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Would an iMac G4 be capable of running everyday tasks quickly?

GREGMT311

GREGMT311

macrumors newbie
Original poster
:apple: I have always liked the iMac G4 since i was a little kid and thought that the computer in the commercial looked cool. I wanted to get one for my birthday but my dad thinks that since it is like 5 years old it would not be capable of performing the tasks i do every day, like watching videos and listening to music on iTunes, watching YouTube videos, going on facebook; twitter; and other Adobe Flash and Java based websites. Does anybody who owns a mac know if it plays videos well, if it supports modern Adobe and Java players, and if it is generally a fast computer?
 

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sorry to burst ya bubble but by today's standards the G4 is a slug, it wont run flash at a usable rate, java should be alright, but for a main usable machine, you should be looking at more up to date machines 😉, Intel Macs are more usable depending on what you want them to do, in some cases you might even have luck with a G5 but with the asking prices on the Powermac G5's you might want to consider the new Mac Mini.
 
I find my 20" G4 does well for it's age. I bit sluggish on Youtube but watchable. It can't really do more then one thing at a time but if you give them patience they'll get the job done. If you do end up getting one get a 1.0Ghz 15 inch or 1.25 17"/20" and load them to the max memory of 2Gb. It'll really help.
 
I had one of those back when. It should handle email, iTunes, word processing / spreadsheets, and standard-def non-Flash video playback just fine. Viewing moderate size images (up to 6MP JPEG) shouldn't be a problem; editing them not exactly snappy, but feasible.

Web browsing will depend on what browser and version you use (Camino or Safari will run nicely; Firefox with a couple extensions will be noticeably slow) and you'll want some click-to-flash variant so that ads and such don't bog you down (this is built into Camino, btw, and appears to be available as some sort of addon for Safari). Flash in general will be infuriating.

What specs would you be getting? There's a big difference in performance between 800 MHz and 1.25GHz; and you'll want as much RAM as it will take.
 
If you're looking for something more than a fancy jukebox, you're wasting your money. That machine crawls while trying to play virtually any flash file including web pages and video sites like hulu, youtube. Itunes works great though.
 
iMac G4 is just a little too old for YouTube now. I use my 2.1ghz iMac G5 20" as my main machine along side my MacBook Pro and it works very well. Anything from the G4 era is a little too slow (as far as desktops). A PBG4 1.5 or 1.67 can still do respectable in daily tasks.
 
As others have said, if one of your main "everyday tasks" includes watching youtube or any kind of flash video, you are going to be very disappointed with the performance of that computer. Even the fastest 1.25ghz model struggles with flash, and i'm speaking from experience.

Other than that, for general "non flash" web browsing, its still surprisingly speedy. It'll play divx video's just fine.
 
Bennieboy© said:
sorry but whats your basis for that statement? i've never owned a brand new Mac in nearly 2 years and never had any problems with them that i didnt create my self 😉
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after 3 years the bell curve for electronics says that the risk of breaking increases. and no warranty.
 
i dont know where this myth comes from i always hear about g4 Macs cant handle flash , even my iMac G3 700mhz with 768mb ram can handle most of it apart from the HD videos , just not at full screen , making the windows smaller helps a lot
and my eMac 1.42 has no problems whatsoever with flash apart from these ridiculous hd videos created entirely for flashplayer 10 which does not even work in a lot faster brandnew iMacs
just read the article here http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10387590-1.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

so stop telling people theire older mac of choice is crap and should be put in the trash,
when brandnew 27inch iMac perform not better using flashplayer 10

the iMac g4 is a design icon and performs very well, at least the 1.25ghz models do ,
they have more graphic ram and definitely it looks far better then this giant i"haveaproblem"Mac

so max out the ram to 2gb and get optimized camino browser for g4 block the flash content on websites ,if you want to see it a mouseclick on the content and it plays , here the link to the optimized camino http://www.rpm-mozilla.org.uk/builds/camino/ install flashplayer 9 and watch youtube videos in a smaller window
 
My iMac G5 (2ghz) couldn't handle hd flash vids at all, and struggled keeping a solid framerate when viewing multiple sd flash vids. The G5 also caps at 100% cpu utilization when viewing just a single sd flash video. The cpu utilization for a single sd video on the i7 iMac is a mere 4%.

