Need advice: Repair emac or buy mac mini?

Hi,

My sister's 2.5 year old emac needs a new analog logic board. Repair will be $415. My sister uses her computer only for the Internet and Word documents. Is it smarter to make the repair or buy a new mini mac and monitor for $800? Anybody have advice? I'm curious if people think she could get another 2 years or so out of the repaired emac.

Thanks,
Dave

this all depends on wether or not you want to spend the money on a monitor, i would say yes to getting the mini in a heartbeat if you already had a monitor

a repaired logic board should last for a long time
-chris

If that is all your sis uses the computer for, then I personally think it would be wiser to either buy a refurbed system from Apple or maybe even on off an auction site. You can get a 'new' eMac off eBay for the same price of that repair... maybe less. Still, if she isn't going to use the computer for any other than what you described, then it really isn't that necessary to get something brand spanking new in my opinion.

If your sister is still in school or in the educational field, you can get the new education imac...

check out this page!!

http://www.apple.com/support/emac/repairextensionprogram/

if your serial # is affected, apple may fix it free!

I would go for the new Mac Mini.