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ricgnzlzcr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 7, 2005
802
0
In light of the upcoming gigabit ethernet powermac that I'm picking up for 50 dollars, I'd like to know what's the best mac deal you've gotten.

On another note, I thought the 1.33 Ghz 12 inch powerbook I picked up 13 months ago with applecare, a supedrive, and 768 ram was a bargain at $1200 shipped.

Post your best deals!
 

Obsidian6

macrumors 6502a
Apr 29, 2006
683
3
Laguna Niguel, CA
I would have to say my powermac g5 was my best deal so far.

i got:

the Dual 2.7Ghz PM G5
6.5GB RAM
400GB HD ( apple surprised me with that little upgrade for free :) )
256MB Radeon 9650
and all the other goodies that came in a G5
and a 23" ACD

all for just a touch over $3k
 

mopppish

macrumors 6502
Nov 27, 2005
356
1
B&W G3 about a year and a half ago for $50.
It came with a Digidesign Audiomedia III card in it that I later sold on ebay for... $50.
And my 12" 1.33ghz ibook G4 was $800 brand new after the Amazon rebate. It was a part of that unannounced sale right around the holidays last year.
 

sixstorm

macrumors regular
Jan 16, 2006
212
0
Nashville, TN
When I finally decided to buy an Apple laptop (my iBook), I bought it from CompUSA. This sales rep was trying to sell me one so bad that he not only gave me my student discount, but he threw in a free 512MB stick of RAM, a free mini USB notebook mouse and a free Brenthaven bag. Talk about a deal. So all I paid for was the iBook and 3 years warranty.
 

DMPDX

macrumors 6502
Dec 4, 2005
309
0
Spending $2,700.00 on my rev. d powerbook(1.67, 100, 1*2x512*, 128). Using it until the the rev e's came out. Sending it to apple care 3 times. Getting back a rev e maxed out powerbook BRAND NEW. w/ ilife '06 and an airport express base station as consolation. Pretty good i say. An example of how asking to speak to managers works :D
-dsm
 

ricgnzlzcr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 7, 2005
802
0
Agoglanian.....that is one of the most amazing deals I've ever heard of. I wish I found something similar.

DMPDX, was this online or was it at an Apple store? It may not be a bad idea if I ever need a repair
 

RacerX

macrumors 65832
Aug 2, 2004
1,504
4
My Beige G3 was free... and I mean for everything. It has a 20" display, G4/533 upgrade card, 640 MB of RAM, an 80 GB hard drive connected to an UltraATA/66 card, the original CD-ROM plus a DVD-ROM, a Radeon 7000 video card (32 MB of VRAM) and a USB card. And all that was free.

Second best deal was my PowerBook 3400c/200... also free.

Third would be my first 8600/300 (got in trade for an 8500 with a G3/300 upgrade... which I got for free) followed by my second 8600/300 for the cost of shipping.

My 8100 was a pretty good deal to... also free. It came with an AV Video card, 24 bit video card, G3/500 upgrade and 200 MB of RAM.

:rolleyes:

Yep... free generally fits my budget. :D
 

RacerX

macrumors 65832
Aug 2, 2004
1,504
4
ricgnzlzcr said:
RacerX, where did you get all your free macs?
Usually from my clients. As they upgrade to newer systems they'll often give me what they don't need. If I find that I don't need a system or I can put together a system with a collection of parts but don't need it, I'll give it to some one who does need a system.

The best part about getting systems this way is that I know their service history... since I was the one who was servicing them.

For example, lets look at the PowerBook 3400c. Before I started working on it back at the end of 2000, it had had the display replaced after falling off a table. In 2002 I replaced the original hard drive with a 10 GB drive, and upgraded the RAM to 80 MB in 2003. I had set the system up for my client's brother to have (which included replacing the track button on the system which had been broken for about a year), but he ended up getting a PC (to play some sort of online gambling). The system stayed with him until Hurricane Katrina destroyed the area he was living in and when he moved to Minnesota it came back with him. That was when it was given to me last Fall.

After I got the system I took it apart and did a complete cleaning of it (the original owner's were smokers... yuk!) and ended up replacing the keyboard (which ran me about $19).

Since owning it I've loaned it out to a friend who wanted to learn Flash (I have Flash 5.0 installed on it) and to another client while he was on a trip (they are still using Mac OS 9 as his primary OS).

I also installed a few dozen old games on it and put together a cute box to store all the CDs for my wife. So a lot of the time she has it for playing older games like Warcraft and Myth.

Currently I'm building a server out of an old PowerTower Pro I was given (again, for free). I'm only waiting on a 68-pin to 50-pin SCSI adapter for a 36 GB drive. Once that is done I set the system up on my network (replacing my PowerMac 7500... which I also got for free). Once the hardware is set up, I'll replace the current OS (Mac OS 8.1) with Mac OS X Server 1.0.2 (Rhapsody 5.5) and transfer everything over from the 7500.

It is actually a very fast system. It benchmarks faster than a G3/233, which is pretty good for a 604e/225 (it has 1 MB of L2 cache and the bus is at 50 MHz, which helps).

Attached is a GIF of the Apple Menu on my 3400c... to give you an idea of what I've been able to do with the system.
 

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kmarketing

macrumors 6502
Mar 26, 2004
416
0
Hey,

got all of my macs used but in excellent condition, and then was able to sell some for some profit.

Here are some of the deals that I had in the recent past.
17" 1.67 high resolution $1100 around feb.
15" Aluminum 1ghz - $500 around feb
12" 1.5 combo - $650 around march
12" 1.5 superdrive - $700 in may
12" 1.33/1.25gb - $600 current
My current Powermac G4 desktop in sig - $200 (+$80 for radeon 8500 card)

There have been quite a few others but the best deal that I ever had was the g5 in my sig that I got for $900 last summer after all the upgrades. I definitely miss having that one.
 

macg4

macrumors 6502a
Nov 17, 2003
679
0
Des Moines,Iowa
well a little over a year ago i picked up a mostly unused powermac g5 single 1.8/512mb ram/300 gb sata maxtor hd/ati radeon 9600 128mb vid card/airport extreme card/superdrive/orginal box,etc.... i paid about $950 for it
 

MacBoobsPro

macrumors 603
Jan 10, 2006
5,114
6
Sold my 4 year old G4 (533mhz) and 17" Studio display for £800/$1,472. :D Theres one born every minute on eBay! Sadly there are also a load of pirates too. Wouldnt touch ebay now :(
 

Fretbuzzer

macrumors newbie
Jan 23, 2005
11
0
20" Rev A imac G5 - From Best Buy

My last PC Comcr*p notebook died 8 days inside of the Best Buy warranty. They had just started carrying macs online so I convinced the manager to fulfill my replacement warranty with the imac. I've never had that kind of luck with a Best Buy warranty since, but I guess I can't complain....
 

baby duck monge

macrumors 68000
Feb 16, 2003
1,570
0
Memphis, TN
About 2.5 years ago (I think that's when it was) I got a dual 1GHz Quicksilver with superdrive, zip drive, 80GB HD, and 512MB RAM in great condition for $150. Found it on eBay listed as a 'Quicksliver.'

Later sold it for enough to fund my Mac Mini and Samsung 172x :D
 

yippy

macrumors 68020
Mar 14, 2004
2,087
3
Chicago, IL
PowerMac G4 466Mhz: Free

Got it last year when the hard drive in it died for the second time and so my moms work decided to upgrade to Minis instead of fixing it. Right now it is my print sever and the only computer that can boot OS 9.
 
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