Most disliked mac

[4D4M]

With the iMac G3 i absolutely hated the mouse that came with them it was very un-ergonomical and a pain to use. It was like a flat disc that had a small button. But the machine was great, even though at times it was slow. Just had to get a different mouse when i used it :/

Ah yes, the dreaded hockey puck mouse. I was unfortunate enough to have been given two of those things with Macs I bought. I often wondered how the company that gave the world such revolutionary (at the time) designs as the G3 Power Mac and iMac could have given us such an appalling input device!

 

[shadowmoses]

Controversial maybe but i am not a big fan of the iMac G5 design......Saying that its not my most disliked mac, most disliked mac would have to be the old clamshell iBooks....

ShadOW

 

[Edge100]

My Powermac 5400 was pretty bad. Not a bad performer for its day (180Mhz, 1.2GB HD, 32MB RAM...bought when I started at McGill in Sept, 1997). But ugly as sin.

The ultimate poor performer has to be the original Classic. You can say the Classic II was crippled compared to the SE/30, which it was. But hell, I bought a Classic in 1990 (I think), and it had the SAME components as the Mac Plus, which was introduced 4 years earlier (8 MHz 68000, 2MB RAM). Hell, it was only marginally better than the original Mac (it had a 40MB HD, which was nice). I remember trying to install System 7 with 3-4 floppies, and the thing was SLOOOWWW! Now that thing was a piece of crap. But it got me through high school and was STILL better than most of the PCs of its day which were running DOS 5 or 6.

My original iceBook iBook (500Mhz, DVD, 384MB RAM, 10GB HD) has always been a favorite. Yeah, its slow in Tiger (esp. with 384MB RAM), but I still boot into 9.2 and it never lets me down. Great computer. I wrote an entire grant application (including figures done in Illustrator 10) in 10.3 last summer using nothing but the iBook, and it worked wonders.

My G3 iMac (600) is starting to get to me. Its my main music production computer, and Logic 7 REALLY bogs it down. Cant wait for this damn Ph.D. to be finished so I can get a real job and a G5 iMac.

 

[fartheststar]

My most disliked mac is the mac I cannot afford now and all the macs that were available to me prior to my first mac that I never "clued in" on.

 

[alexprice]

How can anyone dislike a mac, look at this picture.... its a pc

 

[pianojoe]

Performa 6400...

I bit because of the built-in-subwoofer...Basically anything based on the 603 ppc sucked a$$.

I second that opinion! I "upgraded" from a PM7100/80 to a Performa 6400/200 because I needed a PCI slot of my Audiowerk sound card. What a crappy machine. 250% cycles and no noticable performance gain!

 

[jaw04005]

How can no-one have mentioned the Flower-Power and Dalmation iMacs. Really nasty

Totally agree. Those had a rare less than 6 month product cycle. Hehe. I wonder why?

My college has an entire lab filled with Blue Dalmation iMacs. Everyone in my class makes fun of their colors, when we are required to use that lab.

I personally don't like the Performa line of computers. Way too many models, and you couldn't just assume that because the model number was higher it was more powerful. Many times the upper model numbers were slower than their lower counterparts. Heh. Great marketing!

 

[rainman::|:|]

surprised by how many people don't like the iMac G5, i think it's one of their best designs yet. Set designers must agree, as it keeps appearing in tv shows/ photos/ etc. I'd have to say the iMac G4 was one of my least-favorite, it looked so much like a toy. The larger screens looked too big for it. My boyfriend regrets never owning one, so I suppose i'll have to buy one eventually...

beyond that... The IIVx case was like a theater inside, i hated that. so big and wasteful. I really dislike any one-piece Mac except the TAM and the iMac G5. The PM5400 was especially awful, and flakey to boot. Performas have always sucked the big one, the 550(I think?) all-in-one (also sold as an LC 580 or something like that) was one of the ugliest designs they ever made, so topheavy, looked like the monitor should be removable but wasn't. But there were a lot of models in there, i can remember looking at and thinking "wow, that's so cool, that's how multimedia should look". looking back, of course it's all tragic. beige seemed to make sense...

