Cheap Macintosh recommendations anyone?

[Michelle Widell]

So I'm thinking about buying a cheap Mac for the kid to use (and to give me some familiarity with them... every so often I need to work on one.) She'd use it for web browsing, downloading songs from the Internet (shhhh) and syncing with her Ipod.



I was thinking a G3 or G4 Imac or Emac. I'd want wireless on it too, so I can hook it up to my network. I've read about the airport card and also that some USB wireless adapters work with certain series of macs.



So here's the dumb questions.. I'll assume these machines use the same hard drives as PC's do, right? So if I buy an older one with a tiny hard drive, I can rip it out and stick my own in? Same with memory? What about the OS? What version should I buy?



I only want to spend a few hundred bucks, and the G3 line seems to fall in that range. I'd spend more if there was some logical reason to. As I said, it's for Internet browsing and Ipod syncing. (And for me to fiddle with..)

 

[Michelle Widell]

Here's an example of one I was looking at...

 

[Michelle Widell]

Here's an emac...

 

[Mark S 3]

Hi Michelle,



From my experience with Macs, it really isn't worth buying a used one. They tend to hold their value very well, so it isn't worth the few dollars saved to go with old technology; Especially if you need to upgrade RAM, hard drives or software too. Often you'll try to save a few dollars by buying used and end up spending more than a new one would of cost. Of course, YMMV, if you can find a good deal on a nice G4 iMac that is already preloaded with Tiger...



G3/G4: I'd stay away from G3. Any G3 computer is going to be 4-5 years old. They are slow compared to todays standards and will most likely need a fair chunk of upgrades to be useable for anything beyond the basics.



Hard drive: Yes, all modern Macs use Serial ATA or in the case of laptops & mac mini, 2.5" IDE hard drives.



Memory: Same here.



OS: Since you mention syncing to an iPod you will want to check the minimum requirements for the model of iPod she has. Most ask for at least OSX 10.2. Also, you might want to check what you are using at work.



Have you looked at the Mac mini yet? $600 buys a pretty wild little box. Complete with bluetooth, wifi, DVD player / CD burner, 512 megs ram and of course a factory warranty. It also comes with the latest OSX (Tiger) and the iLife suite.



linky --> http://www.apple.com/macmini/



Hope that helps,



Mark

 

[Dale Carlson]

Second the Mac Mini

 

[Michael Hale]

Third it.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Yeah, I too was going to recommend a Mac Mini.

 

[Michelle Widell]

Well, here's the thing. I'm a PC person. I don't plan on switching to Mac, but I wouldn't mind getting a better feel for it. (I've worked on them before for stuff like setting up Outlook to work with a MS Exchange server, and that's about it.) I just want to expand my horizons somewhat.



I don't need bluetooth... I don't need cd or dvd writing capabilities. That's what my two PC's are capable of doing. Just something for the kid to browse the net and play with her ipod.



The mac mini is cool - no doubt, but then you have to buy a monitor, keyboard and mouse. The monitor could set yah back another couple hundred (keyboard and mouse, i'm sure I can use a usb one that I have laying around.) So, that ups the price of a mac mini to 800 or so.



I just want something cheap for the kid to play with...

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Okay, than I reverse that recc for the Mini and have to defer to those with Mac expertise.

 

[Mark S 3]

Michelle,



I'm a PC person too and didn't plan on switching to the Mac, but it still happened! :lol: Those little computers are addictive! So much so that I no longer use my PC at home.



One other option is to look at the refurb store over at Apple.com. They sell refurbed and discontinued models (Such as the eMac) there. I've seen minis go as low as $349.00



Also, option 3 is if you qualify, buy from a local university or college, or online through the Apple educational page or government employee page. You can save quite a bit.

 

[Rob Campbell]

I purchased my first Mac last November. It's a G4 laptop. I'm very glad I did. I have other computers at home (PCs) and rarely use them any more. I know you are not looking for a laptop but I'd go with the Mini as well. You will be glad in the long run.

If all you want is a computer to surf the web and play with the iPod, why not go with a used inexpensive PC? The iPod works with PC's so you can satisfy your "mission" with a used PC. However, I'd still go with the Mini. You can no doubt find someone who had an old monitor sitting around they will probably give you.

Rob

 

[Michelle Widell]

I have 6 old P3's in the garage right now I got from a client. I could setup one of those no problem - I just thought it'd be neat to experience the Mac world (on the cheap). Maybe I'll install Linux on one of those and go that route. As far as monitors, I have those coming out my a** too. (hahaha.. no one wants CRT's anymore - "Here Michelle, now that you've installed my new LCD, you can have my CRT.." "gee, thanks..")



I want something "different" to expand my horizons, simply put.



I install Windows servers and workstations for a living, but never got into the Mac or Linux world. I'd like to learn something new.

