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whereas Macs are always the same price, no drops, no competitive pricing, nothing. A macbook is a macbook is $1,099 is $1,099. No matter where you go.

Cheap used machines.

http://powermax.com/cpus/used_by_model.html

A dual-G4 may have cut it, but all else being I prefer to avoid eBay and I prefer to get a machine that's under warranty.

I don't do eBay either, I've had enough problems with personal sales when I've known the guy who I'm dealing with.

I'm talking about places like Powermax.

a dual-G4 would be significantly slower than the Athlon64 I got

You think my G3/400 wasn't? :)

If you'd dedicate one half of the time you probably spend searching for the latest drive bay cooling accessory for your fire hazard PC to researching the current Apple hardware market, you would find that thousands are not required to play in the OS X sandbox.

Currently at the Apple Store, a brand-spankin' new eMac is $800.00. Not thousands. Runs OS X delightfully.

At PowerMax (used Mac retailer), a used PowerMac G4 AGP can be had for just $479.00. Not thousands. Runs OS X perfectly acceptably. With processor upgrade & hot graphics card, runs OS X delightfully.

If you're happy with your system, great. Be happy, and peace to you. But don't parrot on the same old tired lies about the "thousands" required to use Apple products.

Power Max computers carries an extensive selection of quality used and Apple certified reconditioned Macs in all models! You can pick up used ibooks, imacs, G4 graphite towers, even the G4 cube, at bargain prices! Go now! Look at all the perfectly good used macs $500.00 and up!

feh, used to be $600. They're scaling back.

I could even trade in my iMac and Studio Display at PowerMax, but I'd probably only get $300-400 for it. Being optimistic, $400 + $600 = $1000.

Dual G5 2.5Ghz with all the bells and whistles = 2999
23" HD Cinema Display = 1999
Discounts = 1000
Tax = ~.05

If I'm lucky, I'd walk away paying $4500. I'm also an Apple Developer, so I'd get another discount there, or buy through work for being an Apple parnter for science and research facilities, so let's say $4000. I paid $1600 TOTAL last time around. Yikes.

Yeah, okay I could finance the monster out for as long as 5 years, which is just totally insane. I've had my iMac for 2 years and I'm already looking at getting rid of it, so financing at the best possible interest rate Apple offers would for 24 months comes out to $192/mo. For a computer. People pay that much for a CAR or even other people to put a roof over their heads. My wife would kill me if I didn't have the cash saved up ahead of time, and if I did, she'd say there are far better things for me to spend my money on.

I'll never win. :P

The majority of my contacts with Mac customers entail software issues, the vast majority of those involving lack of disk maintenance. I usually run Norton's Disk Doctor and Speed Disk, charge a nominal fee and send them on their merry ways.

Then, I get a lot of machines from do-it-yourselfers who get stuck out of their depth. They buy crappy memory, put it in themselves, and then wonder why their machine freezes on POST after a few uses. They don't jumper ATA hard drives correctly. They don't know about the excellent third-party hardware installation support from this site. I make quite a bit on those ;-)

Next, I see a lot of stuff that has just plain worn out. Especially hard drives. Some people's drives are adversely affected by moving from drier, mainland climes to the humidity here, but Apple customers--by and large--wear their stuff out. I just had to turn away someone who wanted her Apple IIe fixed (the spring that ejected her floppies was worn out).

Electricity here isn't the stable commodity it is on the mainland, so I see more damage due to that than I would normally. Some early iMacs have weak flyback transformers that don't stand up well under fluctuating power and monster thunderstorms.

I don't carry a parts inventory and I advise customers with machines older than the original Power Macintosh G3 to get another machine. I refer them either to Apple's website or to Powermax because used Macs retain their resale value and are usually a great buy.

My only regret is that I can't sell new Macs. Oh, well... surf's up.

Just out of curiousity, how much does a 17" powerbook with 1G of ram cost?

