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Resolved Buying an eMac in 2015?

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Jul 6, 2015
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Hi all,

I have purchased a PowerMac G5 in around February. I am really loving it, and everything, it's fast, I love it so much, that I might get an eMac. I have a second computer which is a Macbook Pro 13" from Mid-2012. Now, my question is; is it worth it getting an eMac off eBay for around £35 / $55? I really like the design, and to be honest, I wouldn't mind having a PowerPC G4 in the house :). I probably would use it for like Movies, Music and stuff like that. Might consider creating a hackintosh from it... So do you guys think that it is worth it? :)

Thanks, Alex.
 
I'll qualify this by saying that I have at least one example of every G4 Mac made with the exception of the Mini.

eMacs are cheap, but for good reason. They do have superb CRTs in them-probably the best I've seen on an all-in-one-and some of the later ones have decent GPUs to back those up.

With that said, they're far from my favorite G4. If I wanted a G4 to actually use, I'd look for a later model G4 tower(either a Quicksilver 2002 or higher end MDD) with as good of a CPU as you can get. The advantage of a tower is that you can actually upgrade components components in them. Something like a dual 1.25 MDD-especially with an upgrade GPU-will beat an eMac under OS X in pretty much every conceivable way.

As for Hackintoshing an eMac-you're getting into a big project if you want to reuse the CRT, as the pin-outs are not straightforward on it.
 
music and movies? keep in mind that these things have fans in them and some complain that they are loud.
 
alex.marton said:
Hi all,

I have purchased a PowerMac G5 in around February. I am really loving it, and everything, it's fast, I love it so much, that I might get an eMac. I have a second computer which is a Macbook Pro 13" from Mid-2012. Now, my question is; is it worth it getting an eMac off eBay for around £35 / $55? I really like the design, and to be honest, I wouldn't mind having a PowerPC G4 in the house :). I probably would use it for like Movies, Music and stuff like that. Might consider creating a hackintosh from it... So do you guys think that it is worth it? :)

Thanks, Alex.
Click to expand...
I hope that price includes the shipping cost, shipping cost is a big problem getting an eMac on eBay. I have 3 eMacs total including the latest 1.42 GHz model, all bought locally, and one of the things I like the most is the Trinitron CRT. The color accuracy and saturation beats LCDs of the time for sure, and it looks sharper in lower resolutions. The sound quality also isn't bad, and the GPU in the 1.42 GHz is fairly decent for Leopard.

Otherwise an eMac is nothing special, and won't be as speedy as a G5. In fact, for those tasks a G5 or early Intel Mac mini would work better.
gooser said:
music and movies? keep in mind that these things have fans in them and some complain that they are loud.
Click to expand...
The fan noise is definitely noticeable, so that is something to keep in mind.
 
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alex.marton said:
Hi all,

I have purchased a PowerMac G5 in around February. I am really loving it, and everything, it's fast, I love it so much, that I might get an eMac. I have a second computer which is a Macbook Pro 13" from Mid-2012. Now, my question is; is it worth it getting an eMac off eBay for around £35 / $55? I really like the design, and to be honest, I wouldn't mind having a PowerPC G4 in the house :). I probably would use it for like Movies, Music and stuff like that. Might consider creating a hackintosh from it... So do you guys think that it is worth it? :)

Thanks, Alex.
Click to expand...

Hello Alex and welcome to the forums! The eMac is usually going to kill you on shipping from eBay however they are nice little (big) machines. The later models do handle Leopard decently. If possible, I would look for a local eMac to purchase to avoid shipping rates and keep an eye out for the 2005 models as they have the ATI 9600 GPU.

With that being said, I agree fully with Bunnspecial's statement regarding the towers. The upgradeability of the QuickSilvers and MDDs is fantastic and can be used to add SATA cards, USB cards, etc. Aside from RAM, ODD, and HDD, what you see with the eMac is what you get...
 