 

[jaw04005]

Because the iMac G5 is something that really anyone could have designed. It just doesn't scream apple's "think different" slogan as much as the the g4 predecessor.

Ohh I think I'll take an LCD panel and mount a computer behind it. It looks like a pizza box!

I felt the same way when I first saw the iMac G5. Compared to the iMac G3 and especially G4, the design didn't have an Apple-feel to it. Remember, Steve once showed a design simiar to the iMac G5 when the iMac G4 was introduced and went on and on about how it was a bad design. LOL. My how things change, Steve.

 

[Ti_Poussin]

The iMac dalmatian and Flower were totaly ugly. The iMac G3 in general was crap IMO. But the iMac G4 was totaly awesome, I loved those, never got one but they look great.

But the best looking was my Cube, they were beautiful machine, silent, people didn't even remark it was a computer, how many time I got asked "where is your computer, I see the screen but...". The cube and Powerbook G4 Ti and Al are my favorite machine from the outside. I really like the G5 internal design, look like a server in a tower, kind of cool.

But the coolest ever was made by riscx:
http://www.riscx.com/blueiceg4/
Totaly gorgeous

 

[jaw04005]

yuh, the make-up case G3 iBooks were "different", but man were they TOUGH.

I still regret not purchasing a Lime iBook G3 SE. Those things still grab 900+ on eBay! Ridiculous, they're worth more than my White iBook G3.

They were extremely durable because of the rubber edging. I remember watching Phil Schiller jump out of the rafters at Macworld into a giant air bag to demonstrate the durability of the clamshell iBooks. Hehe. Talk about excitement.

 

[mynameisjesse]

wow

i cant believe some of you think the g5 imac is ugly! i LOVE it and think it ***** on the g4 imac. yeah, you can adjust the height, but ive never once had to. its a beautiful machine that runs just as good as it looks.

 

[macEfan]

Yes, the 6400 sucks, cause the graphix card is the worst on the plannet!!!!

Only 256 colors @ 800/600!!!

If U upgrade the video the computer is a lot better!!!

 

[CompUser]

I really hated the G3 iMacs. The 5 original colors, the flower powers, and the other wierd color one were the worst. The Indigo, Ruby, Sage, and graphite ones aren't as bad. The Snow iMac was pretty ugly IMO too.

I hate the eMac. They're to big and for some reason I just don't like using them. It seems like I can't use CRT monitors anymore. They're not as sharp so they give me a headache. I have a 21" CRT and I'm not using it right now not just because it is a CRT, but beacuse it is just so HUGE that I hate having to move my head/eyes so much to see another part of the screen.

G5 iMac- hate it. They should have tried not to have that HUGE bezel at the bottom.

iBook G3- They had them at my middle school and two years after they got them about 5/40 were given to teachers, 10 were put in the media center, and the rest were thrown into a pile of destroyed computers. Of the 10 in the media center 2 had keyboards with no missing keys, 1's screen was falling off, 2 others had optical drives that wouldn't shut, etc.

 

[Man In Black]

The clamshell iBooks looked like a toy computer. The Flower Power and Blue Dalmation iMacs were super ugly.

I think the Power Mac Cube was awesome. Very cool. I think the G4 iMac was the best looking, but Im guessing there was limited expandability due to the small base housing the componets. The G5 isnt bad, but it isnt as creative as some. The G5 always looks like if you bump it it'll fall over.

 

[HiRez]

Only 256 colors @ 800/600!!!

Yeah, I hated the Macs that could only do 640 x *400* at higher color bit depths, back before the time when oddball resolutions and aspect ratios were common. You would get games or other apps that would only run at 640x480 and have 80 pixels lopped off because there was not enough VRAM in those boxes. I forget which models, but LC and PowerBook 540c sound right to me.

 

[sambo.]

i've said it before, i'll say it again

I still regret not purchasing a Lime iBook G3 SE. Those things still grab 900+ on eBay! Ridiculous, they're worth more than my White iBook G3.

