Mac for £200 [spec me]

whitecrook

whitecrook

whitecrook

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hi all

Wondering what your thoughts are on this:

If I had £200 what is the best Mac to go for, I;d like to use it as a general PC / emails/ web / accounts / office etc /and hook up my DSLR to it, ideally to replace a PC with something that just works...

Obviously second hand, but open to any suggestions as reasons why.

e.g. what is the absolutely oldest mac I should consider - are G4's still worthwhile? Even a G5? G4 cube? laptop . mini / desktop doesn't matter.

Or is it totally un realistic to expect a mac for that money? What is the minimal amount required to 'get into the mac/apple zone'

thoughts?
 
My PC is like Triggers broom, about 8 years old, but all the parts have been replaced at some point or another.... I usually spend ~£100 every couple of years (excluding HDs) to keep it ticking. It works fine. But it's in an old tower case and I'm often tinkering with bits of hardware and things....

But the question is, is it possible to get an acceptable mac for £200? The cheapest new mac is a mini, at a smidge under £400, with no screen or mouse.keyboard and seems underspecced, with no dvd writer, 1 GB of ram. (when compared to a PC of SIMILAR price) I thought I could get a better deal second hand but it doesn;t seem like it? I don;t mind old, as long as it's 'good' old.


Would love a dual G5 Power Mac as I borrowed one for a couple of week a coupld of years ago. Awesome machine. But they still command what seems like silly prices, for a machine that's pushing 4 years old?
 
OK sounds interesting will look. My thinking is with a Mac, they seem to be more of an 'appliance' i.e. I'm unlikely to start swapping parts, upgrading components etc, what you have is what you get. It works, ticks away etc. My PC always seems to be in a state of installation. I seem to be constantly 'setting it up' This is driving the missus crazy as she complains "everything is always changing", "where are my files?" Things like music library, picture archives, etc .. all just seems a hassle. The last time I had a PC working 'nicely' was when i had a win2k install for about 3.5 years... well bedded in by then.

Plus, I beleive that when I do upgrade, if I had a mac, it's SO EASY just to basically click a button and it migrates EVERYTHING ti a newer machine? This is the major prob with windows. It always involves re configing everything. And I usually don;t bother. I have backups of backups that are suppoed to be restored on to the newer installation but it never happens etc etc
 
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Blackberries said:
..Stop upgrading your computer, then?
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you don't get it do you...


WARNING: Car analogy coming up.

Some people have 2 cars , (yes!)

One is the sensible, reliable, never breaks down (much), doesn't need fixing, just works, gets them to work and back, isn't an excessive penis extension.

The second is either a trackday car, not practical, very fast, maybe an exposed roll cage, minimal fancies, handles well if you know what you are doing OR it's some kind of garage project, always getting worked on, trying out new things, on and off the road every other week etc etc


Now can you guess which one the the cars represents my PC, and which one represents the possible Mac that I may purchase?




...Anyway, checking out Dual 867Mhz+ G4's these look nice, seems to be a reasonable price.
 
Adrianr said:
You want to spend £200 on a mac for day to day use AND hook your DSLR upto it? You're throwing £200 away. It'l be old, underspecced and generally a hog. Why bother?
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But it'll be cheap... and a step into Macintosh land. If I like it I could in a year or so when 10.7 comes out, possibly upgrade [the hardware], (10.7 is likely to drop PPC support 100% from what I read), or if it works fine for my needs keep it as a great value machine... Why would hooking up a camera be a problem?

Bonjour said:
I'd save up a bit more and get a Mac mini tbh.

The best you'd do with £200 would probably be a late G4 iBook or iMac. These would be perfectly functional but it would be better to spend that little bit more and get an Intel Core based machine.
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Are you suggesting new, or second hand ? Either way, I can't find any minis in a reasonable price range. A mini is appealing though. Someone mentioned they are doing new minis? When are they due? Perhaps could get a bargain on a old stock?

Why would I want in intel core based machine over a PPC machine? Given that 10.5 still supports PPC machines and by all reports runs very nicely indeed? !0.6 is supposed to be a minor upgrade and 10.7 out in 18month+ time is likely to drop PPC support (maybe) But that doesn't mean my machine would stop working.

gumbald said:
As others have said, you might be able to get a late G4 dual MDD, should be snappy enough.
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Indeed - snappy enough?, sounds good to me that's what I'm wanting... Would it run CS2 (very) nicely, given CS2 is a PPC binary and not intel native? So I have read.

thanks for input ...
 
There sure are some wild price differences on second hand macs...

What's better/more desirable and why (price appears to be very similar) :

1.4Ghz single procG4 Mac Mini
1Ghz (or 1.25Ghz, or even 867Mhz) dual proc G4 MDD PowerMac?

(assuming ram and things are similar)
 
£250 is too much. £200 is the absolute max.

Tell me you are not saying that it's not possible to get a decent useable mac for £200 or less?