I wouldn't ship any CRT Mac. A combination of poor packing and brutal handling have led to several Macs arriving damaged. Barely anyone takes the effort to pack even a PowerBook properly anymore. CRT's are fragile to begin with. That said, I would probably pick up a high end eMac locally.
 
catzilla said:
I wouldn't ship any CRT Mac. A combination of poor packing and brutal handling have led to several Macs arriving damaged. Barely anyone takes the effort to pack even a PowerBook properly anymore. CRT's are fragile to begin with. That said, I would probably pick up a high end eMac locally.
Click to expand...

I've bought two 17" ADC CRTs in the past month and a half or so.

The first was damaged in shipping. There was no cosmetic damage, but the upper right of the screen had a terrible green cast that was not present before shipping. Fortunately, I did get a refund and it's now off to the UPS claims department heaven.

Fortunately, the second came through without any trouble, but it's definitely hit or miss.

I was glad I was able to buy my 21" locally, although getting the 80lb monitor in the house wasn't exactly easy.

The Trinitron in the eMac-when in good shape-is indeed superb though.
 
alex.marton said:
is it worth it getting an eMac off eBay for around £35 / $55?
Click to expand...

I think they are a beautiful design and really great to have as functional 'furniture' in a room. There's usually a few pop up on ebay around that price from the same seller and it's P & P inclusive - so the price is good. If you can hold out though, you'll get a better price from a local 'buyer collect only' sale and the piece of mind transporting it yourself. Also, wait for a later model, preferably a 1.42Ghz - they're not usually much more expensive. I was lucky to get a maxed out 1.42 for £20 a few years ago and used it as a media hub until I replaced it with a C2D iMac.
If you do plan to transport one yourself, a few months at the gym might be in order first...they're damn heavy :)
 
Thank you for everyone's replies, it's very helpful! :D The £35 one is one equipped with 1.25GHz, and 1GB RAM with Free postage! :D I think that I will wait for a bit, and see if there will be any 1.42GHz models! :) If I don't get an eMac, I will be buying a G4 or even an Intel Core Solo / Core 2 Duo Mini!

gooser said:
music and movies? keep in mind that these things have fans in them and some complain that they are loud.
Click to expand...

Thanks for letting me know about the noise "issues". :) To be honest, I wouldn't really mind the noise, as my PowerMac G5 is quite loud as well, when doing simple things, or watching videos on YouTube!!

bunnspecial said:
I'll qualify this by saying that I have at least one example of every G4 Mac made with the exception of the Mini.

eMacs are cheap, but for good reason. They do have superb CRTs in them-probably the best I've seen on an all-in-one-and some of the later ones have decent GPUs to back those up.

With that said, they're far from my favorite G4. If I wanted a G4 to actually use, I'd look for a later model G4 tower(either a Quicksilver 2002 or higher end MDD) with as good of a CPU as you can get. The advantage of a tower is that you can actually upgrade components components in them. Something like a dual 1.25 MDD-especially with an upgrade GPU-will beat an eMac under OS X in pretty much every conceivable way.

As for Hackintoshing an eMac-you're getting into a big project if you want to reuse the CRT, as the pin-outs are not straightforward on it.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply. I wouldn't really buy another tower, because I already own a Dual 2.5 G5 :) I will be looking out for more eMacs on eBay! :)

For Hackintoshing, I kind of have changed my mind... I might get a G4 Mini case and install an Intel NUC inside it! I may sound like a chicken, but I am scared that something might go wrong with the CRT when disassembling...

Dronecatcher said:
I think they are a beautiful design and really great to have as functional 'furniture' in a room. There's usually a few pop up on ebay around that price from the same seller and it's P & P inclusive - so the price is good. If you can hold out though, you'll get a better price from a local 'buyer collect only' sale and the piece of mind transporting it yourself. Also, wait for a later model, preferably a 1.42Ghz - they're not usually much more expensive. I was lucky to get a maxed out 1.42 for £20 a few years ago and used it as a media hub until I replaced it with a C2D iMac.
If you do plan to transport one yourself, a few months at the gym might be in order first...they're damn heavy :)
Click to expand...

