iMac G4. Is it outdated?

A friend of mine has an iMac G4. Fully functional, running Leopard, he's gonna throw in an Apple wired keyboard and mighty mouse (new ones) and the original speakers. It's the 15" Version, with 1Ghz PowerPC, 768MB RAM, 80GB HDD, built in Airport (presume 802.11a/b?) With iWork 08 and (I think iLife 08). He's offering me it for a lovely price of £90 (roughly $145USD) But I was wondering.

Is this outdated now? I've always loved the design, it's 'retro' Apple. I'd love a new iMac, but I've held off for ages now as I'm not gonna get one until they release them with Quad-Cores. Would it be able to handle basic stuff? I'd only use it for simple things like word processing, it would give me something nice to stick some docs on there.

I've also been offered another one, this one's the 17" version, 800Mhz, 768MB RAM, 80GB HDD, Tiger, the original speakers, mice and keyboard.

Which would you go for? Is the 17" really that much more to lose the better software and hardware?

Thanks!

Thanks for that Ben. What do you mean by heavy usage?

I just love the design on the G4, it's pretty neat.

And if I did go for the tiger one, I don't think I'd upgrade it to leopard, not at £83 when I'm practically paying that for the machine

Forgot to mention, the 17" is being sold for £50 ($80USD).

The prices are pennies to be honest, especially when you consider you're getting a whole machine for it, and after I just spent £1500 on my MBP .

Any other input would be great.

mkrishnan said:

Here are a few things to consider...

- The 17" iMac may not have USB 2 ports -- I think the first 17" iMac that had USB2 was 1.25GHz. Not having USB2 would make using flash drives and iPods and maybe some scanners and cameras somewhere between painful and impossible. It would also have B-only Airport if it had one (link) -- Apple never offered 802.11a/b cards ... the MBP I think was the first Mac that had hardware that could connect to a 5GHz network.

- I think the 15" one is the first gen of USB2 iMacs (link) -- the Airport card was optional, but if it has one, it would be Airport Extreme (B/G).

Now...

- Opinions differ on how much memory you need for running Leopard... my personal thoughts is that 768MB is just enough for Tiger -- at 640 I found Tiger somewhat unsatisfactory.

- These computers would both work reasonably well for software of that era -- for instance running Firefox and Office 04 on top of Tiger.

- In iLife, iTunes and iPhoto will probably be pretty functional... the rest of iLife might feel somewhat useless at those speeds.

OTOH the price seems reasonable and people (not me personally ) do have a lot of affection for it as a sort of collector's model, so it might not be a bad idea....

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I forgot to ask him whether it had the USB 2.0 or 1.1Ports, however that doesn't really affect me. I'm not planning to plug anything into it (apart from the keyboard and mouse ) however ofcourse 2.0 is always a benefit.

I would upgrade the RAM to 1GB, HOWEVER I'm not paying £55 for 512MB stick of DDR RAM, I'd rather stick with 768MB . And nothing 'hefty' is going to be done on it, I probably won't use iLife, it's just a benefit if it's on there. I'll probably just be using it for some basic word processing (has iWork 08 so why not ) stick a video or two on there along with some music (not much). And then I'd just do basic things like web browsing.

As you mentioned, I really do like it as a collectors item, and it's a nice little desktop suite at a great price so. And I've had Windows PC's (XP) running with 256MB RAM, with no problems running basic tasks, I'm sure Leopard can run with 768MB at basic tasks. I will also probably be connecting it via ethernet just incase anyway, as if it is only 802.11b, i'd rather use an ethernet cable than lower the box's capability of 802.11n.

EDIT : I know it doesn't have built in bluetooth, as he said he would include a bluetooth dongle. So don't know if they even included them originally.

powerbook911 said:

I'd personally probably want the 1GHZ model.

Yes, these machines are pretty outdated now.

I have a 1.5 GHZ G4 Powebook G4 with 1.25 of memory. You can use it for web browsing, barely microsoft office new version, email, itunes (audio), light use iPhoto, etc.

You won't do much else, but for an internet communcation device like browsing and email and things it's ok.

Adobe Flash streaming video things like BBC iplayer will likely struggle on such a slow machine. It does on my powerbook.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't run iPlayer on this, it would just be a collector's desktop iMac, and as I said, it will barely be used anything above word processing. I won't be doing any video/picture editing (got my uMBP for that) can run iPlayer and whatnot on here too, or on my PC. It will just be used for web browsing and Adium. I've got an old 800Mhz PC upstairs it's running XP.. (Barely) yet even at that, it's going smooth as you said for an 'internet communications' computer.

I shouldn't have put the title 'outdated' more as 'is it good for light use for a collector' . I know it's outdated, what I really wanted to know is if it will be able to run the basics nice and smoothly.

mkrishnan said:

It sounds like you're already convinced irrespective of anything anyone says, anyways, so why waste our time? Go get it and then make a "look at my new iMac" thread in the picture gallery....

Click to expand...

LOL. Thanks for that

I'm not made up, as I'm not sure whether it will run the basics smoothly, even though it's cheap, don't want to buy it to find out it's CR*P

I've read some things that say 'go buy an alu refurb iMac' but seeing how these G4's are £80, the refurbs (base 20" 2.66) is £800. Sure this is a collectors item. I just want clarification that the Leopard one will run smoothly with basic applications.

zmttoxics said:

I wouldn't personally do it. My 1.25ghz eMac at work sucks for flash videos etc which I put in the basics category.

Click to expand...

That's all to do with graphics cards though. I believe the eMac isn't focused on that at all, it's mainly for well... Education

I don't need it to be an incredibly 'snappy' experience. As I said it's only going to be for basic things, so long as it doesn't lagg and crash just botting up and web browsing it'll be fine

Anyone know if I could stick a 2.5" 64GB SSD in one?

rdowns said:

Of course you can. Whether you'll ever find one with an ATA interface is another story.

Click to expand...

xD I'm tired, didn't bother to look up which connection it had

abstract said:

Go for it, and report back here and tell us how awesome it is!!!!


*cough*

Click to expand...

Whats the *cough* for? It is awesome xD

I'm just trying to see who has it if it runs smoothly, even though I'm collecting it, wanna make sure it ain't a terrible machine

Just seen OWC's site says it will take up-to 2GB RAM.

Would this perform much better in leopard if I stuck a 1GB stick in there? (For a total of 1.5GB)

zedsdead said:

It absolutely would. Just know that this machine will never run any new Apple software as they have dropped Power PC support, so if you use iWork '09, you might run into issues (or any other Mac app for that matter, including Snow Leopard).

I still have a Powerbook G4 (1.33 GHZ, 2 gigs of RAM) and it runs great. A little disappointed Snow Leopard dropped Power PC support since many of those machines would have the horsepower to run current Apple apps, but they had to drop support at some point.

Click to expand...

It already has iWork 08 on there. I wouldn't upgrade it to 09.

I see why they're dropping PowerPC support though, as it has Bern a good 4 years since they stopped manufacturing them.

I would put 2GB in there, but not just yet as the older modules aren't cheap. I've found some on eBay for £25/GB. Don't know whether the quality will be downgraded by the value compared to OWC RAM