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Downgrade??

G

giantdave

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 28, 2007
36
0
searcy, arkansas/b~town, in
so i have a intel core 15" mac book pro...
2.0ghz
2g ram
80g hard drive

and i am thinking of trading it for a 17" imac g5 with an 80gig hard drive and a processor and ram he hasnt told me about yet....

i do photography...so photoshopping and image editing...a little web stuff, and the basic itunes, idvd, internet stuff


so would a jump backwards to g5 be a big deal? and how much cash should i ask him to add to the imac for the trade for my laptop? thanks everyone!!
 
Why this backwards trade? Strapped for cash or something?

I'd ultimately so don't do it, keep what you have.
 
yes, a bit strapped for cash. and i can deal without the portability of the laptop ( may take a while) but it woldnt be a big deal. i just dont know if not having the intel and possibly a smaller processor would be a big jump



and now he says he would trade two imacs one of them is a 2ghz 1gb of ram, the other is a 1.8ghz 1gb of ram. and i assume both 17's. would that be a losing trade for me?
 
Considering the age of the G5, and the fact the next OS from Apple due early next year won't support it - I'd pass.

Put aside the cut in horsepower - the physical age of the machine is getting up there - and reliability might become an issue.

Keep the laptop, and whore yourself out or something.
 
well i mean how long are we expecting until program upgrades are not compatible with a g5. things like adobe or corel, and even the new apple programs like aperture or final cut? will those soon incompatible with a g5 running tiger?
 
If you want to run programs like Adobe, Aperture and Final Cut, I strongly advise you keep your Core Duo. I would, if I were in your shoes. I'd also be pimping my man-gina to get that much needed $. Time is money, my friend.
 
Most ...

... of the software will run, some may no longer - but those titles will certainly increase.

Keep in mind that the iMac G5 had severe hardware issues, mostly blown power supplies and illfated graphic cards, which all resulted in painfully expensive logicboard swaps - you certainly won´have Apple Care on this G5 iMac, will you? And Apples extended warranty is no longer active. You are stuck then.

Keep your hands off on this one. Don´t do it!

Instead I would propose you sell your Macbook pro secondhand - CraigsList, eBay - and buy yourself an aftermarket iMac 17 Core 2 Duo. You should get them fairly cheap. My guess is that the selling of your Macbook Pro may give you around US$300 to 400,- profit, after you fetched an iMac.

PS

Watch out especially for the Core 2 Duo chipset, as this will provide you with 64Bit capability - think Snow Leopard and beyond. Any ore 2 Duo iMac can provide you with years of productivity.
 
giantdave said:
well i mean how long are we expecting until program upgrades are not compatible with a g5. things like adobe or corel, and even the new apple programs like aperture or final cut? will those soon incompatible with a g5 running tiger?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure of the time scale, but if Apple drop PPC support with snow leopard it makes sense ( to me at least ) that sooner or later the likes of adobe etc will follow suit. To be honest like Big-TDI-Guy stated id keep the MBP & if like you said your strapped for cash try standing on a street corner
 
Keep what you have. In the long run you'll just end up having to upgrade sooner rather than later. I think another 4 years of life would be stretching it with the iMacs but would be achieved easily with the MBP (barring the unforseen).

If you're going to do anything, sell your MBP for cold hard cash and get something (it'll probably have to be a non-mac) with a warranty. Honestly, even getting a Mac Mini would be better than that dated technology (and yes, I realize the Mac Mini hasn't seen a good update in forever :) ).

At any rate, even two G5 iMacs are not equal to a MBP of any flavor.
 
I have an early-2005 iMac G5 model (2GHz, 1.5 GB RAM, Radeon 9600) and Aperture is painfully slow on it.

Your MBP is waaaay faster in these kind of apps.
 
giantdave said:
well how much should i be able to get out of the macbookpro?
Click to expand...

http://www.mac2sell.net/

This place usually gives a good baseline for selling prices (+/- a few hundred, I find). You can also search for MBP on ebay and see what they're bringing in. I think around $1000 would be fair.

Be wary of eBay though... their fees are getting a bit high. I just sold something for $180, and between them and Paypal, I ended up paying close to $20 in fees. That's almost 10%. So if yours did sell for $1000, you'd lose about $100.

Still, I think you should think twice about selling your MBP. You stand to lose more than gain. Sure, a quick grand is nice, but you have to spend at least half of that on a new computer, which only leaves you with $500. Do you have a screen, a keyboard, and a mouse? There's another $150, if you're lucky or go for the cheap stuff.
 
You could easily trade your MBP for a 17" or even 20" core duo model and still get like 2~300 dollars with it. If not, keep the MBP, those things are godlike (especially the ones without the 8600).
 
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