22.7kg is damn heavy :D I have thought of getting a G3 Snow iMac but they are so rare... I will definitely look out for some eMacs near me! :)

catzilla said:
I wouldn't ship any CRT Mac. A combination of poor packing and brutal handling have led to several Macs arriving damaged. Barely anyone takes the effort to pack even a PowerBook properly anymore. CRT's are fragile to begin with. That said, I would probably pick up a high end eMac locally.
Click to expand...

After reading your replies, I don't think I would wanna risk the postage... eMacs are "rare" and I really wouldn't want one damaged... Even if I buy one, fingers crossed that it will all be fine! :)
 
Haha our schools here have at least 200 G3 Snows all over the place, they are phasing them out in the next year or so. I may be able to pick up one along with a G4 iMac and eMac
 
MacCubed said:
Haha our schools here have at least 200 G3 Snows all over the place, they are phasing them out in the next year or so. I may be able to pick up one along with a G4 iMac and eMac
Click to expand...

You lucky thing! Haha :D
 
alex.marton said:
Hi all,

I have purchased a PowerMac G5 in around February. I am really loving it, and everything, it's fast, I love it so much, that I might get an eMac. I have a second computer which is a Macbook Pro 13" from Mid-2012. Now, my question is; is it worth it getting an eMac off eBay for around £35 / $55? I really like the design, and to be honest, I wouldn't mind having a PowerPC G4 in the house :). I probably would use it for like Movies, Music and stuff like that. Might consider creating a hackintosh from it... So do you guys think that it is worth it? :)

Thanks, Alex.
Click to expand...

Well i paid $40 for my Emac last summer around this time actually. Its a late 2005 model (last one on Mactracker). It had a 1.42Ghz PPC G4, 256mb RAM, 80GB hard drive, wireless airport card and a combo drive. It was a nice system that wouldnt boot. He assured me the hard drive was fine, yet it died a few months later.

Anyways, id like to add my few cents on the machine. First impressions i LOVE the CRT in it. Running leopard on it has a nice crisp screen is making we want to pull out my old CRT for my main machine. The harmon kardon speakers are excellent to listen to and i love the dvd optical drive door. Performance wise the G4 still keeps up at full throttle as long as you give it at least a gig of Ram. Video playback is decent on VLC and dvd player. When mactubes still worked it was perfect on 360p.

now the downsides to this machine. ITS HEAVY! really heavy. Disassembly is a pain in the butt. I liked how easy everything was disassembly on the imac G3. replacing the hard drive meant removing the entire board. the only plus side was that i took the time to clean the heat sink and fan. Another thing is if the PRAM battery is dead the airport card will keep forgetting the wireless password if you unplug the machine. But thats not that big an issue. The fan does indeed still make quite a lot of noise and can get annoying.

All in all im honestly debating if i should sell cause i like my imac g3 better for music. but this is still a nice machine.
 
comda said:
Well i paid $40 for my Emac last summer around this time actually. Its a late 2005 model (last one on Mactracker). It had a 1.42Ghz PPC G4, 256mb RAM, 80GB hard drive, wireless airport card and a combo drive. It was a nice system that wouldnt boot. He assured me the hard drive was fine, yet it died a few months later.

Anyways, id like to add my few cents on the machine. First impressions i LOVE the CRT in it. Running leopard on it has a nice crisp screen is making we want to pull out my old CRT for my main machine. The harmon kardon speakers are excellent to listen to and i love the dvd optical drive door. Performance wise the G4 still keeps up at full throttle as long as you give it at least a gig of Ram. Video playback is decent on VLC and dvd player. When mactubes still worked it was perfect on 360p.

now the downsides to this machine. ITS HEAVY! really heavy. Disassembly is a pain in the butt. I liked how easy everything was disassembly on the imac G3. replacing the hard drive meant removing the entire board. the only plus side was that i took the time to clean the heat sink and fan. Another thing is if the PRAM battery is dead the airport card will keep forgetting the wireless password if you unplug the machine. But thats not that big an issue. The fan does indeed still make quite a lot of noise and can get annoying.

