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Your recommendations for the best older Mac to buy..

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Macbook Pro 2.16 Ghz C2D, 2 Gigs RAM and Macbook 2 Ghz CD 1 Gig RAM
My girlfriend and I want to get an older Mac just to use for web browsing, instant messaging, and some basic stuff like word processing. I would like it to be fairly fast, but it doesn't need to run anything intense like Photoshop or 3D games. I would like something over 400 Mhz at the very least. What would your recommendation be for the best older Mac? Keep in mind I don't want to spend more than 3 or 400 dollars on it. Thanks for your suggestions!
 
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White MacBook, 2.0 ghz Intel Core 2, 2GB ram||[G4 Imac Flat Panel] |800mhz|1Gb RAM|60gb HDD
Try to find anything with a G4 processor. They can be fast as long as you add lots of ram.
 
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iBook G4, 1.5GB RAM, 1.42Ghz, 14"
A refurb G5 may come to you for that price if you search enough or eBay it. G4s are ok IMO, but G5s are better. I have 1.5GB of RAM in my iBook G4 and it was faster with the factory amount.
 
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rift0065
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My girlfriend REALLY wants one of the old iMac G3s, the CRT ones with all the bright colors.. How well would one of these hold up now? BTW the one i am looking at has OS 10.3 installed.
 
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It will run ok. It will be a bit slow though. It will do the things you want to do fine. But its not really the best investment for the times. I'd recommend at least a G4.
 
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I have a G4 Sawtooth, 400mhz, with 512mb ram. For the age and the specs of the machine, it performs amazingly. I can have iTunes, Safari, MSN, and iWeb going with slight lag.

My advice would to be find a G4 desktop, something 400mhz or above, and put as much ram as you can into it. Also, turn the display depth to "thousands of colors" instead of "millions of colors".
 
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Pittsburgh, PA
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1.5ghz Powerbook G4 17" 2gb RAM
My girlfriend and I want to get an older Mac just to use for web browsing, instant messaging, and some basic stuff like word processing. I would like it to be fairly fast, but it doesn't need to run anything intense like Photoshop or 3D games. I would like something over 400 Mhz at the very least. What would your recommendation be for the best older Mac? Keep in mind I don't want to spend more than 3 or 400 dollars on it. Thanks for your suggestions!

i dont understand this at all becuase I am currently looking for a mini and you can find minis with like 1.4ghz G4's for like 400-450. Why not just build up a little more cash and go that route?
 
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Black MacBook Black 2GB iPod Nano & Black 80GB iPod Classic B&W G3 G4's - PowerMac & Cube
I have 1.5GB of RAM in my iBook G4 and it was faster with the factory amount.

Sorry, but are you saying it ran better with less RAM? I don't know if I believe that.

I would also say that a G4 would beet your needs. Probably a PowerMac or one of the laptops would be your best and cheapest option. G3's are pretty slow, and I would guess that they won't be supported for much longer. G5's are going to cost more, but you will get more performance out of them. Where price and performance meet is probably with a G4 PowerMac.
 
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White MacBook, 2.0 ghz Intel Core 2, 2GB ram||[G4 Imac Flat Panel] |800mhz|1Gb RAM|60gb HDD
My girlfriend REALLY wants one of the old iMac G3s, the CRT ones with all the bright colors.. How well would one of these hold up now? BTW the one i am looking at has OS 10.3 installed.

A G3 imac with OS X is quite sluggish, it's fine if all you want to do is browse the web and maybe listen to some tunes, but once you start getting apps open it will be even more sluggish.

I wouldn't recommend it. In your price range a G4 will do you just fine IMO. Sure a G5 would be better, but I don't think you will find one in that price range.
 
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MacBook Pro 15" 2.2GHz/4GB/250GB, G4 Cube 450MHz + 17" Studio LCD
I used to have a G3 400Mhz iMac with 640mb RAM and it is OK to run iTunes/Camino/Adium/MS Word but slows down with more than 1 tab when browsing etc.

My G4 450MHz Cube with 1GB RAM feels much faster, but still slows down with a few tabs open.

A 1GHz+ G4 eMac should have good performance if you like the all in one design but don't have a big budget, but a G5 iMac would be better performing.
 
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rift0065
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Macbook Pro 2.16 Ghz C2D, 2 Gigs RAM and Macbook 2 Ghz CD 1 Gig RAM
Hey thanks for all the suggestions.. we actually ended up buying a 800mhz G4 eMac with 640 RAM. Thanks wicker man for reminding me of eMacs! I had completely forgotten about them. My girlfriend likes the design since it is similar to the iMac, so hopefully this will work out as a basic web and homework computer.

EDIT: Forgot to mention what I payed, 150 plus shipping, so not a bad deal I think.
 
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rift0065
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Macbook Pro 2.16 Ghz C2D, 2 Gigs RAM and Macbook 2 Ghz CD 1 Gig RAM
I didn't want to open a new thread just for this question, but which version of OS X do you think would run better on this older computer? I have a copy of Jaguar and Tiger. I am assuming Jaguar would be the better choice since it is older and probably optimized for older systems.. or am I wrong and is Tiger faster?
 
M

MacHeadCase

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Jaguar was pretty unstable from my user experience. The best OS X version ever used so far is one you don't have, unfortunately: Mac OS X 10.3.x (specially 10.3.9) Panther.

That OS was rock steady and I enjoyed it immensely.
 
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Black MacBook Black 2GB iPod Nano & Black 80GB iPod Classic B&W G3 G4's - PowerMac & Cube
You are probably fine with either one. I think it's perfectly capable of running Tiger.
 
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rift0065
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Macbook Pro 2.16 Ghz C2D, 2 Gigs RAM and Macbook 2 Ghz CD 1 Gig RAM
Actually i DO have Panther, but one of the disks is scratched beyond hope (2 year old and 6 year old, go figure..) In this case it would be legal to download a copy from newsgroups or torrent though, since I own a copy, correct?
 
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iBook G4, 1.5GB RAM, 1.42Ghz, 14"
Jeff,
I kid you not, when I had the RAM upgraded my iBook G4 actually got slower. I don't know why, but it did. I have repaired the permissions time and time again, nothing seems to help. I don't even remember what it had, but now it has 1.5 GB and is actually SLOWER than it was before. I don't know what kind of "bizarro world" it is that more=less, but that is my experience. Do you have a suggestion I may try? I think I can safely assume I won't get flamed here for asking a question like I did at the other Mac forum. Thanks in advance! :) Safari is ungodly slow, as is the whole slew of MS workings. However, the Finder comes up faster than before.
 
Joined
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Kansas
Your Mac's Specs
Black MacBook Black 2GB iPod Nano & Black 80GB iPod Classic B&W G3 G4's - PowerMac & Cube
When you installed more RAM, did you upgrade OS's or anything?
 
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Virginia
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iBook G4, 1.5GB RAM, 1.42Ghz, 14"
I actually had a local store do it. I have the latest OS with the latest updates. It went in with the same thing it came out with. It's baffling.....
 
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Black MacBook Black 2GB iPod Nano & Black 80GB iPod Classic B&W G3 G4's - PowerMac & Cube
I'd raise *heck* with the store. They gave you the exact opposite of what you paid them to do.
 
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iBook G4, 1.5GB RAM, 1.42Ghz, 14"
Well I am actually a bit scared of the insane woman that runs it. She threatened me the first time I went in there, and cussed her head off about miniscule things. I laugh when I leave but am on edge when I go in!
 

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