Oldest Imac worth buying (used)?

[kjellquist]

Hey there...recent switcher here...just curious about people's opinion on the oldest Imac they would consider buying. I am getting a 14" iBook, but will probably be looking for an older Imac just as a 'web surfing terminal' for the office.

Any ideas and or leads on where to look? I mean other than eBay....I am aware and looking regularly.

 

[Paul Carlin]

I bought an iMac G3 600 from eBay at the weekend, which arrived today, and I'm typing on right now!!

So far I'm very pleased with it. Its fast and responsive enough for my needs, and I'm sure this will improve when I make the leap up to Panther in the coming days. Its certainly well up to the task of being a web surfing machine anyway! In fact, most any iMac probably still is - even the original Bondi Blue baby! Although a lot would depend on what OS and browser you were using with it

P.S. This is my first post on the forum! Hello! I've been a Mac man "in spirit" for many, many years now... my love for Macs was inspired by the LC475's I used to use at school and its all kind of grown from there!

 

[Padawan]

I would have to agree that any iMac is worth buying, especially for web-surfing. You mention the benefits of Panther, but I would also suggest increasing your RAM if you're looking for a performance boost. RAM is quite affordable and can make a notable difference in how smoothly a machine performs, especially when running OS X.

And welcome both of you to the Mac family and to the forums.

 

[NaRO]

Old iMacs good surfers xDD

Hey all, I'm new here (since i just changed mac a few months ago )
I have an iMac G3 running at 350 Mhz with 192 Mb RAM memory, it runs pretty nice Mac OS X (10.1.5) (Besides what i tought first ), I use the Mozilla Firebird browser and it works really nice to me when browsing, listening music on iTunes 4, and chatting on the MSN Messenger 3.5.1...

What i don't like is the Mac OS 9.2.2 (or earlier versions), since i got slow response when working, but using the new OSX i'm currently happy

 

[D3v1L80Y]

Panther runs just beautifully on my iMac. I have a 400Mhz DV SE with 256 RAM and it has no problems
running the latest OS. I would probably recomend at least a 400 Mhz G3 to run OS X 10.3 and at least 256MB for RAM. I will probably be upgrading the RAM to 512MB soon, so that will only improve it.

 

[imstillatwork]

you have to remember that the hard drive is the slowest point of data transfer iun a computer also., and those old 6 and 10 gb drives generaly have very slow seek and read speeds, uping to a newer 20 or 40 gb drive will speed your machine up a lot also. but you'll never reach the ultra320 scsi speeds like the ones i was building today

 

[Chamorro]

Any ideas and or leads on where to look? I mean other than eBay....I am aware and looking regularly.

There's always the classifieds. Also, check out http://www.craigslist.org. If you're near one of the areas listed, you should be able to find a local seller.

 

[maz94protege]

www.powermax.com has used imac g3's for cheap. with a warranty too...if you choose not to go with ebay. i just purchased a mac mini from a guy on here, i recieve it sometime this week, but im still lookin for an older imac for just internet surfing and bills etc. let me know what you come up with,

 

[Badger]

The slot-loading G3 models have better internal specs - faster CPUs, faster bus speeds, maximum RAM, larger hard drives and Firewire. Many slot-loaders came with CD-R or -RW drives while the tray loaders had CD-ROMs. While the older tray-loading models can be upgraded, the economics favor buying a better performer to start with. In addition, the slot-loaders can run Tiger without any workarounds like XpostFacto.

 

[jhelm007]

Hey there...recent switcher here...just curious about people's opinion on the oldest Imac they would consider buying. I am getting a 14" iBook, but will probably be looking for an older Imac just as a 'web surfing terminal' for the office.

Any ideas and or leads on where to look? I mean other than eBay....I am aware and looking regularly.

Try www.baucomcomputers.com www.wegenermedia.com and www.macofalltrades.com