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G3 iMac for $45 Worth it?

Bloo Ice said:
Yes. Like I am with my PC [and when I get one, mac] I take extremely good care of it. I watch what I install, don't install something I don't need, run virus scans/spyware/adware scans nightly, defrag 2 times monthly, blow all the dust out of the case monthly. I'm sure most of you take just as good of care with your macs. I've bought some CRAP off of ebay before. The pictures of it looked nice, but I got it and it had cigerrate smoke film on it, dirt, ect. One time, there were even cockroaches in the box. That was the worst. Hopefully someone here wouldn't mind getting rid of something for REALLY cheap.
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Actually... :p
By your standards, I'm a pretty careless user. I have never run a virus scan, never defragged, and have also never gone on a spyware/adware search and destroy.

But, yes, I'm guilty. I do install things I don't need. And no, I haven't opened my PB to clean it.
 
SAukland said:
Actually... :p
By your standards, I'm a pretty careless user. I have never run a virus scan, never defragged, and have also never gone on a spyware/adware search and destroy.

But, yes, I'm guilty. I do install things I don't need. And no, I haven't opened my PB to clean it.
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There are two major differences between you and him:

1) He's running a P.C. not a Mac, which makes a huge difference when it comes to viruses.
2) He's running a tower not a laptop. It's a lot easier to open a tower versus a Powerbook.
 
macbaseball said:
There are two major differences between you and him:

1) He's running a P.C. not a Mac, which makes a huge difference when it comes to viruses.
2) He's running a tower not a laptop. It's a lot easier to open a tower versus a Powerbook.
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You took the words right out of my mouth. If I wouldn't have been turning on the a/c, I would have beat you to it :p. But, I have an acryllic case, 100% see through, so I kinda have to clean it out, unless I want it to look like crap. I just hate it when I go to work on someone's computer and I open it up and am bombarded with dust bunnies.
 
macbaseball said:
There are two major differences between you and him:

1) He's running a P.C. not a Mac, which makes a huge difference when it comes to viruses.
2) He's running a tower not a laptop. It's a lot easier to open a tower versus a Powerbook.
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Thanks for clearing up both of those fuzzy concepts for me. I was completely unaware.

Actually, Captain Obvious... I got that much. ;)
 
Maybe I'm a bit...hmmm....I don't know a word to describe it. Nevermind. But, I WANT A MAC!! But...like I said, I don't have very much money. Does anyone here have one they want to get rid of...dirt cheap...or trade for some old PCs perhaps?
 
Bloo Ice said:
Maybe I'm a bit...hmmm....I don't know a word to describe it. Nevermind. But, I WANT A MAC!! But...like I said, I don't have very much money. Does anyone here have one they want to get rid of...dirt cheap...or trade for some old PCs perhaps?
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I have an iMac G3 333 198MB RAM 40GB HDD 24X CDROM I'm looking at selling soon. It runs Panther fine. According to Apple, it's not supported for Tiger, and I haven't tried installing it. I'm looking to sell it for $200 CDN or so.

I was in your shoes a year and a half ago, when I got my Mac. I wanted a cheap Mac to try thing out on, which then showed me all the features that I'd eventually like. I upgraded a bunch of stuff, but eventually reached a point where I needed something faster for video. Since I got my iBook I haven't used my iMac much at all.

The problem with getting a low end Mac, is that after you get one just to do email, word processing, etc., you start seeing all the other things that you could do, if only you had a faster/larger/better X Y Z that a new model would give you.
 
Did I mention I am POOR? I finished my new PC setup in January...and am still in the hole for it. I got it all [the one in my sig] for around $500. Yes....I am POOR. I'm looking to get a mac for less than $100 USD. I know...if I do find one that cheap...it will be crap. But it doesn't hurt to look. Or, I could wait a year, save my money, then buy a G3 off eBay.
 
