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What To Buy: iMac G4 vs. iMac G5?

D

David87

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 14, 2006
65
0
Essex, UK
I need an iMac for doing some simple word processing tasks and browsing the Internet etc. I've been offered two models for the kind of price I'm looking to spend, and these are the 20" iMac G4 1.25GHz (USB 2.0) and the original iMac G5 in 17" 1.8GHz form. It needs to be reliable and look good on the desk.

Now, I'm stuck on which to go for! I personally prefer the design of the G4 model and the bigger screen would be very much welcome, but the G5 is probably the neater proposition due to having built-in speakers and of course it's a more modern machine. Would the G5 be noticeably better-performing than the G4? I'll be running OS X 10.5 on it, alongside Microsoft Office and Safari. I had a 1.25GHz PowerBook G4 for years and it was always excellent, so perhaps the G5 wouldn't really make that much difference after all?

Ahh, I don't know! Any help would be much appreciated.:)
 
easy to decide take the iMac g4 its the better design , and a nice big screen ,and as the iMac g4 with the 20' screens are not that common you wont lose money when you decide to sell it one day, they are becoming collector items , its fast enough for
the internet inclusive youtube , watching dvd's doing office workactually fast enough to do all at once ,
will be a bit messy on screen so may windows then, but you could watch in one window your favorit dvd and in another watch something on youtube , in another you could surf ebay and there is still a bit space left for opening office if you like

i would not hold my hand up for a iMac g5 despite it will be faster , but if its logic board was build between end 2003 and end 2004 they suffered from bad capacitors , which can now blew up every day so its a problem to come ,
its not the question if it may blow up , its when ,
if the previous owner has not taken on the offer from apple years ago to repair the board /exchange the board

the answer is simple if you want to live in style take the iMac g4
 
Thanks for that - I think you're probably right. I'd quite like to have something that's a little rarer than the norm and the 20" G4 certainly fits that bill! I've made my decision!:apple:
 
Unless they are nearly free, neither of them offer decent performance compared to even a Mini.
 
300D said:
Unless they are nearly free, neither of them offer decent performance compared to even a Mini.
Click to expand...
if you only want to surf the internet , send some emails and do some office work ,watch some films , for these things you just dont need a ultra fast processor ,
the lamp is still fast enough for everyday computing needs ,its even fast enough for video processing and things like photoshop

but buying a lamp(iMac g4) is not just buying a computer , its buying a design icon too
and as minis go down in price , the lamp will go up
 
I'd have to agree with most..the G4 is a much cooler purchase. I've always wanted to get one just to say I've got a piece of the interesting Apple Design History, but I can't justify the costs..
 
Don't buy one. Flash is just way too slow on these and that's a big part of the internet, like it or not.
 
wesleyh said:
Don't buy one. Flash is just way too slow on these and that's a big part of the internet, like it or not.
Click to expand...

Or you could just buy it anyway and block flash content. Other than watching YouTube/Hulu, my PowerBook G4 was perfectly usable on anything else, as long as I kept flash turned off (you can click it to activate if you NEED it).
 
For WP and internet sans flash, the g4 is fine. Even WITH a g5, flash is gonna suck... if it's really between these two, get the g4 lamp. Nice looking machine, at least.
 
knewsom said:
For WP and internet sans flash, the g4 is fine. Even WITH a g5, flash is gonna suck... if it's really between these two, get the g4 lamp. Nice looking machine, at least.
Click to expand...

why no flash ? flash is perfectly fine on my eMac , which has similar spec and even on my iMac g3 flash isn't a problem ,

and tuned camino browser then even flash runs perfectly as long as i use flashplayer 9 as flashplayer 10 is developed by half wits
here the link for the camino browser
http://www.rpm-mozilla.org.uk/builds/camino/
 
Yeah iMac G4 is pretty much the pinnacle of design IMO as well. And the 20" takes the awesome even further with the fact that the dome base actually had to be weighted down - so that it could hold up the screen lol.

And I never cared for the iMac G5 design, from the first time I saw it, randomly through a closed store window in Switzerland of all places. The 17" especially just looked like there was so much space wasted on the front.

So on aesthetic grounds I'd say the G4 all the way. And as old hardware goes, aesthetic grounds are pretty big ones, as far as I'm concerned. To the point that I just recently bought a tangerine clamshell iBook :).
 
Picked it up today - it's absolutely gorgeous! Really lucky to have found one that's in completely as-new condition and with the RAM upgraded to 768 MB. Paid £250 for it. Just doing a clean install of Leopard now. Massive screen too! Well, compared to my MacBook it is. The new 27" one must be outrageous!:apple:
 
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