress rate in the G5 era.

[kaleberg]

If you are a light user and mainly email, word process and surf, you can get an iMac for $1100 ($1000 if you shop around). That gets you an 800MHz CPU which won't get you much respect on the drag strip, but most of our Macs (Powerbooks) are 500MHz and plenty fast for that kind of work.

Unless you really find Firewire 400 confining, spend your life in Photoshop filters, use lots of effects in your movies or you really expect to stuff in new boards every so often, save the money.

As for age. Once you get past burn in, usually in the first 60 days, Macs tend to last, and last, and last. They are sort of like old Hondas and Toyotas. They won't get you much respect on the drag strip, but you have reliable transportation and resale value.

We tend to use our Macs for about 5 years before replacement. We just retired an old, but working, 1400cs (6+ years old), but still use our 2-3 year old machines, as well as our newer ones. Our local bank has an old box Mac 512KB doing RS232 serial stuff. No web surfing power there.

Think about what you NEED.

[DaedalusDX]

Everyone has definitely been making good points here... just to reiterate and expand on what someone said before...

In my experience, the usability of the operating system in a PC (windows) degrades significantly quicker than Mac OS X and even its predecessor Mac OS 9...

I chalk it up to an inability on the part of Microsoft Windows, old versions like Windows 95, 98, and Me, especially, but it also applies to 2000 and XP... to scale well as the registry gets older and older and put to more use with applications get installed and uninstalled...

Uninstalling an application in windows simply does not remove all traces of that application from the system... registry keys remain, and that database gets old and rickety fast...

The result? Most of the people I know who use PCs and know what they are doing reinstall Windows frequently just to keep the registry clean. My more adept friends at college make it a habit to reinstall once every break from classes they get... Right before school starts, thanksgiving break, then christmas, then spring break, and then they push it until the summer without a reinstall..

The people who aren't as adept and for whom reinstalling is a challenge, they just don't go through that often... their machines simply get slower and slower, with more errors popping up as the system degrades.

In addition, the issue with more and more spyware getting installed on a PC just by surfing the web normally and installing kazaa is a definite con to the longevity of Windows... on my cousin's XP machine that was not reinstalled on in about 6 or 7 months, i found 200 distinct spyware objects according to Adaware... these spyware applications steal clock cycles and frankly are entirely annoying on all levels...

Mac OS X and OS 9 have advantages in this area... sure, OS X needs to have its permissions checked once in a while, and in both systems, corrupted preference files cause application crashes as time progresses, but those are remedied without having to reinstall completely.

[Todd Madson]

My G4/400 has been in heavy use for the last four years pretty much. Still is. 24/7.

[aural]

It really bothers me that people think PC's are less expensive to buy than MAC's! Doing a quick calculation comparing a dual G5 1.8 to a dual p4 2.8 using NAME BRAND PC parts (meaning Intel, Kingston, Hitachi and not aopen, micron, and maxtor) I am very close to the 1899 of the Apple by the time I got though the motherboard (Intel SE7505VB2), CPU's x2 (Intel p4 xeon 2.8 533 fsb), 512 megs of RAM (x2 Kingston KVR266X72RC25/256), The same Hard drive (Hitachi 13G0254), A "SuperDrive" (Pioneer DVR-A06), Video Card (Nvida GeForce fx 5200 Ultra), A sound card with digital I/O (CREATIVE LABS SB0220), A FireWire 800 card (IOGear GIC3800), and a copy of Windows XP Pro. I am at $1890.00 figuring at dealer pricing for retail packages. Noticed I have not yet included a CASE, Power Supply, Modem, Bluetooth, Wireless Mouse and Keyboard and the TIME to put this pig together. So when thinking a PC is cheeper than a MAC think again. Also if you want to have fun price out a Dell Laptop with the same specs as a Mac 15" or 17" If you still want to build a PC feel free to do so but don't call me for help trying to find the most compatible driver for your equipment with what ever rev. of Windows you wind up with (hint the newest driver is rarely the answer) I have to deal with this on a regular basis, So when I get home I just want my computer to work so I use a Mac! A dual 500 BTW which will be 4 years old this year, and still does everything I need it to do... But I am leaning toward buying a dual 1.8, I think it is time.

[spiky_dog]

check http://gotapex.com/ . you _can_ pick up pcs for much less than macs. note that i still use a mac -- indeed there are 4 macs in this house of 3 people -- despite this knowledge.

to the original poster: it depends on what you're after. for example, i still use a power computing powercenter pro 180e (powered by a 180 MHz 604e, surprisingly enough ) as my webserver, and it pushes >4GB/month without a complaint. of course, i do think a machine of that age is unacceptable to use on a daily basis, but anything from the G3 era on up would be fine. rephrased, you'd probably be satisfied working with a 3 year old mac. i certainly know many friends who ran 300-500 MHz G3s and G4s until recently, or even still do.