All in all im honestly debating if i should sell cause i like my imac g3 better for music. but this is still a nice machine.
Click to expand...
Where are you located? I would be interested
 
I've had one as my main Mac for a little over five years now (the last, 1.42 GHz model) and I wouldn't trade it for any other Mac out there. No doubt they are a bit slower than your G5, but they are still quite usable in many areas. As others have stated, the speakers are fantastic, as is the display. I'm making this post from it right now, and I often use Audacity as well as Handbrake to do light audio and video conversion, as well as iTunes and watching DVDs.

In short, they're great little machines for light, and some medium duty work and should definitely suit the needs you listed. :(
 
IMG_0345.jpg

The eMac was my introduction into the world of Mac and OS X way back in 2004. I absolutely loved that machine and at the time I thought it was the best thing ever. I still think the design looks great and they have fantastic CRT's but with the cost of shipping one now I wouldn't consider one anymore. Even though the iMac G4 is slower than the faster eMac's I would still rather have one than another eMac. The adjustable screen alone makes it worth it; though if you are lucky to have a tilt and swivel stand for the eMac that makes up for it a little bit. Plus, the iMac's are much easier to upgrade than the eMac.
 
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gooser said:
music and movies? keep in mind that these things have fans in them and some complain that they are loud.
Click to expand...
Eh, not really, Mine runs virtually 24/7. Never even hear it over the TV :D The Xbox 360 is louder!
redheeler said:
I hope that price includes the shipping cost, shipping cost is a big problem getting an eMac on eBay. I have 3 eMacs total including the latest 1.42 GHz model, all bought locally, and one of the things I like the most is the Trinitron CRT. The color accuracy and saturation beats LCDs of the time for sure, and it looks sharper in lower resolutions. The sound quality also isn't bad, and the GPU in the 1.42 GHz is fairly decent for Leopard.

Otherwise an eMac is nothing special, and won't be as speedy as a G5. In fact, for those tasks a G5 or early Intel Mac mini would work better.

The fan noise is definitely noticeable, so that is something to keep in mind.
Click to expand...
I honestly don't find my eMac any slower in everyday tasks than my MDD.
Dronecatcher said:
I think they are a beautiful design and really great to have as functional 'furniture' in a room. There's usually a few pop up on ebay around that price from the same seller and it's P & P inclusive - so the price is good. If you can hold out though, you'll get a better price from a local 'buyer collect only' sale and the piece of mind transporting it yourself. Also, wait for a later model, preferably a 1.42Ghz - they're not usually much more expensive. I was lucky to get a maxed out 1.42 for £20 a few years ago and used it as a media hub until I replaced it with a C2D iMac.
If you do plan to transport one yourself, a few months at the gym might be in order first...they're damn heavy :)
Click to expand...
I am still searching the Bay for a 1.42GHz logic board for mine :)
alex.marton said:
Thank you for everyone's replies, it's very helpful! :D The £35 one is one equipped with 1.25GHz, and 1GB RAM with Free postage! :D I think that I will wait for a bit, and see if there will be any 1.42GHz models! :) If I don't get an eMac, I will be buying a G4 or even an Intel Core Solo / Core 2 Duo Mini!



Thanks for letting me know about the noise "issues". :) To be honest, I wouldn't really mind the noise, as my PowerMac G5 is quite loud as well, when doing simple things, or watching videos on YouTube!!


Thanks for your reply. I wouldn't really buy another tower, because I already own a Dual 2.5 G5 :) I will be looking out for more eMacs on eBay! :)

For Hackintoshing, I kind of have changed my mind... I might get a G4 Mini case and install an Intel NUC inside it! I may sound like a chicken, but I am scared that something might go wrong with the CRT when disassembling...



