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Best cheap Mac

H

HappyOS

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 30, 2013
18
0
I was wondering what would be the best mac for these processes:
• Editing in iMovie
• Sitting and uploading a video to Youtube without taking ALL day
• Be able to, without a bunch of weird emulators, emulate older Mac OSs like Mac OS 7
• Be able to boot OS 9

Whatever it is it has to be under $100, preferably around $50.

Suggestions appreciated. :)
 
Lol, Im not sure if people are even bothering selling any macs that old/that low. But you can always try your local craigslist
 
Your post makes no sense.

You could maybe get a G4 for $50.

Editing iMovie and uploading to Youtube and won't take all day? Does not compute.

Anything less than a G5 dual core is going to take a long time to encode a video. Take it from me because I encode often and have tested many computers for comparison.
 
Last edited:
This is a tough one. Its going to be hard for us to find something that is several years old but still fast, especially emulating newer software.
 
Sepultura said:
Your post makes no sense.

You could maybe get a G4 for $50.

Editing iMovie and uploading to Youtube and won't take all day? Does not compute.

Anything less than a G5 dual core is going to take a long time to encode a video. Take it from me because I encode often and have tested many computers for comparison.
Click to expand...

Only 8 minutes to encode a 720p video (5 min long) ibook G4 I guess the PowerBook is faster
 
I second a quick silver G4...i have seen on my local craig's for cheap....i would also say a mdd G4,but your $50 budget might be pushing that,and there Loud!
 
A lot of people on Craigslist sell PowerPC macs for cheap because they don't know anything about them. I recently picked up a dual 800MHz G4 with a studio display for $10. :)

And on eBay I just got a dual 2.0 G5 for $100 shipped, so even though $50 might be low for what you're looking for, you may find something for a little under $100!
 
Would there be any capture cards that would work with the G4 and OS X?
 
The options you have are:
Laptop: PowerBook G4 - might be over 100 dollars though!
Cheapest price: eMac G4. (and it has a screen!)
Desktop: Power Mac G4 Quicksilver/MDD
Power: Power Mac G5 - again - might be over 100 dollars!
Hope this helped ;)

But in all honesty - you should save up for a dual G5/high end PowerBook G4 - because you aren't going to get far with the others if you are going to do serious work.
IMHO you should get a 2006/2007/2008 MacBook Pro for 200-400 dollars.
But, if you can't, the above should do for a year or so.

Hope this helped ;)
 
keremtezcan said:
The options you have are:
Laptop: PowerBook G4 - might be over 100 dollars though!
Cheapest price: eMac G4. (and it has a screen!)
Desktop: Power Mac G4 Quicksilver/MDD
Power: Power Mac G5 - again - might be over 100 dollars!
Hope this helped ;)

But in all honesty - you should save up for a dual G5/high end PowerBook G4 - because you aren't going to get far with the others if you are going to do serious work.
IMHO you should get a 2006/2007/2008 MacBook Pro for 200-400 dollars.
But, if you can't, the above should do for a year or so.

Hope this helped ;)
Click to expand...

A PowerMac G4 is faster than any PowerBook, it can be expanded and are usually cheaper too.
 
ihuman:D said:
A PowerMac G4 is faster than any PowerBook, it can be expanded and are usually cheaper too.
Click to expand...

The fastest PB is 1x1.67GHz, the fastest PMac G4 is 2x1.42GHz, so yeah it should be faster but not much and only if the apps used can use the 2nd CPU.
Also that would be an ultraloud MDD/FW800 PMac.

Older G4 (QuickSilver & Co) are slower while still with the stock CPU, but can often be found with CPUs up to 1.8GHz (at which point they won't be cheap enough for OT's budget).

Running OS9 was also mentioned, which rules out the more recent iBooks, PowerBooks and all MDD/FW800 G4s (and offcourse anything G5).

So his best shot would be to search for QuickSilver (or older) G4 with either a stock dual-CPU or an aftermarket card >1GHz allready installed.
If he really has to go as low as 50$ a stock single CPU QS might still be in budget.
 
I won a Early 2005 Dual 2GHz G5 off ebay for $50 (Well a bid of $9.99 and $40 shipping). Works well. All I had to do was replace the graphics card (Tack on another $30) and I was set.

Good computer overall but not ideal for iMovie/Final Cut Pro (Logic and Photoshop are fine on it). To import a 10 minute 720p HD video into iMovie took half an hour on the G5 and the MBA was 5 minutes.
 
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