Getting ready to purchase an eMac

After much debate, and changing my mind from a PowerBook (which was way out of my budget), I've decided on an eMac.

I used on in high school for Journalism and loved it. Here's my specs:

1.25 GHz Combo
512 MB RAM
Bluetooth Module
80 GB

I'm also getting the swivel stand and iSight. Is there anything else I should consider? (floppy, Apple Care?) Do you think this will serve me well for college? Right now I'm in an undecided major, but I am considering journalism, graphics...unsure.

Thanks.

That setup seems fine to me, pick up an external USB floppy disk drive, there cheap and great for transferring small files (documents and so on).
For printers I'd recommend a cheap laser printer. Great for printing documents, great quality, quite cheap and ink lasts longer.

Sounds good. One thing you might want to consider is ordering the machine with the standard 256 MB of RAM. You can then order a 512 MB stick from another vendor, and have a total of 768 MB (two chips) for only very slightly more than the price of the (single chip) 512 MB setup from Apple.

A month ago I bought an eMac:

512 MB RAM
80 GB HD
Combo drive
Swivel stand
Apple Care

and Office 2004 Upgrade

For a printer I bought Brother HL 5040 Laser Printer (great machine so far!)

And today I just bought an Epson 3170 scanner and Kensington Expert Mouse. (I was about ready to heave that Apple mouse!)

I couldn't be happier - unless someone gave me a 15" Powerbook fully loaded.

I just recently made the switch myself. The Apple you described will serve you fine (mine is slightly less, but I still love it).

With USB zip drives cheap these days one of those may do you good as well. I don't have a standard floppy USB drive, just a zip. My school's computers all have 'em so data transportation is seamless.

I would suggest the 160GB HD because lets just say you get into iMovie and you love it and then you buy Final Cut Express and start making Indie Films(What I did) and then buy Final Cut Pro HD. You're going to want that extra 80GB because 5 minutes of video equals 1GB. The eMac is acutally pretty cheap with educational discount. How do you think I bought the G5 and the PB? Also, you might want to consider a SuperDrive.

Ms Office 2004

Being in college you will want to get Microsoft Office 2004! ITS GREAT!

RyanMT

manhattanmonkey said:

After much debate, and changing my mind from a PowerBook (which was way out of my budget), I've decided on an eMac.

I used on in high school for Journalism and loved it. Here's my specs:

1.25 GHz Combo
512 MB RAM
Bluetooth Module
80 GB

I'm also getting the swivel stand and iSight. Is there anything else I should consider? (floppy, Apple Care?) Do you think this will serve me well for college? Right now I'm in an undecided major, but I am considering journalism, graphics...unsure.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Office 2k4 is OK, I guess.

But I've been using my PowerBook every day for 2-3 hours since I got it this June, and the only programs that have ever crashed on me are Word, Word and Word. I really don't think Office 2k4 is worth it. The chart inserter won't do what you want, you can't change how the toolbar looks when you open Word... And it's not very stable. In my opinion, AppleWorks is a bit better than Word.

But I see what you mean. I do quite like the Notebook layout, since I'm a student.

And the icons are smexy!

I would say get a usb pen drive, better than a zip drive and a lot lighter also very cheap, I use mine to take files to a Gates Box

I upgraded this latest mac to superdrive, I purchased a pioneer 105 from ebay for £25 brand new, the new pioneer 108 is about £60 but needed a Gates Box to flash it with the firmware update.

So even if you just buy the combo drive model it can be upgraded at a later date.

Update....

I got my eMac at the end of August and I was a little hesitant to make a full switch...but I LOVE it.

It's so wonderful. I have Microsoft Office for Mac and I like that too....hasn't crashed yet.

Thanks for all the tips and advice!