Should I buy an eMac

[Ihatepcs]

I want to get a cheap mac. Would a 1 ghz+ G4 eMac work? I have an Acer 2 ghz pc with XP on it. I also have an 800 mhz G3 Ibook that needs to be fixed. Is an eMac comparable to my Acer for student use? Can it run Ilife aceptably? How does an eMac perform compared to my Ibook. Is a 1.25 GHZ eMac worth $250?

 

[MacGnG]

i HAD an emac/700 its still running i just gave it to my mom cause they got me a blackbook. mine wasnt fast enuf for me to even think about putting leopard on it but it might work. but for 250 im sure it would be great (my mom likes it so far... sooo much faster than her OOOLLLDD imac)

 

[tjbackstage]

eMacs are great machines that will last for a long time, just as any Mac desktop machine. I think $250 might be a little too high though. I just found a 1.42Ghz one with 1GB RAM, a 160GB HDD, and an AirPort card for $150 on Craigslist, but that one was quite low in price, so I'd say for the one you're looking at, $175-200 would be a fair price. You'll definitely see a speed jump from your iBook G3. The eMac would have a better, faster processor with double the cache. You can't really compare an eMac to an Acer machine because they are two completely different things. eMacs are probably the best machines you can get for the price, so I'd say go for it as long as it's at the right price. As far as iLife is concerned, features in iLife '08 and '09 are not supported on G4 machines and other features will surely go slow, so I'd recommend finding a copy of iLife '06. It'll be the best version (as well as the fastest) to run on any eMac. Hope that helps you!