[istallion]

This idea that Macs get outdated faster will recede in the future. OS9 was hurting apple so bad they had to rush OSX out the door. As a result, it was missing features and very slow. Annual updates filled CD's and expensive if you bought every version. Now, the API is stabilizing and new versions of itunes won't require 10.4.3 to install.
Macs with a 3D graphics chip & a G5 will last a while now.

[c3ntip3d3]

I've got a G4/400Mhz. I've had it since the day they first rolled off the line (I was gonna get a G3 but they announced G4s that day), and I'm using it to write this post. I've added memory, a 2nd HD (80Gig), a CD burner, 3 printers, an external HD (120Gig), and Jaguar. No problems at all since what, 1998, 1999?

It's just starting to show some age in the last month or two, from 3rd party hardware (Zip drive, Hitachi CD/DVD) getting spotty, but the Mac hardware is going strong, and I can replace that faulty hardware pretty cheap. I expect to keep using the G4 for a couple years, even after I get a newer machine, just for OS9's Quark 4 capability.

So if degradation is your worry, don't worry. I would even argue that some apps (Flash, Quark, Photoshop) run better on a Mac than a PC, but that's my opinion.

[henk]

Originally posted by jld:
Well I'm on the switch train at the moment.

We are running a design firm and work with multiple clients.
We started with macs in '85 and went to pc's early 90's with windows 3.1.
It was sort of a disaster. The mac is easier to use and usually a lot more stable than pc's.

Most applications we use are very memory-intensive. But we did find out over the years that the operating systems on macs tend to last a lot longer than windows as do the applications. The buit-in functionality and the free features that come with macs are usually ahead of their windows-counterparts and tend to run meaner ans a lot slimmer.

Many times we saw no reason to upgrade when a new operating-system came out. On a mac there's always a workaround to get new functions without necesarily upgrading your system. The mac is very efficient and goes a long way; we currently use a first-generation power-mac ('94} as a server with 9.1 running flawlessly on it.

Apple still supports all but it's oldest hardware today with drivers and the like, even the oldest laser-writers; try that with any other make.

Again, mac-software usally is leaner, more functional. So even if your system looks a little old it'll still go happily as opposed to something packed with gimmicks.

Believe us, we've been there, got the t-shirts: send you one?

[beverson]

I've had fairly good luck with the longevity of my Macs I think.

First Mac I owned was a Performa 6200. I got it at Thanksgiving my first year of college. I added a network card and maybe some RAM.

Almost exactly three years later, I sold it and got a rev. b iMac. By and by, I added some RAM and upgraded the hard drive twice. I finally sold it nearly FIVE years later (just this fall) and got a 17" iMac.

Two and a half years ago, I bought a 500 mhz iBook (I think the second revision of the white ones). I'm still using it, but it's starting to show its age. Ideally I'd replace it sometime in the next 12 months with a new iBook, or a PowerBook if I'm lucky.

While using them, I keep all of these machines in the most current software I can manage -- not because I really need to, just because I like having the latest and greatest features if I can afford them. The old iMac was by far the one with the most longevity. When I sold it for over $150, it was chugging away with Jaguar just fine. Couldn't really do any heavy lifting with it (hence the new iMac), but it let me browse and e-mail and use Word and IM and listen to music just fine. The iBook admittedly is not going to be quite as much of a champ, and I would replace it now if I could. That being said, it's not doing any worse than the Performa was; I'm just more of a geek now. I think in the past, Apple consumer-grade laptops would become obsolete more quickly than other product lines. I think that gap probably is closing now. But I definitely feel that this new iMac has some legs.

Anyway, my point is that out of my first three Macs, two are going to last me 3+ years and one lasted damn near 5 years. That seems pretty good to me.

[Link]

Considering my 2.5 year old g4 still competes nicely with most *modern* (definately not top end) PC machines and runs what I want to like a champ, I'd say the longetivity is great.

I'd still get about $1100 off ebay for this machine (less than 1/3 what I paid but oh well), a PC of the same heft would be damn near worthless.

[jcarr]

My last job was at a Campus Reseller and I remember there were machines that we sold in 1994, that would not run Windows 95 when it shipped. By contrast, System 7.5 (I think) was the current incarnation of the Mac OS, and it ran on almost all of the Macs that had ever shipped.