Just got a refurbed 17" 1Ghz Al Powerbook from PowerMax for $2200. It came with 512MB RAM. You can get another 512MB of RAM for it for about $100.

At 6.9lbs and less than 1" thick it's a much more elegant solution than this Acer monstrosity.

I suppose you kinda have to find someone to buy the old one, but you're right, 1-year-old Apple notebooks don't drop very much.

If you don't like eBay, try PowerMax. Call them and give them specs; they'll quote you a price.

For those in the Portland area, they're in a business park in Lake Oswego. It's the same company as the Portland Mac Store (formerly The Computer Store) at Lloyd Center. For the rest of you, you can ship it via FedEx/UPS/ABX/whatever.

Yikes!!
That's a bunch for an iBook. I don't work for any of the following companies but I do keep an eye on the used Mac marketplace. Ebay is not a buyers market btw.
As of this writing Smalldog has an 800MHz iBook for $899.
Macofalltrades usually has good deals on portables and desktop Macs.
MacResQ has good deals occasionally(sp?).
I would certainly put PowerMax at the bottom of the list pricewise. They want $729.00 for a G4 400 desktop!!
Macofalltrades wants $500 for a better equipped G4 450
Note: direct links subject to not work as both sites update stock quite regularly.

To keep this post somewhat on-topic, I want a Pegasos. They are supposed to support up to a PowerPC G4 MPC 7450. A G4 @ 1GHz is still a lot of computer.

Yikes!!
That's a bunch for an iBook. I don't work for any of the following companies but I do keep an eye on the used Mac marketplace. Ebay is not a buyers market btw.
As of this writing Smalldog has an 800MHz iBook for $899.
Macofalltrades usually has good deals on portables and desktop Macs.
MacResQ has good deals occasionally(sp?).
I would certainly put PowerMax at the bottom of the list pricewise. They want $729.00 for a G4 400 desktop!!
Macofalltrades wants $500 for a better equipped G4 450
Note: direct links subject to not work as both sites update stock quite regularly.

To keep this post somewhat on-topic, I want a Pegasos. They are supposed to support up to a PowerPC G4 MPC 7450. A G4 @ 1GHz is still a lot of computer.

Or a used iBook from PowerMax: a white G3/500 is about about $839.

If you are a student, you can get the eMac for $749. Or checking Apple's refurbished deals there is a refurbished G3/700 iBook for $799 (non-educational price).

Okay, an admission: I have OS X 10.2.6 running on a beige box. It was formerly a 266mhz G3 but I upgraded it to a 366mhz G3 for about $40 (actually it was the 1mb cache I wanted, cuz the 266 only had a 512k cache). Through other cheap acquisitions I boosted the RAM to 512mb and added a 40gb ATA/100 drive (yes it required an ATA card). But it's just a pokey little home server that we use for email, network backups, sharing a printer, etc. I do real work on a G4. It's just not worth running Photoshop and Freehand and Microsoft Awfuss on OS X on such a slow computer.

So I'd agree with the general consensus: just buy an eMac. Get something used if you have to (Small Dog and PowerMax usually have good deals). But if you must upgrade, at least do it cheap: check out OtherWorld Computing and MacSolutions for good deals on upgrade parts of all types.

• Beige G3 Desktop with rev a motherboard
• stock 233Mhz G3 processor
• 512MB of RAM
• 20GB, 5400RPM ATA hard drive
• stock 2MB Rage IIc video
• stock 24x ATAPI CD-ROM drive
• Generic two port USB card
• Generic three port FireWire card
• Apple Multiple Scan 17" Display (1024x768 max)
• AppleDesign Keyboard, Apple Bus Mouse II
• Yamaha 8x/4x/24x SCSI CD-RW drive in an old external SCSI enclosure

Guide to Mac CPUsThis is Apple's own site for detailed specs on all their machines ever. I'm starting you off on the page for older machines to remind you that a well-configured 1996 Mac w/ a USB/Firewire card can run OSX just fine, thank you very much.

