thinking about switching...

Hi, obviously as the title suggests, i'm a complete Mac n00b! I've been looking at powerbooks/ibooks and mac minis as a cheaper option for switching from PC, and while I was browsing ebay, I came across some very reasonable prices for the G4 graphite power macs. I know that they're quite old, but I was wondering, if I got a higher spec one, how upgradable is it? And how's the performance compared to 1Ghz powerbooks and 1.4Ghz mac minis? clearly it'll be slower, but will it be capable of running itunes, safari/firefox etc. simutaneously? I'm also looking at running programs like logic express and photoshop in the future so it needs to be able to handle some form of music/photography software well too. Not sure about the spec of photoshop CS, but i take it that this is gonna be the most memory intensive of them all?

The specs of most of them are about:
256mb ram
20gb HDD
450mhz processor
16mb vram

video memory is low, but i'm not too bothered about that, as long as it's reasonable. Processor seems slow, but as i'm not familiar with what's good on a mac, I don't know. Is it upgradable in any way?

Finally, older emacs are also cheap...what kinda generation or specs should I be looknig at for those? and are there any other old imacs that go cheaply?

Basically, i'm trying to weigh up whether the older "superior" machines are cheaper than their lower, newer (but ultimately higher spec) models. Or for the same spec powermac and ibook/powerbook/mac mini, which is cheaper?

Cheers for any help! :dummy:

hey, I'm trying to decide whether to go for a cheapish G4 powermac for about £170, or to buy an as new mac mini from a friend for £300 (I think its a 1.5ghz, non-intel). Both are loaded with photoshop CS, office etc. but I can't weigh up whether to pay another £110 for the 1ghz more of processor speed? Is the G4 likely to not be compatible with Leopard when it's released?

Im new to the Mac world myself (im saying Mac not PC for clarity ) so I am not definite but I believe that Apple will continue supporting the PPC for a while yet, probably until the end of OS X maybe longer. Therefore I imagine that PPC will be supported in Leopard. The intel macs will be slower at PPC apps (but from my experience very fast still).

I have no idea about wether the Powermac or the Mini would be faster, I would of though the Powermac but I would imagine soon enough someone who knows will post .

Anyway good luck on finding the right Mac for you