Mac for £200 [spec me]

whitecrook · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:46

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?

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.

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.

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 ...

Ross1234 · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:49

Agent0range said:
Off topic slightly, how family friendly is mint?

I don't really know what you mean by the question, but it doesn't let you do anything damaging without the administrator password, and its very easy to use. There are nice menus and things for everything, no command line needed for day to day use.

likwid · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:53

I bought a mac mini 2nd hand (core2duo/2ghz/2gb ram/160gb disk) from members market here for £300 inc. I've seen quite a few sold there. It would definitely be worthwhile to save up another £100 and wait for a bargain to come up.

whitecrook · 18 Jan 2009 at 16:56

OK. That sound more reasonable for a mini price/spec.

But what then would be a ceiling price for a Dual G4 1Ghz/1GB... £150? £120?

likwid · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:05

A quick look at completed listings on some auction site shows base stations selling for £150 to 200, depending on spec.

Bonjour · 18 Jan 2009 at 17:23

whitecrook said:
...

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.

...

Indeed it does. I have 10.5 running on an iBook G4 pretty well.

Software wont support PPC forever, though, and with an Intel setup you've always got the option to put Windows on there if you wish.

whitecrook · 18 Jan 2009 at 22:08

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)

FreeStream · 19 Jan 2009 at 00:01

whitecrook said:
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)

Depends on what you use it for but for CS2 i'd take the 1.25Ghz PM any day of the week.

Caged · 19 Jan 2009 at 02:38

A G4 with it's 133MHz RAM and outdated video card and HDD options will be an absolute pain to use for anything. It seems stupid to spend £250 on a second hand G4 when you can be in Core 2 territory for the same cash.

FreeStream · 19 Jan 2009 at 08:12

Caged said:
A G4 with it's 133MHz RAM and outdated video card and HDD options will be an absolute pain to use for anything. It seems stupid to spend £250 on a second hand G4 when you can be in Core 2 territory for the same cash.

You can't get a C2D mac for £250? :confused:

HDD options are only the ATA equiv of SATA, nothing lost there really.

And my 867 DP MDD G4 was not a pain to work with! It was my main work machine for 5 years before buying this MBP.

If he can stretch to a C2D MacMini then by all means do so. Otherwise get the G4s.

whitecrook · 19 Jan 2009 at 09:39

£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....

HarryPainful · 19 Jan 2009 at 09:54

It will be years old, probably not even an intel based one.

whitecrook · 19 Jan 2009 at 10:11

HarryPainful said:
It will be years old, probably not even an intel based one.

Thanks, but are these problems? Why?

Bonjour · 19 Jan 2009 at 11:49

Macs are more expensive, regardless of whatever spiel you hear.

You will be able to get a reasonable late G4 for around £200, though.

FreeStream · 19 Jan 2009 at 12:41

whitecrook said:
£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....

The late G4s ARE decent and ARE within your budget.

Max the ram out and it will do you fine.

whitecrook · 19 Jan 2009 at 13:51

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.

Bonjour · 19 Jan 2009 at 13:55

They are pretty loud. I had a dual 1GHz G4 for a while and that was a noisy beggar.

You can use standard fans to help quieten it, but make sure you don't reduce the cooling capabilities of the machine. It's noisy for a reason.

Adrianr · 19 Jan 2009 at 16:55

You really dont get a very good mac for that money, despite what people in here seem to be telling you. Do you really need/want a Mac? You're not buying one because you're into photography are you?

likwid · 19 Jan 2009 at 17:03

Why??? Because??? Due to???

Yeah, in 2003 macs were terrible and nobody could do anything with them. There's no reason that a G4 with upgraded ram wont be perfectly adequate budget machine. Seriously, people making statements without backing them up with facts has to be one of the worst things about the internet.

Adrianr · 19 Jan 2009 at 17:09

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.