Hi Bree, you didn't do a degree at Laurier, starting in 1993?
I'm also trying to figure out what to do. I have a PowerBook G3/400
that's getting to be a little long in the tooth. It still does
everything I want, except it's getting to be a tad slow (though, I'm
loath to get another machine b/c I'm no longer willing to spend money
on computers given how cheap they but I'm addicted to the size and
portability of the laptop (even though it never leaves the house)).
On 9/28/05, Bree <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I've just had this debate with myself about the cost of upgrading my B&W
> 450 with 1G of RAM and asked for opinions on a couple of forums.
If I had you set up it'd be an easy decision. Upgrade!!! You can drop
in a G4/900 for peanuts given that you've souped up that machine.
> Some people invariably mentioned the Mini Mac and some people suggested
> staying away from it. You've mentioned some good reasons *for* but some
> reasons *against* include the fact that for that money, you won't have
> nearly as much manoueverability for future upgrades.
Slightly true, but:
(a) FireWire,
(b) USB 2
Between these two FAST interfaces you've got all bases covered.
Plus, _most_ people never do actually upgrade towers so you're
dropping an extra 50%-100% on features that (if you don't upgrade)
you'll never use. When you do eventually want to upgrade you'll be
much cheaper off using FireWire or USB2. That said, I love the quality
on the pro machines (I briefly had an iMac 233 and hated the
experience) but Apple has come a long way in the quality department on
their low-end machines since the iCrap Rev A/B/C.
> I've got three hard
> drives in my B&W - a 9G OS 9.2 archive and two 80G hard drives. Waaay
> more than I need but I got the hard drives on sale and it took me all of
> about 20 minutes to get them up and running (including time to clone the
> OS 10.3.9 system drive). I also picked up a Pioneer 109 DVD burner (for
> $72) that I replaced the original CD/DVD-Rom player with. With a Mini,
> you're either stuck with the lowend 40G hard drive and may want to swap
> that out pretty quickly.
These are all *easily* dealt with using FireWire or USB 2 when the
time comes. Enclosures are cheap nowadays and, best of all, they're
*portable* (which a tower ain't... the B&W is "luggable" with its
carry handles but I know from first hand experience (I had a B&W and
loved it) luggable doesn't mean "portable").
> More $$. Then, at 256MB, you'll really want to
> toss in more RAM. More $$.
That's the only area where you can't actually use an external device ;-).
> Apparently, the video card is the same as the
> B&W anyway so there's no advantage to that.
B&W = 16 MB ATI something or other PCI, little OS X 10.4 support
Mac mini = 32 MB ATI Radeon 9200 4xAGP. It's not the latest and
greatest, but it still does the job that most games demand and is more
than enough to handle all but the most professional of video editors
(and, if you're *dumb* enough to buy a computer to play games you
deserve to get ripped off ;-)... XBoxes or PS2s are much cheaper and
they actually are designed to take a pounding (unlike your $2000+
(new) piece of high-tech equipment that is a professional computer
;-))
PS I'm not at all disparaging your reasoning. It's 100% applicable to
someone in your situation, but, for people who don't have a tower,
_or_ have a tower but haven't "added" to it (i.e. B&W with 6 GB HD 128
or 256 MB RAM, a CD-RW or DVD-ROM, etc.) then the Mac mini is a
cost-effective solution (and, it's 2005 vs. a B&W which is now *six*
years old... a great machine but it's still six years old)
> especially
> since I want to see what this new Intel deal will do to the Mac lines
> and see how it'll affect used Mac prices.
I haven't made up my mind on that. The Mac minis are doing a
*phenomenal* job of depressing prices for G4 towers that are sub-1GHz
(I'd say prices have dropped more than the 33% that's typical for
computers over the past year)). I'm of two minds on the Intel Macs.
For the top-of-the-line G5s prices may drop more slowly than they
usually do for used Macs since they'll be the last PPC Macs (much like
the last G4 towers to support OS 9 booting are fetching a slight
premium), or, they'll drop like a stone b/c everyone and their dog is
looking at the Intel Macs and saying "that's where the software will
be. Why would I buy an expensive, good, but obsolete PPC?".
On the low-end I think there may be pressure on the used market
because there will be a lot of people dumping their machines *before*
the usual life-cycle runs its course and an oversupply of faster used
PPC Macs. On the other hand, there could be an undersupply in early
2006 (and even now) keeping used prices slightly higher than normal
because people will be hanging on to machines a little longer,
anticipating the release of the Intel Macs, which would balance itself
out when these people sold their machines.
> I have seen basic used G4s on
> my local craigslist for about $600 - slightly more than a Mini Mac but
> still a lot easier to open up a tower and play than having everything
> shoved nicely into a tight box :-)
G4s for $600. You're seeing _very_ expensive G4s (unless they're
souped up). On ehMac.ca I may get a G4/450 with something on the order
of 200 GB of HD space, a DVD burner and a monitor for just shy of $500
(and, I don't think I'll take it b/c it's not much cheaper than the
Mac mini but is more than 10 times the size and a G4/1.2GHz CPU would
raise the total cost of the machine well above what a Mac mini with
similar specs would cost).
At www.cpused.com (used Mac retailer in Toronto... usually quite
expensive) you can get G4/450s DVD-ROM 256 MB RAM 30 GB drive for
$400+tax, and, you even get a 90 day warrantee (store).
> The only 'problem' I seemed to have with my set up is that sometimes
> ripped DVD .avis were jerking. That disappeared with I replaced the
> original 54000RPM hard drive with the new 80G 72000RPM ones.
That would do it. Also, a little bit of a CPU boost would help
massively. When I got my B&W in 2000 I realised then and there that it
would last for as long as OS X was around since it was brand spanking
new and well designed. The G4s came, saw and sold but they're all
basically glorified B&W G3s.
> The only thing I can really see myself perhaps wanting to do in the next
> year or two that the current B&W will have problems doing is ripping
> DVDs - and at this point, really, it's just a minor interest. That would
> be solved by a $200US G4 700MHz Sonnet Encore Zif upgrade that,
> supposedly, easily slips into an empty socket. After that, since I don't
> use heavy applications, I figure the B&W's good for another, what, three
> years?
That's quite expensive when you consider the Mac mini is $500 USD for
a 1.25GHz :-( (that's why upgrading towers is not usually cost
effective).
> At which point, I'll splurge and buy the best model out there that I can
> afford and then start the slow upgrading process all over again :-)
I used to, but I've given up on that. I never actually do much
upgrading with my machines, so, I'm better off spending $500-1000 less
*now* and spending an extra $50-100 _later_ for an enclosure when I'm
upgrading an optical drive or adding a new HD.
> I guess it really depends on what your wife actually *does* with the
> machine, too. If it's basic surfing/word processing/some PhotoShopping,
> etc stuff, I still thinks it's cheaper to upgrade the B&W (and with used
> parts), than buying new... at least for the next year or two.
I hope he is :-).
Eric.
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