Bloo Ice said:
Did I mention I am POOR? I finished my new PC setup in January...and am still in the hole for it. I got it all [the one in my sig] for around $500. Yes....I am POOR. I'm looking to get a mac for less than $100 USD. I know...if I do find one that cheap...it will be crap. But it doesn't hurt to look. Or, I could wait a year, save my money, then buy a G3 off eBay.
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Just remember that every dollar that goes towards a system that's not quite good enough, is a dollar less to put towards a system that will do everything you want.

Since you have a nice XP machine already, I recommend you just hold off getting a Mac. A $45 Mac won't be able to do much of the eye candy that people on this website are raving about.
 
True, but a G3 iMac is a great way to try out OS X with minimal cost. Many PC users want to try out Mac but don't want to commit money since they're not sure they'll want to actually 'switch'.

You don't lose that much IMO. Everybody was fuming that their year-old Mac would not be able to do the 'ripple' effect, which you see once in a blue moon anywy when adding a new widget (if you use Dashboard at all.)

Expose is cool as well, but just as effective with a less than smooth frame rate. The main things are still there- Aqua, Mac stability, etc.

Having said that, the best way to find an iMac is locally. Save a favorite search on Ebay for local iMac listings, so you can buy one that you can pick up yourself and not spend an extra $40 just for shipping...
 
Ok.....I'll just have to wait...something I DON'T like doing. The main problem is I'm saving every penny I can because I'm going to get a car in a few months...and once I buy that...[which since I'm poor] I'll have to probably have a lot of work done on it because I can't get something nice. Then...for christmas I'll be asking for cash or an Xbox 360, because I won't have either. Maybe next summer I could finally afford a fairly nice mini.
 
Ok. I've been thinking long and hard on this. I figure, by the end of the year, I could buy a brand new mini, or refurbished, or something off of ebay, but not much more than $500. What do you guys think? Next year in school I'm going to be doing more video editing, so I might get my parents to pay for part of it, because "it will help me w/ my school work". But I don't want to spend a ton. What do you say? By then, should I buy a new mini and use my 19" Sony CRT, or buy an eMac off of ebay or a used G4 iMac off of ebay? Or something else? I can use military or student discounts...that always helps! Just kinda tryin to find some ideas on how much to start saving every month.
 
Bloo Ice said:
Ok. I've been thinking long and hard on this. I figure, by the end of the year, I could buy a brand new mini, or refurbished, or something off of ebay, but not much more than $500. What do you guys think? Next year in school I'm going to be doing more video editing, so I might get my parents to pay for part of it, because "it will help me w/ my school work". But I don't want to spend a ton. What do you say? By then, should I buy a new mini and use my 19" Sony CRT, or buy an eMac off of ebay or a used G4 iMac off of ebay? Or something else? I can use military or student discounts...that always helps! Just kinda tryin to find some ideas on how much to start saving every month.
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I'd get a dual G4 Power Mac with a 17 inch LCD. I'd probably get the dual 867 MHz G4 or the dual 1 GHz. The dual will help you out with video editing.
 
Yeah, but how much money am I looking at there? I don't want to spend more than $500, unless I can get my parents to pay for some/all of it.
 
Bloo Ice said:
Yeah, but how much money am I looking at there? I don't want to spend more than $500, unless I can get my parents to pay for some/all of it.
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I was looking at buying one a couple weeks ago, but I guess those auctions had more time or something because they are higher...
 
A refurbished eMac from Apple.com is a better deal than a Mini. They have ones for $549, you can add in a bigger 7200 RPM HD and DVD burner for pretty cheap. The faster HD gives it better performance than a Mini. It also comes with a keyboard and mouse (and obviously a screen.)

You can also overclock it to 1.5 Ghz, look at the hacks/mods forum.

You can't afford a G5 for your budget, maybe you can find a cheap G4 tower. But my guess is that it will be expensive compared to the eMac, which also comes with an Apple warranty and should come with Tiger (or a free Tiger upgrade.)
 
Ok, I'm probably going to sound stupid, but where are the refurbished macs? Also, how can I find out the nearest Apple Store. I know I'm jumping ahead of myself, seeing as how I won't be buying until the end of the year/early 2006.

