Thoughts on 20" iMac G5 value

[Jaunty]

Hello oh great Mac community, I would be interested in your thoughts. I have a 17" 1 Ghz G4 iMac with 1 Gb RAM and a 1.25 Ghz 12" iBook with 1 Gb RAM. The iBook is web browsing email and iTunes. I have been using the iMac mainly for for Photo's, with iLife 04 and Elements 2 on 10.2 OSx. I want to start shooting RAW and learning more post processing skills.

I was thinking about new 20" intel iMac but changed my mind for now, and have iLfe 06 on the way to tide me over, with an upgrade to 10.3.9 OSx. Now I have the chance to purchase what I figure to be a Rev B (no iSight, 128MB ATI Radeon 9600 graphics) for I reckon £700 (say $1220) delivered described as follows

10 month old 20" Apple G5.
2.0ghz G5 Processor
1gb Ram (1 stick)
250gb SATA HDD
Dual Layer Superdrive
Airport Built in
Bluetooth Built in.
Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse
OSX Tiger, incl discs
No dead pixels (I am told)
Reliable seller feedback

With Edu discount I can get a new Rev C iMac with iSight from Apple for £980 ($1700). But I have an unused iSight I could stick on the Rev B if I want. My thoughts are that for £700 this would be a great stop gap for at least a year whilst intel iMacs settle in, after which it can be come a great TV/DVD player/extra system for bedroom/kitchen (Rev B is VESA mount compatible remember). And the current 17" G4 iMac desktop can become a new swanky TV screen for the bedroom, as soon as I find a cheap El Gato Firewire box to input my Ntl cable signal.

How does my logic stand up? Basically do you agree £700 is a good price today for this model? Thanks for any feedback at all.

Jaunty

 

[xyian]

I'd say save your money for a rainier day. The G4 iMac should be able to do most processing you throw at it. Heck, I did a lot of work on my 933Mhz iBook and am now using a DP800 G4. They're still great machines and will do most stuff unless you get super intensive using PS to trace things and create new vector images from that.

Cheers!

 

[Jaunty]

Thanks for that. £700 is still £700 at the end of the day.

I guess the most sensible thing to do would be to wait for my copy of iLife 06 and see how that coupled with 10.3.9 speeds up photo editing, compared to the previous iPhoto 04 on 10.2 (which is a bit of a dog now with my growing photo library). And then decide.

Jaunty

 

[miloblithe]

I'd wait another year or so and get something much more powerful.

 

[Platform]

Well I agree with the others, but if you want/need...I have the Rev C, and it does work great.......Final Cut Studio, Aperture etc.

 

[Jaunty]

A Sony 20" widescreen LCD TV is about £550 at the moment so I thought £150 "more" for the iMac was one way of looking at it! I know, I know, only I can decide what I need...hopefully iLife 06 will arrive tomorrow and I can try the new iPhoto out on my iMac G4 over the weekend, then decide.

 

[JerseyMike73]

Thought you might want to know

I was in a similar position, wanting something faster than my 17inch 800mhz G4 iMac. Since I already own lots of PPC software, I decided the Intel iMac would be a money pit, so looked at the 20inch Rev.C G5. I'm not sure of the conversion rate, but in USD, Amazon.com is selling them for $1,499 (Apple dropped the price to clear inventory) and also offering a $150 rebate, which gets you a brand new machine for $1,349 instead of a used year-old model for approximately $1,220 (I think that was your quote). Not only does the Rev. C have iSight, but also a better video card, faster memory, Front Row, and remote. Hope that helps!

 

[Jaunty]

Thanks JerseyMike73. The Apple UK discounted Rev C price comes in at $1700 so that is my comparable against $1220 for the used Rev B. Still thinking about it!