 

[WXMotorSports DecalsPartsAccs]

I've been a Mac person for years. However, the last two systems I had to buy Winblowz boxes because of our accountling software and shipping software. Both, don't even run right on the apps that make a Mac run windblows. I've even found some apps that make the windblows OS run like a OS 10x...lol. The next system will be a Mac though just for doiing graphics.



A Mini is recommendation as well. If you can afford the new iMac with the new G5 processor that would be even better.



Thanks,

SST

 

[Fer Echegaray]

Don't know about Macs, but if you're thinking of Linux, there's a lot of distros available, 99% of them are free to download, with more or less the same stuff on board.



IMHO I'd dare suggest installing <a href="http://fedora.redhat.com/">Fedora</a>, they have a nice support community, well documented features, the software management tools are getting friendlier by the day.



OpenOffice will allow you to open those .doc, .xls and .ppt files.

All in all I think that is a good Linux distribution to start experiencing the penguin.



<img src="http://www.neboo.com/wallpaper/6/l/linux/linux_2.jpg" height="384" width="512">

 

[The Ape]

That eMac is a very good deal.



Ape Out.

 

[Dale Carlson]

Michelle, you might try Knoppix if you just want to try a Linux distro without having to load it on machine. It comes as a live CD, and will run on just about any x86 computer that you might have.



dale

 

[scott r]

I have an old powermac...well, not REALLY old, that I could sell you. It's a dual 1.25ghz. I used it for video editing/animation for the past few years. It's a great computer.

I'm sure we can work out something on the price, but it might not be as cheap as your emacs above. Of course you will be getting a significantly better computer too.



Michelle, there are a LOT of LiveCDs out there that would run PERFECTLY on the P3s. In fact, you could easily cluster them to have a supercomputer! I'll post a link at the bottom of this message where you can view all the liveCDs you could ever want!

If you have any questions about any of 'em, send me a PM. I've tried the majority of 'em at one time or other (I'm kind of a linux junkie).

 

[scott r]

Sorry, I really didn't read the posts prior to this much.

OS X 10.4.2 is nothing short of SPECTACULAR! I highly recommend it! I'm using a powerbook right now, and most of my computing is on a Mac. I have several x86_64 boxes around here, but they're more like toys. My macs are for work. There is NO OS out there that works as well, or looks as good as OS X. However, you pay a premium for it (by buying a mac). There are ways, for those who are crafty enough, to get OS X working on x86-based hardware...in fact, there are whole websites out there telling you how to do it, but it's not for the faint of heart.

When you buy a Mac, you get GREAT hardware, great support and the best OS available. I have also never seen an ugly mac...well, not in the past 5 years anyway. hehe

My dual 1.25ghz powermac, which is about 2 generations (computer generations that is) old, is STILL faster than my brand new QUAD Opteron system (dual-cpu, dual-core) at hard number-crunching applications (like distributed.net).

I really can't say enough GOOD stuff about my Macs. My first computer was a mac in 1985, I've had many since then. If you have any other questions, I'll do my best to answer 'em.

-Scott

 

[Michelle Widell]

Another one of my reasons for buying a mac would be to try out replacing hardware on one. I'd like to learn how to install OSX, etc etc. I had a client lately who called me and asked if I worked on Mac's, and it took me half a day to finally dig up someone locally who could service it. It was a simple hard drive replacement.



As for Linux, I'm in the process of installing "ubuntu" on a spare P3 right now.

 

[scott r]

Hard drives are compatible between x86 boxes and Macs. Sometimes it takes some formatting...a mac will read Fat32, but an x86 box can't/won't read HFS/HFS+ (which is what macs have used for many years now).

As for installing OS X, it's insanely easy. You pop in the CD/DVD, choose the drive you want to install to, hit "continue" and you're pretty much done. I have never installed an OS that has been easier.

Ubuntu is a great distro, albeit ugly. If you find that you can't stand the default brown, and aren't really comfortable enough to switch the colors, PCLinuxOS is a wonderful distro with a HUGE following. There is even a help channel on irc which is incredibly user friendly. You won't see "RTFM" in there much because the users are pretty sympathetic to linux newbies. I can't knock ubuntu much though, it's based on Debian, which is one of the best and most supported distros out there. Both Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS are very easy to install/use/update. Personally, I think PCLinuxOS has a bit more to offer, but linux these days is pretty much a matter of taste, you can find a distro for ANYONE.

If you end up having any questions about linux, I can probably help ya out there too. I've been using linux and unix for many years and I've got a pretty good grasp of how things work. Some of these guys who have 20-30 years of unix experience might be even MORE helpful. There's truly a wealth of knowledge at this forum.

Anyway, good luck with Ubuntu and with finding your mac.



P.S. The link for PCLinuxOS is at the bottom of this post. It can be used as a liveCD as well as an installed OS. I run it on my server computer, it's been up and running for nearly 6 months now without a single problem (it would be longer than that, but we had a power outage and I didn't have a UPS on that computer).