I'd take a eMac over a G4 Mac mini any day of the week. Sure it isn't as sleek and small, but the eMac is a faster machine and has the added bonus of a built in (and gorgeous I might add) CRT screen. I've had mine since October 2004, and it has been a great workhorse! Just purchased iLife '06 the other day and it still manages to run that without any trouble at all (ok just a little bit but not so bad that you want to throw it out the window). Plus your bro is getting a 1.42GHz which his probably much faster and mine and has the added bonus of a Core Image compatable graphics card (which the G4 Mac mini and my eMac does not have
) So yes the eMac is a much better deal in this situation. The only problem I can see with the eMac is if your brother wanted to get a different type of screen, in which he would be stuck with the CRT monitor and couln't upgrade like he could with a Mac mini.
P.S I agree with mad jew on the RAM thing. Panther with 256MB was decent, but 256 on Tiger is like trying to put Windows XP on a PC with 64MB of RAM
. I personally would upgrade to at least 768MB (which is what I have on my eMac). But even then, I still feel like I need more RAM. 1GB would probably be the sweet spot. However if your bro can't afford that 768MB is still decent!
