Should I buy an older Imac?

Looking at a "snow", and "Graphite" 500-600 MHZ single box machines.I just need cdrw,as I have several DVD players in the house,and these seem extremely reasonable.What is the downside to an older machine for someone who surfs and does word processing?
Any tips or advise,as to what to avoid, memory etc? What is the life of an Imac if taken care of?

Thanks
alan
[email protected]

(Any in DFW for sale from this board?)

Why not get an eMac?

tracer said:

Looking at a "snow", and "Graphite" 500-600 MHZ single box machines.I just need cdrw,as I have several DVD players in the house,and these seem extremely reasonable.What is the downside to an older machine for someone who surfs and does word processing?
Any tips or advise,as to what to avoid, memory etc? What is the life of an Imac if taken care of?

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What sort of budget are you working within? I use a 300 MHz G3 on a daily basis for web surfing, email, and other occasional uses. It's perfectly adequate for all of my needs, so a 500+ MHz iMac will work fine for what you're describing (though it clearly won't be blazingly fast).

The two main things I would suggest when searching for one would be to make sure the machine has at least 512 MB of RAM (if not, upgrading isn't very expensive or difficult), and to try to find a machine that includes OS X 10.3 (Panther).

mynameis said:

Why not get an eMac?

Click to expand...

Older Imac is $200-350 cheaper.
tracer

tracer said:

Older Imac is $200-350 cheaper.
tracer

Click to expand...

How much are you looking to spend?

mynameis said:

How much are you looking to spend?

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They generally bring $300-400.
Tracer

If you can afford it, go with the eMac. G3 iMacs sell pretty high for their low performance, compared to the eMac. It's much faster, has a 17" screen, accepts more memory than the G3 iMac, bigger harddisk, combo-drive (software comes on DVD), it's new...It's just simply much better.

If you find a G3 for $150-$200,- (with at least 256MB memory) then go for it, but I doubt that. But IMO, it's not worth more...especially not since the Mac mini's out.

Or, if you have a screen, USB-keyboard and mouse, get a Mac mini. More or less same performance than the eMac, less bulky, very silent...and costs about $499,- (plus $59,- for the keyboard+mouse, in case you don't have any).

I have an indigo iMac G3/350 mHz that a friend gave me and although it doesn't have a burner like you'd like it works jsut fine for basic applications. I have it in my kitchen which is nice for the compact size and all. I't on DSL and is plenty fast for internet also.

What about www.megamacs.com

An older iMac would be okay for basic surfing and non intensive programs. The more RAM the better, though. I prefer buying RAM from Comp USA as they usually have a Mac person, and its cheaper than buying from Apple stores.

The ram will probably tack like ~$70 for a 250MB stick of RAM. Make sure to know your Model from APPLE > About this Mac before/if you buy so you/they can look up the type of RAM used in the Apple specifications PDF for that Model.

i bought a iMac G3 400mhz from ebay. after buying my PM and iBook, and i love it, i use it for some excel and websurfing, and having it hooked to a cable line, for a 400mhz with 128 ram, i am really suprised how fast this thing is, even compared to my pc with a 3gig cpu, loaded webpages is almost the same. very nice if your cramped for space.