anything i need to know before buying a used imac g5?

[avpmusik]

so i wanted to surprise my girlfriend with an imac for awhile and i found a really good deal on craigslist for one. from the AD these are the specs.

Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8
1.6 GHz powerpc G5
1.5 GB DDR SDRam (upgraded)
1TB HD (upgraded)
DVD/CD Burner (upgraded)

the computer (in the pic) looks good, and the seller told me on the phone
it was in good condition. however to me this seems a little too good to be true
for what i'm getting it for. ($200) and he also is willing to deliver it to me tomorrow since he is gonna be in my area.

the reasoning for him selling it is because he says hes un employed and really needs the money, and that hes a window's guy and its been sitting around and he doesnt have the time to learn how to use a mac machine.

in the back of my mind i'm thinking.. theres gotta be a catch.
there's probably something wrong with it. so i'm asking you guys a question.

is there anything you guys can tell me that i can look for when buying a used imac g5? thoughts?

 

[125037]

Nope. I'd say that's quite a fair deal (in your favor). No Blu-Ray, though.

 

[TMRaven]

You won't be able to do any serious flash usage or video usage with it, yet alone common multitasking. You will however be able to do simple flash usage and simple tasks like light photoshop and photos with it, however. You won't be able to upgrade to the latest osx, and many of the latest apple apps won't be supported for it.

Considering it has a 1tb hard drive, I guess 200 is a decent enough deal if you want to use it as a media storage device and act as a simple computer, but don't expect it to do much more.

Fair deal, but not a great deal.

 

[Intell]

Used Macs have lots of life left in them. They have the longest lifespan of computers when compared against other leading PC makers.

 

[chris98vf]

$200 is about right. You can get a 17" Intel Core Duo for about $300-350 on craigslist and around $400 on eBay. As far as buying used computers I'm all for it if the price is right. Not everyone can afford a new Mac and there's no reason to throw the old one in the dumpster if someone else could use it.

 

[David085]

I don't recommend buying a POWERPC I would go with the newer computers with intel and buy it NEW not Used.

 

[chris98vf]

Used Macs have lots of life left in them. They have the longest lifespan of computers when compared against other leading PC makers.

Not only that they have the highest resale value... Imagine a 6 year old PC going for $200. You'd be MAD to pay that.

 

[chris98vf]

I don't recommend buying a POWERPC I would go with the newer computers with intel and buy it NEW not Used.

I agree against PowerPC but it's absolutely OK to buy used if that's what you can afford. I repair a lot of iMacs and sell them used so in a way it's in my interest lol. Even if I didn't sell them I'd be all for going used. For all we know it may be his 1st Mac and he wants to see if he would like it compared to a PC. I was once a PC only guy and it was curiosity that brought me to Macs.

 

[DanielCoffey]

One thing to think about is that you could try the G5 and see if you like the Mac experience then if you decide to sell later, it is likely to still be worth what you paid for it.

As for MMO entertainment, you could have a look at EQMac (the Mac client for Everquest). It is free to download but does require the monthly subscription and is compiled for PPC machines. On the EQMac forums you will note that it is a little tricky to get your sub set up because it requires human intervention at Sony but once you are, the game works fine. There are some performance issues to do with the UI that affect all PPC and Intel machines playing the game but they are largely addressed with the "Poweroftwo UI".