iMac or New Mac Mini

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So my brother has a 20" G5 iMac. It's 2.0ghz 512mb of RAM and 250 gb hd. He is going to sell it to my mom for $500 because he just got a Macbook air. My mom was going to buy the low end Mac Mini, but she's not too sure which would be better. I was thinking the iMac because it has a screen and a larger hard drive, but the Mini has more ram and an intel processor. Also it has warrantee and the iMac doesn't

Which should my mom get? the computer is just going to be used for word processing, internet, and iChat. I might install Photoshop on it, but not sure yet.

Oh and the iMac has Tiger and obviously the Mini will have leopard.
 
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I would go for the iMac, you can always upgrade the RAM if you really need to. The Mac Mini costs $600 by itself, so add the price of a screen etc...the iMac works out a lot cheaper.
And for word processing, internet and iChat; you don't really need a load of RAM.
Leopard costs $130, if you feel the need to upgrade, but again for what she is looking to use it for it's not a must have.
As for the warranty, she would have to decide whether she is likely to break it...I can't say :), you could buy Apple Care anyway for the iMac anyway.
 
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can you buy apple care even if it's out of warrantee already? The computer is about 3 years old so I know it is definitely out of warantee.

Also, the computer has a lot of junk on it so I was wondering if I could reformat the hard drive without removing the OS. We don't have any of the disks.

And with the mini the keyboard, mouse and screen isn't a problem because we have all of that at home.
 
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I'm pretty sure you can purchase Apple Care outside of the warranty.

As for reformatting without the disks I'm not sure...Someone else might be able to answer that. You could always manually delete the junk, as long as your careful what folders and files you delete. Im guessing there is just iTunes, Documents, Apps, Photos and Videos you might want to discard.

It all comes down to; Is storage and RAM more important? Or the OS?

You could always give Apple a call, or drop in to one of their stores. You could also use their online chat through their website, but they read from a script so its pretty much limited to purchases related questions.
 
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I think I'm gonna tell my mom to go with the mini. Can you update the RAM on the mini?
 
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haha i meant upgrade
 
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Yes, theres a load of tutorials online ie YouTube is good. But as far as I'm aware it's fairly difficult. As opposed to an Apple notebook.
 
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dtravis7


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cool thanks a lot
 
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Id go for the Mac Mini, you can always get a cheap screen. Also I would suggest that you get a wireless keyboard and mouse with that because it will be a lot more efficient, plus you can't bear Leopard.
 
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Yeah I have I wireless microsoft keyboard and mouse already that my mom will be using. I hate it, but she seemed to like it on the G5 when we were using it.
 
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I would definitely go with the mini for your mother's needs.

Although the iMac G5 is still a nice machine, if and when Apple drops PPC (G4, G5 etc.) support (Rumoured to be with next year's Snow Leopard) then you will be stuck at Leopard for ever and will not be able to install any Intel only apps.

The Mini is therefore more future proof if she is intending to update the OS and/or any applications in the future.
 
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Yeah the Mini was the better choice, the Intel processor will have more longevity and greater support and compatibility.
 
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the mac mini for sure. I have had mine for about two years, core solo and have had no major problems whatsoever. I upgraded it to leopard, had a few issues. Did a clean install and it runs just as it used to. The mac mini is a really good investment
 
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Also I would suggest that you get a wireless keyboard



However, since she is going to use it for word processing, she would probably want the full keyboard. Wireless is only half, meaning that it is smaller with just the keys and no numbers on it. Her choice, I suppose, if she would rather half a slim wireless keyboard, or an almost equally thin full wired keyboard with the benefit of two added USB drives.
 
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My best friend has a mini. It works fine for what he wants to do, which is mainly web browsing, and movie editing. It has 1 GB of RAM, and he still has it working fine. However the extra $50 can't hurt to buy one more GB of RAM.
 

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