On Friday, December 13, 2002, at 08:19 PM, Allen Barnella wrote: > Currently the CD-ROM on my iMac is acting up (odd noise, failure to > read some CDs) and from what I've read on the Apple forums, it's the > beginning of it's end. Also, it looks like it will cost somewhere in > the neighborhood of $300 to replace. It's not going to happen. > However, a standard internal CD-ROM drive is relatively inexpensive, > less than $50, I believe, and is easily installed in most stand alone > CPUs. > > My wife wanted to get me an eMac for Christmas but I just think it's > too risky to buy one right now, plus I think I need to convince > myself that an all-in-one is the right type of Mac to get.
on the optical drive front.... in both the flat-panel iMac and the eMac, the optical drive is Ye Olde Standard EIDE drive. If it goes south, replace it with whatever you feel you can afford. On the display front... the difference in price between repairing a built-in display and buying a new monitor is almost completely absorbed in labor. If you know how to do it, you can sometimes find the iMac/eMac parts for cheaper than a monitor costs. Beyond that.... the problems you sight from various forums are relatively rare: you'll rarely see anyone posting "HEY, My iMac's working great, just thought I'd let you know!" All-in-One computers (both mac and pc) have almost always been the realm of the first-time-buyer. That is, that's who the company in question is trying to sell to. Sure, many long-time MacAddicts are going to buy them, but that's probably not who Apple is really aiming at with the iMac and eMac. For anyone seriously concerned about repair costs, or needing internal expandability, go with a PowerMac G4. For $1699 (less than some of the iMacs, and only marginally more expensive than the high-end eMac), you can get the G4 867MHz DP and use any monitor you want (quite literally, as it has ADC and DVI connectors, and comes with a DVI->VGA dongle). -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
