Question for Digital Media Pros on whether a Mac would be for me?

College Student Needs Buying Advice on Older Macs

Hello and thanks for reading.

Will be starting some more classes in August. No longer have my mac, but a WInPC with an AMD x2.

Like to get a little older mac again (older due to money allowed to spend).

Want to mess with Photoshop CS2 or CS3, FInal Cut Express or similar, web designing, etc, etc.

Am not concerned about future Snow Leopard. Had a 1GHZ G4 with Leopard and it ran great.

What about a G5 Dual? Lots of concerns on the expensive logic boards though. See the G5's on eBay for around 500.00

Would be better off (and safer) getting the Dual 1.42Ghz G4 with 2GB ram, and a 64mb video? Easy to replace parts and upgrade.

Money is seriously an issue, so I cannot afford a newer intel mac right now.

One more question...how about the used Apple Cinema displays like the 20" and 22" you see on eBay? Be nice to have a matching display and the reviews are great on them.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Brian.

If the readies run to it see if you can find a Late 2005 Dual Core G5. These beats came in 2GHz, 2.3GHZ and a 2.5GHz with a 250GB SATA drive as standard and PCI-E. Can cope with up to 16GB memory. The standard graphics card, nVidia GeForce 6600 PCI-E card will run the displays you mention.

Coffee1970 said:

One more question...how about the used Apple Cinema displays like the 20" and 22" you see on eBay? Be nice to have a matching display and the reviews are great on them.

Click to expand...

On eBay, those are generally overpriced... grossly overpriced.
Any standard LCD display with a DVI connection would work fine.

Basically, for the price some yahoos expect to get for an Apple display, you could have purchased a much nicer, larger, brand-new one.
Matching it to the computer is overrated and usually much more costly.

Yeah I figured as much. Seen the 20" go for about 200.00 and that's what I paid for my Westinghouse 22" which is really a great monitor for the price.

Hello once again, and thank you for reading.

After trying to figure what lower-priced Mac that I could afford for school...I am left with this question for some of you graphic designers and website designers.....

If I already have a WInXP machine with a AMD x2 5050e, 2 GB Ram, Soundblaster Audigy, and a ATI x1650Pro video card.......

Is it worth investing in a Mac to begin with? I would like to learn more on the OSX and the Mac in general as it is still highly used in the career field...I have seen job descriptions where knowing a Mac was a definite plus.

The Mac I could afford would not be more powerful than my WinXP, just different (and yes, more stable). (mini, G5, Dual g4, etc)

Comments and Advice from the experts out there would really be appreciated.

Thank you,

Brian.

Well if it's any use, I used to be a Windows person, but once you go MAC, you wont go back! Their basic media iMOVIE and iPHOTO 09 are far superior then anything Microsoft offer. I changed completely because of my photography and mini movies I make and a mac is just perfect for what i do, simply because it just works, not some of the time like windows, but all of the time!

Well Depends on what "older" means to you. Cause What a good Mac would be great for you and classes would be a MacBook White and you can still have tiger on it.? great for the Adobe programs still