About how much do those eMacs weigh? Hopefully not too much, or else I will have to get a new desk. I saw on TSS where they took the cheaper mini, and "overclocked" it to 1.42, just by changing a jumper. Does this really work? Is it just as fast? Would the mini 1.42 with an upgraded 7200rpm hd be comparable to a 1.42 eMac [asside from no screen, obviously]?
 
Hey,

1. Go to store.apple.com, then scroll down until you see the red tag that says 'Sale'. Click on that and it will go to the refurbished products. It is kinda hard to find-

The models vary depending on what they have to sell. Right now the cheapest is a $599 that comes with a combo drive. Mine was $549 w/ CD-ROM.

2. eMacs are heavy- I think 45-50 lbs or so (mainly the weight of the CRT.)

3. Info on OC- https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/53733/

It takes a little work to open up an eMac and replace stuff, OC, etc. It's not rocket science and there are directions available, just a lot of screws mainly-
 
I recently picked up the same model iMac with more (96 MB) RAM for $5, and I'm still not sure if it was worth it. We'll see how it runs Jaguar....
 
Would the mini 1.42 with an upgraded 7200rpm hd be comparable to a 1.42 eMac [asside from no screen, obviously]?
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Yes, they should run almost exactly the same. 7200 rpm drives are more expensive at 2.5" size though, and capacities are smaller. You can buy a 200GB 7200RPM 3.5" for around $60 after rebate nowadays.
 
I'm thinking about picking one of these up for my mom. She doesn't need anything super powerful or anything, just something to check e-mails do a little web surfing and maybe a little word processing. My question is if i get her the 333mhz and max the ram out will she be able to use ichat?
 
SaleenS351 said:
I'm thinking about picking one of these up for my mom. She doesn't need anything super powerful or anything, just something to check e-mails do a little web surfing and maybe a little word processing. My question is if i get her the 333mhz and max the ram out will she be able to use ichat?
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Yeah, you can. You can do email, web, and Appleworks/Office (since I doubt she's doing huge multi-page spreadsheets.) I mean as long as your expectations are reasonable these are very nice little units for cheap.

Just make sure you don't overpay, and it should work fine.
 
In a few months you will definitely be able to get a nice computer for $500. The thing is, there's no point trying to figure out which, right now, since everything will be different by then. For example, compare my iMac G3 333 that cost me $400 a year and a half ago, to what I got bought recently:

I got my girlfriend a PowerMac Dual G4 450 for around $400 CDN. It has 512 MB RAM, 40 BG HDD, and runs Panther really nicely. I put an inexpensive DVD burner in it, and used Patchburn. It runs all the software she and I want, and handles everything we throw at it. Also, since it has PCI slots, I was able to put an inexpensive 802.11g PCI card in it, instead of being limited to an expensive 802.11b Airport card.

So who knows, right now you might be thinking about a Mac mini or an eMac, and six months from now you might be able to get a PowerMac Dual G4 1 GHz ...
 
MarkCollette said:
So who knows, right now you might be thinking about a Mac mini or an eMac, and six months from now you might be able to get a PowerMac Dual G4 1 GHz ...
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Yeah, I'm just trying to get a feel what to look for. If I were to buy today, I'd probably get mini and a big external 7200 rpm hard drive, and upgrade later on down the road. The reason I want the mini so much is that I want to put this in my room, with my PC [I know..I know] but the only place I could put another monitor is in the corner of my L desk, which is only strong enough for a LCD, 15lb at most. I've got my PC on it right now, and it's kinda hanging down a little bit. I'm figuring on asking for a mac for christmas...but I know I'll have to pay for some of it, because we ain't rich...like a lot of you guys here.

My friend runs linux and says his looks EXACTLY like OS X, which I'm quite curious about. Maybe I could dual-boot to Linux w/ that look until I can get the real deal. Or get Pear PC, once they get a better verison of it.

Thanks for all your help!
 
madmaxmedia said:
In a few months you might also be able to buy a refurbished Mini, or used one from EBay for pretty cheap.
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That was my other option. I'll just have to keep hunting. I'm leaving my offer-for someone who wants to get rid of one for dirt cheap [sub $100 USD] that I'll take it-open.
 
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