First time buyer, long time admirer...

[Spastik.Roach]

Hey

Finally mums ready to buy a mac and i'm in charge of picking one out I've got a very tight budget ($1000 bucks NZ or so) but I have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers etc lined up. So I want some advice on wether I should buy a used Powermac G4, or a Mac Mini. I'm in New Zealand so our macs are alot more exspensive here, however since they're so small I could get a Mac Mini off ebay and ship it over here without it being too exspensive. If you want an idea on prices of used macs here, check out http://www.trademe.co.nz. Basically New Zealands ebay and would be where i'm getting a used Powermac, if I decide to get one.

Right now I run a Pentium 4 2.4ghz, 768mb ram, 80gb hd, so i'm looking for something to run about as fast as that, although if its a little slower i'm ok with that. Just totally sick of Windows.

 

[p0intblank]

Well what are you looking to do with this machine?

 

[Spastik.Roach]

Well what are you looking to do with this machine?

Photoshop, Music recording/editing (pretty extensive use of Garage band i'd say), Games (Usually not very graphics intensive ones though), umm, yeah...

 

[840quadra]

My top choice would be a Mini simply because you can get one new for a fair price, and be covered under a warranty. If you are a casual user, the mini will be fast enough, and still be quite quick at some applications that you would expect otherwise.

::EDIT::
You posted in the time I replied..

If you can find a good price on a MDD Dual processor Powermac, you may get more out of that if you intend on doing lots of photoshop or editing large music files. A dual 1.42 would be good power, but they seem to be quite expensive still .

 

[shadowmoses]

You should try and pick up one of the new 1.5ghz 64mb graphics mini's with a 80gb HD they come at a good price and are under a full 1 year warranty which you wont get with a second hand Powermac G4,

Shadow

 

[Spastik.Roach]

My top choice would be a Mini simply because you can get one new for a fair price, and be covered under a warranty. If you are a casual user, the mini will be fast enough, and still be quite quick at some applications that you would expect otherwise.

::EDIT::
You posted in the time I replied..

If you can find a good price on a MDD Dual processor Powermac, you may get more out of that if you intend on doing lots of photoshop or editing large music files. A dual 1.42 would be good power, but they seem to be quite expensive still .

A dual ...800 mhz or something or was it a 1ghz went ridiculously cheap one time but It was only there a few hours before someone had snapped it up . Don't have the money till I sell this windows i'm on right now anyway.

If I got the mac mini it'd be a 1.42ghz one maxed out with 1gb of ram etc, but I'm gunna wait to see if they reveal an upgraded one end of January at that big mac convention thing (Forgive me for forgetting the name)

 

[dmw007]

Hey

Finally mums ready to buy a mac and i'm in charge of picking one out I've got a very tight budget ($1000 bucks NZ or so) but I have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers etc lined up. So I want some advice on wether I should buy a used Powermac G4, or a Mac Mini. I'm in New Zealand so our macs are alot more exspensive here, however since they're so small I could get a Mac Mini off ebay and ship it over here without it being too exspensive. If you want an idea on prices of used macs here, check out http://www.trademe.co.nz. Basically New Zealands ebay and would be where i'm getting a used Powermac, if I decide to get one.

Right now I run a Pentium 4 2.4ghz, 768mb ram, 80gb hd, so i'm looking for something to run about as fast as that, although if its a little slower i'm ok with that. Just totally sick of Windows.

I say try to get either a dual processor Power Mac G4 or an used iMac G5. Both of them would work well for your stated needs and fit your budget.

Welcome to Mac Spastik.Roach.

 

[ChrisFromCanada]

however since they're so small I could get a Mac Mini off ebay and ship it over here without it being too exspensive.

Not sure what the NZ import duties are like but you are likely to be charged for bringing it in from another country. Be aware of that!

 

[Spastik.Roach]

Not sure what the NZ import duties are like but you are likely to be charged for bringing it in from another country. Be aware of that!

When I bought my mp3 player from ebay and got it shipped here (albeit from Hong Kong) I didn't face any import taxes I don't think. A used I-mac G5 is way too exspensive for me yet.