They were extremely durable because of the rubber edging. I remember watching Phil Schiller jump out of the rafters at Macworld into a giant air bag to demonstrate the durability of the clamshell iBooks. Hehe. Talk about excitement.

man, those G3 cosmetics-case iBooks had some really serious protection built into them. the white G3's, while sure, they looked better (imho) didn't have the same level of protection. i know, a mates white G3 iBook copped a MINOR knock which cracked the screen (i know, i saw him knock it...). five minutes later, kid comes screaming out of the hall, trips on my mums power-cable, mums "cosmetics case" goes flying......

....she picks it up, puts it back on the table and keeps working. not a mark on it!

i own a G3/333PB, if the original iBooks had a SCSI port or a PCMCIA port, or if i'd had a USB-Neg-Scanner at the time, i would have bought one of them instead.

i rekon Apple should bring back the design with a G4 in it and market it to skoolkids. people underestimate the durability of that design. mums has copped far more than any other laptop i know off and has kept on truckin', just the battery has finally given up the ghost.

oh yeah, and there isn't a single dead pixel in EITHER of those two laptop screens......

six years service and COUNTING (both of those machines are still in regular use), i call it "Value For Money"

 

[RacerX]

You would get games or other apps that would only run at 640x480 and have 80 pixels lopped off because there was not enough VRAM in those boxes. I forget which models, but LC and PowerBook 540c sound right to me.

On the PowerBook side the models were the 540c, Duo 270c, 280c, 2300c. On the desktop side it was the LC III and Performa 450.

And you could run them at either 640x480 (at 256 colors) or 640x400 (at thousands).


On earlier PowerBooks (100, 140, 145, 145b, 150, 160, 165, 165c, 170, 180, Duo 210, 230, 250, 280) you could only run at 640x400 as that was all the pixels that their display's had. The PowerBook 180c was the first with a 640x480 display (at 256 colors), but was not able to have the resolution down size to 640x400 to display thousands of colors.

As long as we are on the subject of PowerBook displays... the 5300ce was the first PowerBook with an 800x600 display and the PowerBook G3 Wallstreet was the first to have a 1024x768 display.

One of the reasons Jobs felt that Apple had fallen behind in the laptop market was the fact that Apple's top of the line PowerBook (the 3400c) only had an 800x600 display. It was rumored that Jobs walked into the PowerBook division with his IBM ThinkPad running OPENSTEP (thousands of colors at 1024x768) and held it up saying this is what the PowerBook should be like.


Someone earlier said they didn't like the PowerBook G3 series. And I think another person said that they thought it looked like some other PC laptop.

When the Wallstreet was released, no other laptop in the world looked like it. Further, not only was the Wallstreet faster than any other laptop in production at the time (so were the Kanga PowerBook G3 and PowerBook 3400c when they were released), it was also faster than most PC desktops.


I always find it funny when people forget that in the mid 90's PowerPC was so far ahead of x86 based processors that it looked like Apple would never be challenged for speed. Of course when Apple adopted the G4 and Motorola had problems producing the 500 MHz versions (and later had problems getting them past 500 MHz), the x86 industry was able to make up a lot of ground.

But when Apple was using the PowerPC 604e (and 603e in PowerBooks) and G3 processors, they were well ahead of the performance curve.

 

[macEfan]

On the PowerBook side the models were the 540c, Duo 270c, 280c, 2300c. On the desktop side it was the LC III and Performa 450.

And you could run them at either 640x480 (at 256 colors) or 640x400 (at thousands).


On earlier PowerBooks (100, 140, 145, 145b, 150, 160, 165, 165c, 170, 180, Duo 210, 230, 250, 280) you could only run at 640x400 as that was all the pixels that their display's had. The PowerBook 180c was the first with a 640x480 display (at 256 colors), but was not able to have the resolution down size to 640x400 to display thousands of colors.

As long as we are on the subject of PowerBook displays... the 5300ce was the first PowerBook with an 800x600 display and the PowerBook G3 Wallstreet was the first to have a 1024x768 display.

