I've been amazed too at what the G3s are bringing these days.
I have two-a Rev. A "Bondi Blue" 233 mhz and an "Indigo" 500mhz. Both came from the same source, and were freebies. The Bondi Blue is dead, while the Indigo works great and I do use it occasionally(it has 10.4 installed on it, but 95% of the time I use it in OS 9).
I can appreciate their place in computer history and remember well how much buzz they caused when they came out...I'm also glad to have two examples in my collection. I also have a lot of memories of using G3s in the school computer lab(I think we mostly had tray loaders)-between the hockey puck mouse and the tendency that they had to sometimes randomly turn off, my memories of them from then aren't all that great.
The G4 is a different story, though. I've been using it a lot the past few days, and can't help but smile every time I sit down at it. It's not particularly fast-especially compared to a G5 tower or even my Quicksilver-but is fast enough. The display is great, and reminds me a lot of the Studio/Cinema displays of the same vintage-plus the fact that I can put it wherever I want it!
Yeah, the design of it is something I used to think was hideous, but grew to like it. I never had memories with an iMac G4, as they were only really common in homes. I only knew one family who had one. My memories of the iMac G3 date back to 2003--my first day of Kindergarten. As soon as I saw the tray-loaders in the room and spotted the puck mice, I immediately thought that I was looking at the most retarded and revoltingly hideous thing ever! IDK why I reacted so badly to it, but I was sitting there as a 5 year-old, thinking to myself: Oh my gosh! What the heck is that?! That's the stupidest thing I have ever seen! Of course, they looked more like toy mice to me, and actually look fine to me now. However, I loved the slot-loaders so much... the first time I saw one I just loved it, again, when I was 5, and am still drawn to iMac G3s today. In 2004, my dad wanted to get us all computers, and I said I wanted "the red one" (a Ruby I had seen), unaware that it was already 6 years old in 2004. xD We got the original iMac G5s at the time. (nightmare computers). Anyway, in my earlier years of elementary school, the main computer lab consisted of Indigo 2000 or 2001 iMac G3s, which I began typing lessons on. Then those were dispersed into classrooms to replace even older computers, and eMacs were introduced to the lab. Those are another story. Anyway, by the time I was ready for graduation, the school was ready to get rid of all of their PowerPC Macs. I asked my computer teacher for an iMac G3 and that's how I got my first one. It's a 500Mhz Indigo model. It came with an Airport card in it, and I upgraded it to 768MB RAM. As for the G4, I like the design, but I can see its impracticalities. To begin with, it's awkward to carry. The fact that the largest area of the computer is the base of it, and it's circular, makes it awkward to place on a desk at times. Those aren't horrible issues, but the thing that gets to me is that the monitor has to lower in a way that the screen has to move forward as well. If I want to lower the monitor, the screen ends up being in my face because my desk is nowhere deep enough for it, even though it's a sizable desk. If I push it all the way back so that it's not in my face, now the screen is at too high of an elevation. Still good functionality for other situations though.
In the UK they still selling for far too much 