 

[Spastik.Roach]

The only real problem I had with the Mini was the rubbish graphics card, but with the new 64mb coming out I should be alright.

 

[dmw007]

The only real problem I had with the Mini was the rubbish graphics card, but with the new 64mb coming out I should be alright.

True, once the Mac Mini has a faster video card w/ more VRAM and a faster CPU- it should work better for your needs. Hopefully they also put a 7,200rpm HDD in there.

 

[Spastik.Roach]

True, once the Mac Mini has a faster video card w/ more VRAM and a faster CPU- it should work better for your needs. Hopefully they also put a 7,200rpm HDD in there.

Looking forward to the end of January then!

 

[doucy2]

second G4's are what i reccomend and are great to deal with
very easy and inexpensive to upgrade and repair and can be way faster then a mac mini

i have i really good one for sale

1ghz w/ 2mb L3 cache
1.25gb ram
120gb 7200rpm
Ati 9000 pro (128mb)
dvd & zip
Tiger 10.4

and i'm asking a lot less then $1000
i could also customize it to w/e specs you wanted

 

[dmw007]

second G4's are what i reccomend and are great to deal with
very easy and inexpensive to upgrade and repair and can be way faster then a mac mini

i have i really good one for sale

1ghz w/ 2mb L3 cache
1.25gb ram
120gb 7200rpm
Ati 9000 pro (128mb)
dvd & zip
Tiger 10.4

and i'm asking a lot less then $1000
i could also customize it to w/e specs you wanted

A second hand G4 is a great way to go for a good blend of power and price.

On a side note, You can buy from doucy2 with confidence Spastik.Roach. And the system he has for sale is pretty nice (the 2MB of L3 cache in particular).

Although shipping might be a bit expensive.

 

[lu0s3r322]

i would say wait for macworld first, then if no sub $1000 comp comes out get an upgraded mini

 

[Spastik.Roach]

second G4's are what i reccomend and are great to deal with
very easy and inexpensive to upgrade and repair and can be way faster then a mac mini

i have i really good one for sale

1ghz w/ 2mb L3 cache
1.25gb ram
120gb 7200rpm
Ati 9000 pro (128mb)
dvd & zip
Tiger 10.4

and i'm asking a lot less then $1000
i could also customize it to w/e specs you wanted

Would love it, but is that 1000 in NZ currency or U.S Currency? And shipping to N.Z would cost a ton.

 

[pknz]

There are no import taxes on computers being imported to NZ nor monitors at present. You will find that buying a computer from the US can be quit a bit cheaper than buying the same computer here in NZ, however I never got as far as finding out how much shipping would cost in my research.

If your in any of the big centres in NZ be sure to go into a Magnum Mac store and check them out. Depending on what you intend to do with Photoshop a Mac Mini might not cut it.

 

[Spastik.Roach]

There are no import taxes on computers being imported to NZ nor monitors at present. You will find that buying a computer from the US can be quit a bit cheaper than buying the same computer here in NZ, however I never got as far as finding out how much shipping would cost in my research.

If your in any of the big centres in NZ be sure to go into a Magnum Mac store and check them out. Depending on what you intend to do with Photoshop a Mac Mini might not cut it.

I'm 20 mins away from Palmerston North so I don't think Magnum Mac is there. However there is http://www.DTSL.co.nz which is located in Palmerston and is an authorised apple store or something. I don't do hugely processor consuming stuff on Photoshop (Mostly car chopping and stuff) so it should be ok.

 

[Spastik.Roach]

Was also wondering if the sound card and graphics card of the Mac Mini were upgradable at all?

 

[shdwsclan]

The mac mini is pretty good for minor apps. You could probably get an external usb or firewire audio capture device with multiple channel support. If you want heavier apps, I recommend an X86/PC workstation. Some motherboards let you buy one xeon, and then when prices drop...you can add a second processor. Also, if you were to use ACID or Cakewalk, then you would have to use the windowsNT5.0+ (2000,2002XP,2006VISTA) because NT is a lot more stable.