One of the reasons Jobs felt that Apple had fallen behind in the laptop market was the fact that Apple's top of the line PowerBook (the 3400c) only had an 800x600 display. It was rumored that Jobs walked into the PowerBook division with his IBM ThinkPad running OPENSTEP (thousands of colors at 1024x768) and held it up saying this is what the PowerBook should be like.


Someone earlier said they didn't like the PowerBook G3 series. And I think another person said that they thought it looked like some other PC laptop.

When the Wallstreet was released, no other laptop in the world looked like it. Further, not only was the Wallstreet faster than any other laptop in production at the time (so were the Kanga PowerBook G3 and PowerBook 3400c when they were released), it was also faster than most PC desktops.


I always find it funny when people forget that in the mid 90's PowerPC was so far ahead of x86 based processors that it looked like Apple would never be challenged for speed. Of course when Apple adopted the G4 and Motorola had problems producing the 500 MHz versions (and later had problems getting them past 500 MHz), the x86 industry was able to make up a lot of ground.

But when Apple was using the PowerPC 604e (and 603e in PowerBooks) and G3 processors, they were well ahead of the performance curve.

yeah, they were like 100 mhz ahead of PCees.

 

[Edge100]

I really hated the G3 iMacs. The 5 original colors, the flower powers, and the other wierd color one were the worst. The Indigo, Ruby, Sage, and graphite ones aren't as bad. The Snow iMac was pretty ugly IMO too.

I hate the eMac. They're to big and for some reason I just don't like using them. It seems like I can't use CRT monitors anymore. They're not as sharp so they give me a headache. I have a 21" CRT and I'm not using it right now not just because it is a CRT, but beacuse it is just so HUGE that I hate having to move my head/eyes so much to see another part of the screen.

G5 iMac- hate it. They should have tried not to have that HUGE bezel at the bottom.

iBook G3- They had them at my middle school and two years after they got them about 5/40 were given to teachers, 10 were put in the media center, and the rest were thrown into a pile of destroyed computers. Of the 10 in the media center 2 had keyboards with no missing keys, 1's screen was falling off, 2 others had optical drives that wouldn't shut, etc.

Wow! Do you like ANY Macs at all?

 

[superninjagoat]

LCII

How about the Mac LC II. 16 mhz of SUCK! This was the design machine I used to produce a student newspaper in high school, and it was the slowest, most crash-prone dung heap I've ever used. Too many short cuts taken in the design. We bought it to replace an original LC, and with a 68030 replacing the 68020, we thought it would be a better piece of equipment. It wasn't. There was almost no increase in speed over the older machine sitting next to it, and it crashed more often (which was an OS dot release problem, I believe).

I think it was repackaged as the Performa 400 or something, but I'm too lazy to fact check to see if I remember correctly.

 

[macEfan]

I think U are right. I think almost all of the performa line also sucked also. (Especially the early 'formas.

 

[zen.state]

my most disliked mac would have to be the powerbook 540c. I bought one used in early 98 that had a cpu upgrade from a 040 33mhz (68k) to a 603e 117mhz (ppc). it was a great running system but the hinge was total crap. the plastic cover at the bottom of the screen would catch at the back of the kb also. after a couple months like that I just took off that little cover. I paid 1100 us for it which at the time was a good deal. it also came with an external zip drive.

as a system it worked fine but that damn hinge was a pain in my butt. it was my first mac also btw.

 

[icarusflies]

Performa 6400...

I bit because of the built-in-subwoofer...Basically anything based on the 603 ppc sucked a$$.

Great piece of perceptive engineering by apple that. Lets put a big subwoofer that vibrates like hell right into a machine. A friend of mine had one of these and he had to reseat all the cards and memory every month. Bad Apple - slap!

 

[TheMonarch]

I've seen those at school before. They were slow, but I don't understand the subwoofer part. It sure does look like one though, thats what I thought you guys were talking about, but then mentioned vibrations... Whats all that about?