Flash games and whatnot also suffer greatly on the powerpc chips. I say if web surfing and flash is a big part of your "everyday" experiences, I would not recommend the G4. Playblack of hd mkv files? Forget about it on a G5. Working with 300dpi photoshop files? Extremely unpleasant. Listening to iTunes and other basic tasks? Not a problem.

Going by your criteria, I'd say you'd go well with a low priced core2duo system. Sadly you won't get the iMac G4 formfactor.


edit: at the above poster, that was an issue with the firmware that needed to be updated in the new line of iMacs. Problem has been resolved (check the date)
 
TMRaven said:
My iMac G5 (2ghz) couldn't handle hd flash vids at all, and struggled keeping a solid framerate when viewing multiple sd flash vids. The G5 also caps at 100% cpu utilization when viewing just a single sd flash video. The cpu utilization for a single sd video on the i7 iMac is a mere 4%.

Flash games and whatnot also suffer greatly on the powerpc chips. I say if web surfing and flash is a big part of your "everyday" experiences, I would not recommend the G4. Playblack of hd mkv files? Forget about it on a G5. Working with 300dpi photoshop files? Extremely unpleasant. Listening to iTunes and other basic tasks? Not a problem.

Going by your criteria, I'd say you'd go well with a low priced core2duo system. Sadly you won't get the iMac G4 formfactor.


edit: at the above poster, that was an issue with the firmware that needed to be updated in the new line of iMacs. Problem has been resolved (check the date)
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Flash sucks anyway. I avoid flash any time I can.
 
ok at least one issue they got solved in this giant i"haveaproblem"Mac 😀
i rather buy 10 iMac g4 then one iMac 27 , at least they work like they should when you buy them

and the iMac g5 would not be a Mac i would recommend to buy



this video for example plays perfect in 360p in my imac g3 and in my eMac without any lagging or chopping or missing frames and with great sound
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N2YWRJ-ppo
 
That's no reason to not consider a core2duo over a powerpc though. Hell, even youtube's html5 beta runs slow on a G5.
 
Blaine said:
Doesn't this defeat the purpose of the thread? 😕

If you only want good things said, then I will say go out and buy one.
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coolmacguy said:
If you only expect to hear "yes" then why even ask the question? 😕
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He probably meant to say constructive criticism was wanted...that's my take on it, at least.

BTW, I'm running a G4 Power Mac as a file server and web server and its running Tiger. I don't do much Flash video watching, but for me, it serves pretty well.
 
I don't know about the the 1.25GHz models, but I've got a 1GHz 17" iMac G4 and while its capable of doing youtube videos, its not as comfortable as I'd like for daily use. On the flipside, I find my 1.5GHz PowerBook handles flash and YouTube just fine, so thats why I'm not sure about the 1.25GHz models, but it can only be better. My advice is this: Don't buy anything slower than a 1.25GHz model if you are going for a lot of flashed based internet. They are beautiful machines, and I know why you like them, but don't try and save a few bucks by going with an older one.
 
Hrududu said:
I don't know about the the 1.25GHz models, but I've got a 1GHz 17" iMac G4 and while its capable of doing youtube videos, its not as comfortable as I'd like for daily use. On the flipside, I find my 1.5GHz PowerBook handles flash and YouTube just fine, so thats why I'm not sure about the 1.25GHz models, but it can only be better. My advice is this: Don't buy anything slower than a 1.25GHz model if you are going for a lot of flashed based internet. They are beautiful machines, and I know why you like them, but don't try and save a few bucks by going with an older one.
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^^^ this.

1.5Ghz should be your min G4 machine to be able to do "daily activities".

I do love the G5 iMacs form factor, that display was uber comfy. Too bad nobody found a way to put an intel chip inside it. 😱
 
alent1234 said:
My g4 mini is ok. Not as fast as a pc from that time, but ok.

You have to be crazy to buy a used computer.
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You are crazy. Used computers, for those who know what they're looking for, lead to great deals on great computers. My iMac G4 is still my primary desktop, and my iBook G4 is my only laptop. That's your opinion, but those are my facts.

O.P., for every day tasks other than YouTube and flash video nonsense, the 1.25ghz iMac G4 should do you just fine. Mine does. I love mine because it does everything I want. I don't watch video, I have a television for things I want to watch. 🙂
 
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