Eric Dunbar wrote:
> Hi Bree, you didn't do a degree at Laurier, starting in 1993?
Nope. No. Wait. Yes.
No. Wait... I was right the first time... I wasn't there, it wasn't me
and I have nominal proof, I tell ya!!
< severly snipped for brevity and bandwith>
> 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 <snip>
>
> 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.
Yeah. I got this baby (sans 80G drives and the DVD burner) last year for
$100US in LA off of craigslist. I was the *first* person to enquire
about it after three days. We think it's 'cause it was so cheap, people
musta thought it wasn't working. The guy just asked for the amount of
money he'd get as a tax write-off if he'd have otherwise donated it.
I traded him some chocolate Hedgehogs for him to drive the thing up from
his place 45 minutes away from where I was staying. Heaven knows what I
could have done with some silk stockings and Du Mauriers :-)
Tossing another $225 for the two new drives and burner wasn't a hard
decision since the initial cost was so low.
>> <snip> 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
Ah... things that I'm willing to let go of until the next *big* purchase.
>
> <snip>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.
For all the hassle of Limey not being easily upgradeable, I left that
baby on *for weeks* over *years* and I never had to replace a part...
the screen never went blank... the fan never blew up... the battery
never died.
< snip>
>><snip>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 <snip> luggable doesn't mean "portable").
That's why I'm not going to buy a tower off of eBay. Why pay those kind
of prices and then get hit with $$$ delivery that may add 15-20% of the
cost? Never mind if it's being shipped from the US... .
<snip>
>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
> ;-))
Ah. Games. Everything after Asteroids and Tempest became redundant for
me so I never saw the intrigue with games :-)
God. I'm old.
> 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)
True enough. Guess I've just been poor for so long that I'm genuinely
flummoxed when I hear of people simply replacing their computer every
two or three years.
>> 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.
Yeah... I don't know what'll happen but after the 333MHz tray-loader
trip-ups, I'm just sitting back and trying not to get too analytical. Or
neurotic. Or paranoid :-) But you've mentioned everything I've thought
of... .
<snip>
> 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).
I'm in Vancouver. This poster wants $1700 for a Dual G4 tower (with
toys): http://vancouver.craigslist.org/sys/100061858.html . I don't know
and someone else took it (not that I would have seriously considered
paying that kinda money). I'm not quite sure why sellers think that
someone would pay 75% and more of the price of a base-model Mac Mini for
an x-year-old basic G4 tower... . Except, apparently, buyers are willing
to pay that.
> 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).
I can't recall why at this point, but I'm determined not to get anything
less than 700 or 800MHz. I think I did a cost-analysis on the back of a
napkin and figured that less than those specs and I might as well take
the leap and get the Mac Mini.
<snip>
>> 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. <snip>
>
> 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).
But then we're back to spending more $$ on memory upgrades and hard
drive enclosures and... .
God... I have fallen in *love* with towers and their accessibility. I
just look at a Mini, squirm and think, "I can't *do* anything in there
without risking major pinched fingers."
<snip>
It's entirely possible that my next *splurge* might even be for a newer
used machine. I sadly realize that I don't probably use the full
potential of any Mac until it's already at least four or five years old
anyway. Great - I've just admitted to a list of strangers that I'm old
and not hip. Thank GOD I'm still cute-ish :-P
>> 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 :-).
You hope he's what? Going with the upgrade or splurging on the Mini?
Curiously,
B.
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