Mac of All TradesGetcher used macs here! Pretty visuals, delicious prices, detailed info. Selection could be better and there's no old stuff at all but I can deal with that. Have I bought from them yet? Nope. Am I likely to in the future? Yep.

MacResqThe best place I've found overall to pick up gear. Even the guys in that article figured that out.

Focus of Mac Hardware good workaday resource for doing mods. No cool toys. Considerable good data.

Missoula Mac User Group, Yeah, I know that you haven't heard of them; neither has anybody else outside of Montana AFAIK. Best place for overall newbie resources.

Powermax Cheesy setup, improving selection, good prices.

ResExcellence In the old days I would have suggested MacFixit, but these guys have taken their place. If you've been in the Mac world for a while you'll recognize them as the old-time source extraordinaire of ResEdit hacks.

Small Dog Shrinking selection, great quality, excellent service, annoying interface. Bottom line, these are the guys to turn to for premium service, support, and savvy. Been around quite a while and, hey, they enclose coupons for Ben and Jerry's.

applefritter. They've built Macs into everything from 1930's radios to LEGO people to ziplock bags. You can't buy anything there, but still much fun.

Think Secret Nice little rumor site. Some cool moments.

Of course, for those of us in the New York City area, there's always TekServe, an Apple and media gear mecca. You want to know what Lou Reed, Jam Master Jay, or Oliver Pratt are using? Ask them. You want toys? They got 'em. Ten cent cokes, vintage radios, serious testing gear, and a massive knowledge base. Hell, I once even applied for a job there when it would have meant giving up a far-better paying sysadmin gig. If they're good enough for Steve J., then they're worth a look.


Oh, by the way, the last time that I posted this list I included Shreve. What did I say?
ShreveExpensive, distracting, but the best place to get weird low-end stuff like Mac Plus manuals and Daystar cards.
There. You all feeling better now?
Rustin

When OS X first came to sale, XP didn't exist.
Windows 2k did.

Windows2k cost considerably more than XP Home and XP Pro. Even today, I think Win2k costs more.

But yes, you are quite right that XP Home and XP Pro are 'in line' with OS X, but the $199 price for XP Pro are higher than OS X. There is no 'XP Home' version of OS X, since OS X is multiprocessor out of the box, it has all services and servers that XP Pro does, as well as networking functionality, and it has the full suit of security features, whereas XP Home does not but XP Pro does.

OS X's equivalent to Windows 2k Server, OS X Server (10 client license) costs $499 to Microsoft's $900 on Pricewatch. Windows 2k Advanced Server, with 25 clients, is $1200, while OS X Server *unlimited* license is $1k.

In all feature for feature price points, Apple is priced less than Microsoft. XP Home is an anomaly because there is no stripped down version of OS X comparable to home. Microsoft makes the home/business distinction, and Apple does not.

Finally... you didn't seem to understand my point about used Macs.

There are whole years where Apple sold Macs *without* OS X 10.2, 10.1, 10.0, or OS 9. You claim then that all boxes of OS X are upgrades, rather than full versions.

Look at PowerMax and you'll see a whole catalog of older Macs that never had OS X; perhaps you claim all these machines, running OS 9.1 or OS 8.6 or whatever, merely 'upgrade' to OS X?

In which case I think that's a semantic difference, the same way that I would claim then that installing Linux on a Windows 95 PC is an 'upgrade' too.

Mac of All Trades Getcher used macs here! Pretty visuals, delicious prices, detailed info. Selection could be better and there's no old stuff at all but I can deal with that. Have I bought from them yet? Nope. Am I likely to in the future? Yep.

MacResq The best place I've found overall to pick up gear. Even the guys in that article figured that out.

Powermax Cheesy setup, improving selection, good prices.