Even today, the 1998 350MHz blue & white G3 that I handed-down to my mother runs Panther, iLife, etc., and runs quite well. Has anyone tried to install Windows XP on a machine of that vintage? The experience is less than pleasurable.

Just my $0.02.

[bojangles]

Until six weeks ago, my main computer was a six-year-old beige Power Macintosh G3, which runs Mac OS X 10.2.8 remarkably well for its 266MHz. Admittedly, I did eventually max out the RAM and add an 80GB hard drive, a CD-RW drive, and a USB/Firewire combo card, but the fact of the matter is that my wife and I used that computer every day for almost six years, and we continue to use it on a regular basis (eg. when we both need a computer at the same time).

Macs get outdated quickly? Pfft. You find me a six-year-old Wintel that can run XP without major upgrades; then we�ll talk.

[Deal]

Most people don't understand what centrino is because of the lying way in which the advertisement depicts it. Apple would never put somebody on the top of a remote mountain and say the airport works. Intel will.

I had a friend look into this and in order for centrino to work on that commercial, they needed 11 donkeys to carry up a satellite dish and a generator. They then had to put all this together in order for that guy in the tent to download that picture of the boy with the seashell.

Now you can't tell me they were up there for any other reason than to show they could do that. So, centrino works if you have 11 donkeys and a satellite dish/receiver and a generator in which to power it.

Back on topic: Macs last way longer than PC's do. I work with a lot of computers and if you want to run what's new, get a Mac. You'll be able to run what's new a lot longer.

[MAlan]

The rate at which any computer will seem to be outdated is a highly psychological metric based on many factors. My hypothesis is that the Macintosh computers bought 2 - 3 yrs ago at this point in time will seem like they have been outdated faster than a Windows machine for a the following reasons.

1. There has been a huge leap in software technology on the Mac with Mac OS X. My personal feeling is that My iMac DV/SE at 400 MHz is significantly more sluggish under OS X (panther) than OS 9. But I use OS X for the stability. This is similar to when Windows 95 came out. All of the sudden everybody's PC was obsolete in '95 because that OS ran like a dog on a computer that was only a year old.

2. The hardware was at a dead end with the Motorola G4 not delivering the promised performance upgrades. Now suddenly with the G5 there has been a huge upgrade to the entire system architecture on so many fronts it is hard to enumerate them all.

3. For windows machines bought at roughly the same time period there seems to be a larger number of users sticking with an older operating system ('98, ME or 2000 vs. XP) than compared to the Mac world. But this is just a temporary statistic.

I try to use an impersonal non biased approach to this subject. Here is what I notice about my own interaction with my two G3 macs.

1. The types of things I was doing when I bought the machine are not exactly the things I want to do with the machine now. So my machine seems slower. Case in point Digital Video. I just got a DV camcorder. Downloading the video to the computer is quite fast. Making and editing your own movie in iMovie is quick and easy if you keep things very basic. But encoding the final product in the appropriate format to be burned on a DVD to be played in a standard DVD player is dog slow. But I didn't buy my machine with this application in mind.

2. I did buy my machine with the idea of creating a low end audio recording system. This worked out well. I have software in OS 9 to do this. But recently I've been looking at upgrading to some software in OS X to do the same task. The reality is that I can still make very nice and simple audio recordings in OS 9 so my machine is still as fast as it was. The perception is that my machine is outdated because Garage band, which does the exact same thing as my softare in OS 9, is not supported on my machine...why because it is a fact that a Mac OS X audio app needs more resources from the machine to perform the same task that an OS 9 audio app did. Which then leads to my perception that my machine is outdated.

The solution to all of this of course is to find a point in time to stop upgrading the OS on your machine and live with what it can do at the speed it can do it and don't ask your machine to do any new tricks after that point that are way beyond its capabilities.

[C.J. Moof]

My father in law has mostly replaced his 3 year old Dell laptop with my 1995 PowerMac 7500 + upgrades: firewire/usb, IDE controller and drive, G4/800 and Jagwire, thanks to Ex Post Facto. That computer is 9 years old at it's core.... Windows 3.1 was the current PC OS when it rolled off the line.

No, Macs don't get outdated faster.

[NYCFarmboy]

The issue really is that Apple continues to leapfrog past PC's in terms of what you use your computer for.

So..yes..Apple computers get outdated very fast by the continual evolvement of Apple computers.

In comparison: I don't think a modern brand new Dell or H-P or whatever windows box is very much different than a Dell or H-P, or windows box of 2 years ago.

But if you ask me a 2 year old Mac is still far better than any new Windows machine.

[rayray74]

Anyone have a source to find somewhat reputable info on the average lifespan of Mac vs PC?