My Dad needs new equipment.

[G5Unit]

My dad runs his own buisness from his home and he's stuck with really old... well, stuff. He is always pissed off at windows and how unstable it is, and his screen is very small, 15 inches.

He working on a:
Dell Dimension 4500 with a 2.4ghz P4
1 gb PC 133 ram
40gb HD(yikes)
64 mb GeForce 4 card

He does a ton of Excel(A TON!) and PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, Internet Explorer.

So what I am asking is should he get and intel iMac? Majority of his clients use windows an some macs. Could he run his buisness on a mac? Mostly office. It's just he is constantly worried about something bad happening.

Does anyone know what he would need to be more productive? PowerPoint plays a little laggy sometimes and the spreadsheets he has open are like 5 feet wide and he has like 10 open at once. His chair is also very uncomfortable and I would like chair recommendations from use.

Thanks

 

[mad jew]

A Mac with RAM is unbeatable. I work at an Office that's run with Macs. I love it.

 

[iGary]

A 20-inch iMac is a wonderful office machine.


As long as it has a PPC in it.


Seriously, that would be a fine machine. Don't cheap out on the RAM - max it out.

 

[homerjward]

that thing's not fast enough for him? that should be fast enough to run almost any application he would need, excepting 3d stuff. also, if he only works with office stuff maybe the hard drive is plenty big for him. if the speed's fine for him, maybe just a bigger screen and a clean install of xp (none of that dell junk, only $100 for xp home from newegg). then again, if xp's mostly the problem, then he should definitely get a mac.

 

[G5Unit]

that thing's not fast enough for him?

Just the rams not what he needs(faster) the screen is tiny(not good for Excel) and the speed i starting to show it's slowness. And the Graphics Card isnt he best.

 

[T-Stex]

I'd agree with the iMac, or a MacBook Pro with an external display. A 20" iMac or MacBook Pro, with RAM maxed out and 256 MB of VRAM would be great. I don't think it would matter that much whether he got the Intel or PPC versions, although I'd personally go with the Intel version, use Rosetta for Office, and upgrade to Office '06 when it comes out, as that should be Intel-native. Oh, and he should probably get a 30" Apple Cinema Display... for Excel, of course .

 

[amin]

He doesn't need a good graphics card for the things you mentioned. Does he think the speed is a problem? Seems to me that for most office tasks, his system is okay. A larger screen would be nice. I'd keep an eye out for a good coupon on a wide screen 20-inch Dell LCD display.

 

[homerjward]

Just the rams not what he needs(faster) the screen is tiny(not good for Excel) and the speed i starting to show it's slowness. And the Graphics Card isnt he best.

to play devil's advocate, he could put together a windows-based machine for a lot less than intel imac. just had to say that. home-built i mean.
socket 775 mainboard ~60 bucks
high-end celeron ~100ish bucks or low-end p4 ~120ish bucks, both around 3ghz
2gb ram ~150 if you buy the cheap stuff (which works fine)
200gb sata ii hard drive ~90
dvd+/-rw ~35-40
plain, non-garish case+power supply ~40
ati x300 ~60 (great card for 2d apps and the mobility x300 i used for awhile handled half life 2 and such at pretty good settings 1920x1200)
good kb+mouse ~50
good speakers ~50
good 17-19" crt ~100-130
xp home ~100
--------- ~750
less if he has kb, speakers, xp, etc. could probably re-use dell case assuming it's standard atx.

 

[homerjward]

I'd agree with the iMac, or a MacBook Pro with an external display. A 20" iMac or MacBook Pro, with RAM maxed out and 256 MB of VRAM would be great. I don't think it would matter that much whether he got the Intel or PPC versions, although I'd personally go with the Intel version, use Rosetta for Office, and upgrade to Office '06 when it comes out, as that should be Intel-native. Oh, and he should probably get a 30" Apple Cinema Display... for Excel, of course .

if he's worried about speed, rosetta's not the answer.

 

[Chaszmyr]

if he's worried about speed, rosetta's not the answer.

The answer may very well be to wait until the Rev B iMactel by which time hopefully there would be universal versions of the software he needs.

 

[CanadaRAM]

The screen is one thing easily fixed with a new one.

Other than that, the ony problem with the machine is probably a dirty Windows environment that needs to be cleaned out or reinstalled.

The video card is no problem for the office style apps, a 40 Gb hard drive is no problem for the type of use, and the 2.4 GHz P4 CPU is a fine office performer.

BTW, it's not PC133 RAM it's PC2100 DDR in the Dimension 4500.

What you have here is roughly the equivalent of a PowerMac G4 MDD dual 867 or 1 GHz. Top of the line from three years ago, Not shabby at all.

 

[G5Unit]

The screen is one thing easily fixed with a new one.

Other than that, the ony problem with the machine is probably a dirty Windows environment that needs to be cleaned out or reinstalled.

The video card is no problem for the office style apps, a 40 Gb hard drive is no problem for the type of use, and the 2.4 GHz P4 CPU is a fine office performer.

BTW, it's not PC133 RAM it's PC2100 DDR in the Dimension 4500.

What you have here is roughly the equivalent of a PowerMac G4 MDD dual 867 or 1 GHz. Top of the line from three years ago, Not shabby at all.

Hmmm, that's odd, it came with PC 133.

 

[FFTT]

I think your dad deserves a new 20" iMac!

You'll be able to get the computer and MS Office for Mac at your education discount and he'll be good to go. He will also want to check out File Maker Pro 8.

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/office2004/office2004.aspx?pid=office2004
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/excel2004/excel2004.aspx?pid=excel2004
http://www.filemaker.com/

Working at home, your dad spends countess hours using his machine so a bright new larger display will most certainly help with workflow and eye strain.

The basic 20" with at least 1 GB RAM is the perfect office desktop.

BTW, If your dad holds a current license to MS Office, MS should allow him to transfer his license to the OS X version for a nominal fee.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Hmmm, that's odd, it came with PC 133.

Where are you reading this?
The buss speed is 133 MHz, correct, but DDR RAM is dual data rate (one operation each on the rising and falling edge of the clock pulse) so it runs at a memory speed of 266 MHz (DDR266. 266 x 8 = bandwidth of 2100 MB/sec, hence PC2100)
Dell specs