Shreve Expensive, distracting, but the best place to get weird low-end stuff like Mac Plus manuals and Daystar cards.

Small Dog Shrinking selection, great quality, excellent service, annoying interface. Bottom line, these are the guys to turn to for premium service, support, and savvy. Been around quite a while and, hey, they enclose coupons for Ben and Jerry's.

Guide to Mac CPUsThis is Apple's own site for detailed specs on all their machines ever. I'm starting you off on the page for older machines to remind you that a well-configured 1996 Mac w/ a USB/Firewire card can run OSX just fine, thank you very much.

Focus of Mac Hardware good workaday resource for doing mods. No cool toys. Considerable good data.

Missoula Mac User Group, Yeah, I know that you haven't heard of them; neither has anybody else outside of Montana AFAIK. Best place for overall newbie resources.

ResExcellence In the old days I would have suggested MacFixit, but these guys have taken their place. If you've been in the Mac world for a while you'll recognize them as the old-time source extraordinaire of ResEdit hacks.

Think Secret The only rumor site I like that I forgot to mention yesterday.

Okay, moving right along. CPUs. Those yahoos think that the only option is to start from scratch. Get a clue. The last pre-Jobs big boxes kicked almighty ass. Amelio may not have been a gifted businessman but he was a much better heavy gear guy. As far as I'm concerned your best bet for DIY is to buy an 8600. It'll be $230, tops. You get a great case, big power supply, floppy drive, cables, and so on. Probably also a Zip, for which I will pity you as that model of Zip just LOVED to come down with the Click o' Death. Even if you flat throw out all the electronics you're still way ahead of starting from a place like Tom's.
Next, processor speed. When will those yahoos figure it out? Before you get obsessed with latest and greatest ask yourself, "what exactly will I be DOING with this machine?" If you're running stuff like BBEdit (ah, my one true love!) or Photoshop for still work then any 400MHz box with fast drives and plenty of RAM will be, for all intents and purposes, instantanteous. Buying anything faster just means that you're acting like the small-donged dimwits who buy $20K stereos to get fidelity five times better then they can hear.
Drives. I'm always amazed at how terrified Windoze-damaged (let alone *nix) folks are at the thought of external drives. Get over it, already. On a Mac all that driver clash claptrap is a distant and not very credible folktale. Get a basic little 6 Gig internal and invest your money in external Firewire devices. You think this LAN party stuff is cool? On a Mac pretty much any well configured boot drive will boot any similar recent Mac. Stop carrying your entire box with you; stick to drives. Even better, get two or three smaller ones instead of one big one and, short of FBI seizures and vast fires, you become crash proof. Mac dies? Plug your drive (you did remember to back up your core data, right?) into another Mac and you're up and running again in minutes.
The future. If you're such an almighty techie that you just *need* to build a new cooler world every year or so, then remember, Mach kernel plus gigabit ethernet equals mongo shared resources. Even if you're too lazy to set up a formal Beowolf system, it's pretty damned easy to just keep adding machines and splitting the jobs between them. Instead of buying a whole new box, maybe you should just buy a second one and start spreading load to it.
OSes. Yup. No question, Jaguar is pretty spiffy. But almost every vendor site above (as well as eBay and co.) will sell you older legit disks and serial num.s for about fifty bucks. If you buy from a place like Small Dog you'll even be clearing out some of that famed Apple back inventory.
That's it. You want more? Then go to my site already (though best to wait a few weeks for my next redesign). Want more then that? Then pay me and I'll think about it.
Promising to not ever again use up time posting tutorials on /.,
Rustin

Most of this was written to help a friend out, I've updated it to reflect the situation you've discribed. I've included a couple of URL's below that should help in your search for a good Mac for your purposes. It might be worth noting that when you're buying an Apple, it often is a better deal to get a refurbished model and purchase additional AppleCare service agreements. Any reputable dealer will have more information on this for you, if you ask.

