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iMac G4 for $200?

E

EliteF50

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 28, 2009
197
0
Someone near my neighborhood is selling an Apple iMac G4 for $200, and I would like to know if it's worth buying. I'm currently saving up for a 21.5" iMac, but in the mean-time, I would like to use a Mac instead of my Dell.

The iMac's specs are:

1.25GHz PowerPC G4
1GB RAM
80GB HDD (I think)
Mac OS X Panther (Or Tiger, I forget)

Do you think it's worth it? Do any of you have a G4? If so, are they good?
 
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Don't get it. Youtube will be very poor on that machine, along with many other things. I have an imac g4, g5 and intel. I can tell you right now the g4 imac is not worth $200. You can get a faster netbook at that price, especially with black Friday coming up.

Btw, I would install linux on that dell. It'll run great
 
armoguy94 said:
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Don't get it. Youtube will be very poor on that machine, along with many other things. I have an imac g4, g5 and intel. I can tell you right now the g4 imac is not worth $200. You can get a faster netbook at that price, especially with black Friday coming up.

Btw, I would install linux on that dell. It'll run great
Click to expand...


Could not agree more, even though I own and love the G4 iMac design. Especially how you can adjust the screen on the fly. It is just too slow for video playback.

Now if its a 20" version thats another story its quite rare and cool! hehe
 
i would buy it , have a eMac also g4 and its working fantastic ,
dont know where it comes from that g4 macs would not play youtube videos proper , my eMac is playing them proper even in full screen mode even my imac g3 is playing nearly all of them ,but use camino browser and flashplayer 9
just dont install flash player 10 as its not meant to work with powerpc mac`s
at least it does not in mine neither in the imac g3 and not in the eMac g4 and not even in my powermac G5 quad , if i run flashplayer 10 every video lags
 
If you actually plan on using the G4 for any real work (or fun), you're likely going to be let down by it's performance.
 
Bryan Bowler said:
$200 is WAY overpriced...
Click to expand...

Agreed. Save the money.

There are those who would not take an iMac G4 for free. That machine came out 6 years, 2 months ago. It's OK to get for free, or under $100 dollars, as a vintage Mac as a collector, but it won't be a great working machine. If you need to get something in the meantime, get a netbook for $249 dollars.
 
The G4 is limited these days.
I have a 1.8Ghz iMac G5, and that one is getting a bit long in the tooth as well.
My MBP 2.20Ghz feels a lot faster than the iMac.
The iMac is still usable, but the one you are looking at is a lot slower than the G5 iMac
 
If you're going to use it for very light work, a G4 can be fine. My parents are still using a G4 mini and they're not struggling at all.

That said, $200 is too much to pay for ANY G4 machine at this point. That would be an okay price for a G5 iMac (2.0GHz or better), or a low-end Power Mac, but for anything less powerful than that, there are better things you can get for your money.
 
big mistake i get the imac g4
even it you only put it in a shelf to look at it , one day t will go up in price again , like the first genearation apple lisa :D
10 - 15 years ago you could get the lisa`s for peanuts , i found one at a carbootsale back then in good working condition
experts know how much they gone up in value today :)
some would kill to get a apple lisa 1
 
I recently got a G4 1ghz for $100 on CL. It runs flash OK if you install version 9 of flash, if you install 10 then it will suck major balls on flash.
 
in the usa maybe $75-$100 ,but not in the uk here you will just get a basic 700mhz model for double that
you guys in the usa don`t appreciate how damn cheap computers and other things are is in your country, if the shipping cost and tax wouldn`t be i would buy ebay.com empty :mad:
 
So... it's worth buying as a collector's item, but not as a computer? Can it handle light tasks? Simple video editing, Internet, etc?
 
EliteF50 said:
So... it's worth buying as a collector's item, but not as a computer? Can it handle light tasks? Simple video editing, Internet, etc?
Click to expand...

I love my 1999 rev. a iBook. It does even less than the iMac G4, but there's a nostalgia factor to such an old machine that still runs.

It's only for word processing at this point but that's OK by me. Bugdom is fun and so retro looking. If I do go online, I fall asleep between page loads. :)
 
63dot said:
I love my 1999 rev. a iBook. It does even less than the iMac G4, but there's a nostalgia factor to such an old machine that still runs.

It's only for word processing at this point but that's OK by me. Bugdom is fun and so retro looking. If I do go online, I fall asleep between page loads. :)
Click to expand...

Lol, I know what you mean. I want the machine, but I think $200 is a bit much... :\
 
EliteF50 said:
Lol, I know what you mean. I want the machine, but I think $200 is a bit much... :\
Click to expand...

Oddly enough, I would pay $200 dollars for the last G3 tower in beige (with mandatory Sony CRT) right before the blueberry G3 tower came out. Somehow, I just loved that beige G3 machine and its easy access door.

Kinko's used that as their walk in graphics machine for a long time before replacing them with silver G4 Power Macs. By the time I got a silver G4 dual Power Mac, it was already a common thing that didn't wow people. The beige G3 tower was perhaps Apple's first affordable supercomputer as compared to the PC competition at the time. But by the time the G4 tower took hold, Motorola got stuck at 500 MHz for 18 months on the G4 chip, and the Intel and AMD desktops left Apple in the dust.
 

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so to make things clear for everybody

the iMac g4 1.25 mhz and 1 gb ram as i remember it is far away from being only a collectors item or showpiece and is still quiet capable it has usb 2.0 ports , it has a 32mb vram graphic card and most times a combo drive

so it will play dvd`s ,it even will ripp them with handbrake quiet easy and with the usb 2.0 ports you could attach loads and loads of external harddrives plus loads more on the firewireports
several hundred terabyte in total if you wish ,so plenty room for all your itunes
it will do youtube as i said before , it will do general internet browsing , its also able to do general office work , even emails are possible to write and read

it even will play games ,games made for mac , yes you wont believe it, but some companys thought not all mac users are grumpy old man who play golf or are guests at party`s from Hugh Hefner instead of playing games on a computer ;)
 
I love my G4 iLamp - I refuse to sell it. It's my first Mac and it's beautiful. It is like an ornament.

That said, I would not have it as a main or even secondary machine. It is too clunky for modern software. I have maxed it out to 1.0 GB ram and slapped in a 120GB (cavernous at the time...) HD. It boots every time, but Leopard was too much for it and I wished I had stopped at Tiger or even Panther.
 
thats a good point , while leopard will run on the old G4/G5 processors it is more focused towards intel mac`s and as stated by apple minimum requirement is a 867mhz G4 processor to run at all , so dont bother to install it on a powerpc processor at all , tiger will run far better , i tried it and panther will fly compared to leopard , i tested it on all my macs , yes i got it running on my iMac g3 too ...sort of


my conclusion :
panther on G3 mac`s and early G4

tiger on later G4 mac`s and G5 mac`s

leopard only on late powermacs with dual G5 and quad
and early intel mac`s

snow leopard on latest intel mac`s
 
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