- Joined
- Jan 12, 2005
- Messages
- 670
- Reaction score
- 23
- Points
- 18
- Location
- Ceres, Ca
- Your Mac's Specs
- iPad 32 GB 3G
My story is I'm basically the IT department for a small business (among other duties) and I'm also the IT department for my extended family (and all of their friends apparently), and after having to clean the viruses and malware and whatnot off of everyones computers for the zillionth time (not at work, I keep that fairly well locked down) I talked the father of the main source of the problems (teenagers) into buying some old G3 iMacs for all his kids. I haven't really messed with Apples since I my old Lisa XL bit the dust quite a few years ago, but setting up all these "new" systems has certainly sparked my interest in them again.
I'm now recomending Macs to everyone (mostly in an effort to salvage my weekends and free time :bandage: ) I was going to pre-order a mini when they first started advertising but thought that an older iMac would be good enough to play with for now to get a feel for everything. I picked up an iMac G3-400 just for funsies for $100 off of eBay with OSX.3 allready installed.
It's been a real blast setting it up and exploring some of the features of Panther, but suffering from gadgetitis I want to pick up a newer system and pass on my G3 iMac to my neice and nephew. I'm putting it off right now, however, because from all I've been able to find on these forums, when Tiger comes out it will not be a free upgrade. Am I correct in this? I mean if I pick up a Mini for $500 (more likely $800+) am I then going to want to fork out another $129 so I can have to latest and greatest? I'd think that Apple would have a free or low cost upgrade path for people that have recently purchased a new system (like the free upgrade coupon dell provided when the Windows XP release was immentent), but I have yet to find anything that suggests Apple would do this.
So then, should I just wait for the release of Tiger or is there an upgrade path I'm unaware of or is it far enough away in the future that I should just go ahead and buy something now? I'm also considering a 17" iMac G5 instead of the Mini, but don't know if I want to fork out the $$$ for what would be my 3rd realitivly new system (I've got a 3.4 Ghz P4 PC and a 3 Ghz P4 laptop as it is, not to mention the G3-400 iMac, an iPaq 2215, and a Smartphone)
Also, the specs on the Mini seem a bit light...would I get it and then be unsatisfied with it's performance and want to upgrade to a G5 anyways?
I'm now recomending Macs to everyone (mostly in an effort to salvage my weekends and free time :bandage: ) I was going to pre-order a mini when they first started advertising but thought that an older iMac would be good enough to play with for now to get a feel for everything. I picked up an iMac G3-400 just for funsies for $100 off of eBay with OSX.3 allready installed.
It's been a real blast setting it up and exploring some of the features of Panther, but suffering from gadgetitis I want to pick up a newer system and pass on my G3 iMac to my neice and nephew. I'm putting it off right now, however, because from all I've been able to find on these forums, when Tiger comes out it will not be a free upgrade. Am I correct in this? I mean if I pick up a Mini for $500 (more likely $800+) am I then going to want to fork out another $129 so I can have to latest and greatest? I'd think that Apple would have a free or low cost upgrade path for people that have recently purchased a new system (like the free upgrade coupon dell provided when the Windows XP release was immentent), but I have yet to find anything that suggests Apple would do this.
So then, should I just wait for the release of Tiger or is there an upgrade path I'm unaware of or is it far enough away in the future that I should just go ahead and buy something now? I'm also considering a 17" iMac G5 instead of the Mini, but don't know if I want to fork out the $$$ for what would be my 3rd realitivly new system (I've got a 3.4 Ghz P4 PC and a 3 Ghz P4 laptop as it is, not to mention the G3-400 iMac, an iPaq 2215, and a Smartphone)
Also, the specs on the Mini seem a bit light...would I get it and then be unsatisfied with it's performance and want to upgrade to a G5 anyways?