Go for MHz over memory. Memory can be added later. Invest in MHz. Also, it seems to be more prudent to buy your memory separately from the computer, for the dealers often use memory to pad the profit margin. For instance, Apple's current rate for 512MB memory on the PowerMac G4 is $300, vs. $71 at a memory retailer. Same thing goes for hard disk drives, though the difference won't be as great, and depending on the model it may be less trouble to buy what they're offering than to do the upgrade yourself. For reference, I have recently found an 80GB 7200RPM drive with an 8MB Buffer for about $114. That's a large, fast drive that surpasses most OEM hardware...

One thing you may want to keep in mind is that Macworld New York is coming up at the end of the month, and Apple may be introducing new hardware, or updating current line-ups at that time. The signs are good, and point to some changes I've been anxiously awaiting for some time now. For instance, Apple recently introduced xServe, which is a rackmount server with a motherboard that uses DDR memory. This change in memory type is an advance that should have been made some time ago, and may percolate down to the non-server models at Macworld NY. If you must buy now, go with the xServe, 1GHz Dual processor: as a professional, it would not be a bad investment. As a home user, it probably isn't suited to your needs, so a tower would be a better choice, but that DDR sure looks yummy!

http://dealmac.com/
Tips on hardware and software deals.

http://dealnn.com/
Tips on hardware and software deals. Different though.

http://www.ramseeker.com/
Good memory prices, provides merchant reviews. Another deal-site, not a retailer.

http://www.powermax.com/
Reasonable retailer, offers new, used and refurbished. Does packages.

http://www.smalldog.com/
http://www.smalldog.com/SmallDogPriceList.txt
Another reasonable retailer, offers new, used and refurbished. Does packages too. Second address is for the pricelist, gives a No BS rundown of the equipment they carry.

Now I've only listed a couple of places here, if you want more let me know. I think you'll notice that the big names (The Apple Store, MacMall, Etc.) aren't listed above, because I figured you could find those easily enough. If you want a list of big guys, email me. They have good deals too sometimes.

Oh, forgot to mention - Apple runs all kinds of rebates and promo's all the time so check their site out for the forms and such. And you don't always have to purchase directly from Apple to qualify, either.

I know I've not answered every specific question, but hopefully you haven't been too swamped with replies at this point and this will help with your purchase.

Good Luck!

PS: I bought an Power Mac G4 450 DP when they were first announced about two years ago, and still use it day-to-day for motion graphics, web development, video work, and fun. I've got 768MB RAM, and am running OS X v. 10.1.5, and my biggest bottleneck at this point is my hard disk drive speed. I will probably be investing in the drive I mentioned above: Western Digital model #WD800JB can be found on PriceWatch.com by searching for "8mb 7200" and if you want the larger model (120GB) look for model #WD1200JB.

I've got a PowerBook G3/333 which I'm actually using right now. I got in in September of 99 and it's been chugging along quite fine since then. I've put OS10 on it and it runs great and with almost half of the BSD ports collection working on Darwin I have lots of tools to work with. I really love the PowerBook line because you get a good deal of horsepower and plenty of time working off the battery. You can find the G3 PBs for 1300$ and under at powermax.com used.
In my experience OS10 works great on my PB including REALLY fast wakeup times from sleep mode. However if MacOS isn't exactly your thing theres lots of fairly well supported options to choose from. You can use just the Darwin core to which 2000 BSD Ports work (for the most part) on or another variant of BSD. For the hardcore Linuxytes there's always YDL or LinuxPPC. YDL I know is supposed to work really well on these and before OS10 came out I was really close to sticking it on here. Some people bitch and moan about a lack of legacy connection ports on the G3 PBs but I don't miss anything really and if you NEED certain connections there's always USB connected port replicators for serial and ADB ports. I get good battery life and good performance so I'll put in my suggestion for a Mac laptop which includes new or older iBooks which have the same features as PBs but with a smaller screen.

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