You have a choice of 5 gazillion PCs at that price - I thought the myth that 'macs were more expensive' was just a myth.... :D
 
Ok :)


I have read that some of these later MDD macs are a bit noisy... I can't work out whether this is actually a problem, or just mac people whining. There are youtube videos of it, but you know only things with problems get reported about. Even so, in the past I have quietened down PCs just by replacing fans with quality replacements (papst/panaflow)

Is it possible to repace the fans in a MDD mac with standard PC fans? I couldn't have a computer whirring/whining away in the living room all the time.
 
All good posts, keep em coming..

Adrianr said:
Oh calm down. Have you ever used one of the macs in question? They're great (ish) for word processing and browsing the internet. He says he wants to hook his DSLR upto it and i've seen CS2 mentioned in this topic already. They're not photo editing machines. I don't have any figures off the top of my head, just good old fashioned experience. And i'm telling you now editing anything on a £200 mac G4 is rubbish. Unless he really has nothing better to do with his time than watch the unsharp mask filter bar.

Edit: If you don't think it's rubbish, you either have a great deal more patience than I, or you deal with 800px x 600px photos.
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My PC is a C2D 2Ghz 2GB 1920x1200 with a A4 wacom. I can do photo editing on that. I wouldn't use it as a primary photo editing station.

Part of the reason for getting a Mac would be just to give it a good shot. I may try it and love it, and decide that I MUST have a MacPro ASAP (or something), alternatively, I may say Meh.. aload of hype about nothing. OSX plays a BIG part in this, of course. And I really can't be bothered doing a hackintosh, and besides that defeats the point.

So, I would be trying CS2 out but not for any serious means, just to get a more complete feel on the operation of a Mac system. I may like it a lot and decide it's the thing for me or not. In my experience Macs just FEEL different to Windows. And Linux feels different again.

But my point regarding CS2 above was would a Dual G4 mac run CS2 better worse/the same than a (slow) intel mac given that I have read it's runs like a dog on intel macs because of the type of binary that it is.

likwid said:
The greater problem with any computer when it comes to editing large photos is not processing speed, but lack of ram, hence a mac mini is also slow at photo editing.

Photo editing isn't taking precedence in his decision making anyway, he just wants a budget mac. In my opinion buying a G4 and upgrading the RAM is his best option.
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What RAM do they take and what is the max? If a mac mini is also slow at photo editing, what would you suggest the minimum Mac be for doing 'serious' stuff? Old Dual G5? or Skip to an Intel machine? Imac?

Adrianr said:
And I would agree with you. I just don't think the OP has enough money to be buying into the 'mac' crowd unless he has an imperitive reason to get his hands on one. Whether the owners admit it or not Apple deliberately price themselves higher up the market. It would be like going and buying a 924 because you want to be part of Porsche owners club :D
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See this amuses me slightly. This was part of this thread - i.e. £200 is it possible?

My thinking is that rather than spend x amount on a bottom spec new mac, I can spend LESS and get a TOP spec older generation..

This to me is akin to buying a new BMW318 for whatever they cost, OR buying the older generation of car but it's a 5 series with all the toys second hand for less money...

Are these older machines any worse now than when they came out and costed thousands and did all the work that people asked them to do? Surely they still can do that today? If not why?



Also I have an alternative - I have a DUAL PIII 450Mhz system here, 1GB and a 160GB hard drive. I could load Ubuntu on to this, with a FX5200 that I have here use that to give me a second 'permanent' system for the reasons I detailed above.. (mails, music player, picture albums, etc) (and delay getting a mac until I win the lottery)

Cost for that lot is free...

What would you recommend?
 
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Well I've been looking at an auction site for a while and there does seem to be the odd bargain here and there in closed listings, but the machines I've been looking at have all went for 250+ in the closing minutes of bidding.... Even 400Mhz 256Mg machines go for 70 quid... It's bonkers... If that were a PC it would be GIVEN away, lol.

I'll keep an eye open, but the more I think about it I think a laptop is probably better for me, given I already have a desktop. I'll maybe save up a small bit more and look at an early MBP ?
 
I must have had a brain fart when I typed early MBP.... As nice as one would be, I was actually thinking of late G4 ibooks/power i books. while looking at MBPs..

Thank#s for the offer of the emac, but I was really looking to avoid a CRT based system( I already have a 20.1 inch TFT waiting for a second copmuter of some sort) and there is one locally to me coming up which may be a bargain as it's pick up only...surely postage would be a mssive ball-ache?

To the post above , yes that is it. The mac is a system. The OS and hardware go together. There are defined ways to do things. things like target drive mode, easy hassle free things like time capsule. Getting a mac you are buying into a system. I think the thing is it basically costs more to have the benefit of all these things working together as seamlessly as I hear they do.
 
It's like saying, it's unfortuante that I have to buy a Nikon camera body to evaluate this Awesome Nikkor lens that everyone is raving about.... (kinda... :) )
 
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