22.7kg is damn heavy :D I have thought of getting a G3 Snow iMac but they are so rare... I will definitely look out for some eMacs near me! :)



After reading your replies, I don't think I would wanna risk the postage... eMacs are "rare" and I really wouldn't want one damaged... Even if I buy one, fingers crossed that it will all be fine! :)
Click to expand...
There really is no risk. I bought my eMac in February of 2012 from a school that was 20 miles or so away from me. They shipped it to me for $20 and it arrived Undamaged. There is a small nick in the CRT but I have no clue of that way from shipping or not. One of the 1st things i did for it was get a SuperDrive.
MacCubed said:
Haha our schools here have at least 200 G3 Snows all over the place, they are phasing them out in the next year or so. I may be able to pick up one along with a G4 iMac and eMac
Click to expand...
Wow. Why would ANY school be using any PowerPC Mac? They have been obsolete for 10 years and the G3s have been obsolete for even longer than that.
SkyBell said:
I've had one as my main Mac for a little over five years now (the last, 1.42 GHz model) and I wouldn't trade it for any other Mac out there. No doubt they are a bit slower than your G5, but they are still quite usable in many areas. As others have stated, the speakers are fantastic, as is the display. I'm making this post from it right now, and I often use Audacity as well as Handbrake to do light audio and video conversion, as well as iTunes and watching DVDs.

In short, they're great little machines for light, and some medium duty work and should definitely suit the needs you listed. :(
Click to expand...
My eMac has been my main computer from November 2012 - May of 2014. It was breifly replaced by a PC until that died in January. The eMac has been my main computer from Janurary 2015 to current. I am typing this reply on it now. It's getting to the point It'll need to be phased out soon. After putting more RAM in it it's usable once again.

ryannel2003 said:
View attachment 570891

The eMac was my introduction into the world of Mac and OS X way back in 2004. I absolutely loved that machine and at the time I thought it was the best thing ever. I still think the design looks great and they have fantastic CRT's but with the cost of shipping one now I wouldn't consider one anymore. Even though the iMac G4 is slower than the faster eMac's I would still rather have one than another eMac. The adjustable screen alone makes it worth it; though if you are lucky to have a tilt and swivel stand for the eMac that makes up for it a little bit. Plus, the iMac's are much easier to upgrade than the eMac.
Click to expand...
He, me too! I learned about OS X on a eMac and iBook G4 at school back in 2004. Learned the ins and outs of Panther in less than 1 hour no lie. It was that reason alone I wanted a eMac :D
 
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They have them because the district doesn't ever buy new computers and they got them brand new when the school opened
 
ryannel2003 said:
View attachment 570891

The eMac was my introduction into the world of Mac and OS X way back in 2004. I absolutely loved that machine and at the time I thought it was the best thing ever. I still think the design looks great and they have fantastic CRT's but with the cost of shipping one now I wouldn't consider one anymore. Even though the iMac G4 is slower than the faster eMac's I would still rather have one than another eMac. The adjustable screen alone makes it worth it; though if you are lucky to have a tilt and swivel stand for the eMac that makes up for it a little bit. Plus, the iMac's are much easier to upgrade than the eMac.
Click to expand...
Cool picture! Hard to believe 2004 was over a decade ago. At that time, some of our high school's computer labs still had iMac G3s. My parents were too cheap, and had no appreciation for Apple computer designs. In 2004, I was still using a Compaq PC running Windows 98 SE. It sucks that these eMacs are so expensive to ship; I have two working machines sitting in storage.

bunnspecial said:
They most certainly can!

(typed from my 500mhz Pismo running Tiger. A high spec iMac would be even better).
Click to expand...
You must be an incredibly patient individual. I went online using my B&W G3 and page load times were agonizing. G4s seem to struggle, too. For a pleasant experience on the web, I think you need at least a G5.
 
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