That'd be one very classy computer for $400. Not knowing enough about the particular iMacs you attempted an upgrade from Panther to Tiger on, I cannot comment there. However I have two macs approaching 7 years, I upgraded the RAM in both and they are both running tiger more than adequately.
The primary point I was making however is that there is a much higher turn around with PC's than there are with Macs, for numerous reasons. Your experience suggests otherwise for yourself, therefore I understand why you think this is untrue, as you clearly dont upgrade much, and you've had one bad experience with macs not upgrading nicely.
I know of dozens of mac users still running the older mac hardware and the latest apps.
To me this has the flavor of an urban legend. The only PCs I've seen at curbside in this upper middle-class suburb have been the Packard Bells of the mid-90s. That may be true, but how is how many PC's you've seen on the curbside in your so called upper middle class suburb a good indication of what is being discarded, what is being given away or donated? Thats like saying I've only seen three spiders this year, so the population must be like 20.
As well as this, with the newer Macs being so close in hardware specs to modern day QUALITY pc's, the main difference really is seen in the operating system itself, and a good part of why macs stay usable and current longer is a direct result of the operating system. With OS X being unix based, one can be pretty certain that the next few releases of the operating system will work acceptably if not well on the hardware you buy today.
Windows is becoming more demanding at a much faster rate on the required hardware specs, such as graphics card etc etc etc. As well as this, Macs are not predominantly known for gaming, although newer macs can handle reasonably new games very well. A very motivating factor in PC/Windows upgrades is when demanding games and software are released that require more RAM, hard disk space and Graphics crunching power. This factor alone pushes a lot of PC enthusiasts to upgrade more frequently than a mac user does.
Slashdot Mirror
That'd be one very classy computer for $400. Not knowing enough about the particular iMacs you attempted an upgrade from Panther to Tiger on, I cannot comment there. However I have two macs approaching 7 years, I upgraded the RAM in both and they are both running tiger more than adequately. The primary point I was making however is that there is a much higher turn around with PC's than there are with Macs, for numerous reasons. Your experience suggests otherwise for yourself, therefore I understand why you think this is untrue, as you clearly dont upgrade much, and you've had one bad experience with macs not upgrading nicely. I know of dozens of mac users still running the older mac hardware and the latest apps.
As well as this, with the newer Macs being so close in hardware specs to modern day QUALITY pc's, the main difference really is seen in the operating system itself, and a good part of why macs stay usable and current longer is a direct result of the operating system. With OS X being unix based, one can be pretty certain that the next few releases of the operating system will work acceptably if not well on the hardware you buy today.
Windows is becoming more demanding at a much faster rate on the required hardware specs, such as graphics card etc etc etc. As well as this, Macs are not predominantly known for gaming, although newer macs can handle reasonably new games very well. A very motivating factor in PC/Windows upgrades is when demanding games and software are released that require more RAM, hard disk space and Graphics crunching power. This factor alone pushes a lot of PC enthusiasts to upgrade more frequently than a mac user does.