Should I stay or should I Go!

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hello... first time user here! Had some questions concerning whether or not to purchase a New G5 Imac 20" or If I should wait to see if Mac gets their act together and reconfigures some of the issues I've been reading about...ie power supply issues , monitor mutations, freezing, loud fans.. etc.

I found something from University Information Services, stating that the machines built between sept 04 - june 05 are the bad apples of the bunch, even specifying serial numbers where the first 5 digits fall into a following range.. interesting artical.
Does anyone have some info that can help me make the right decision, on whether to invest into a Imac g5 or not. My primary use for the computer would be photo based. Using apps such as Adobe Photo , illustrator.. dreamweaver etc etc .

Also.. As for the video card/processor Nvidia GForce 5200 that comes with the unit is that the 256 or 128mb... nothing specifies.
Are there any photographers that have this Machine and find the resolution too low for professional use?

Thanks a whole lot... I appreciate all the info you can provide.. I often feel I'm only told from a dealer what I want to hear, not necessarily what I need to hear.

Regards.
Damian.
 
If _I_ go to www.apple.com/imac, the page tells me it's an ATi 9600 with 128 MB VRAM.

My advice: Go to a store that _has_ such a machine. Try it out. And if you decide to buy, let them unpack the one you're buying and let you test the display. So you can make sure that your model is not a Monday model with bad lighting, dead pixels etc. I always do that with my PowerBooks - unless I mail order.
 
I was in the same situation. Fed up with Windows (too much like hard work, not to mention viruses) I looked at several mac websites and was almost put off by the amount of; this is broken, that doesn't work, zap the pram this, trash the plist that et al.....
But I thought on and realised that my decision to buy a pc was never influenced by troubleshooting websites, because I knew what to expect. I knew Windows, I knew how to fix a Windows pc of any faults. Fixing it was no problem at all, therefore the hardware reliability was no issue.

The mac being a new (and slightly scary!) operating system to me, left me cautious and worried that I had bought an expensive laptop that'll go wrong if I turn it on.
I bit the bullet and paid out my hard earned and within 2 days I had decided not go back to Windows.
As long as Apple make computers (actually it's more about Mac OSX, for me!) I'll use them. (I won't go back and you can't make me!)

As for photos:
Photoshop opens and runs much, much quicker on my mac than on my far higher specced pc.

Have some confidence and splurge on a mac. I won't go back to Windows, and I doubt you will either!

If you have any problems, you know where to ask!
 
Fryke,
Thanks for your help. Perhaps the older system had the Nvidia 5200, and or the salesman mistakenly misinformed me. I find this surprising that on PC Mag.com it is advertised with having the Nvidia card and not the Ati 9600. Well at a closer look this PC web page was reviewed last year.... Question Answered! http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1648796,00.asp

Thanks for the advice..... I'll be sure to check the actual unit and its serial numbers before taking it home..
 
jh2112,
Thanks for your imput. I really appreciate the responces to this seemingly difficutly decision... I've used Mac in the past.. years ago, and I also know alot has changed as for the OS. I'm nervous about that obviously, however more so with the issues I have been reading about with the machines burning up, and freezing..... well... that makes no sense.... however that is what I'm told about the power supply issue with the G5imac. Concerning, big fear of buying into a product with a history of problems. If these issues have been resolved I'm all for it!!! honestly I want to buy one I think they are great.. I'd just kick myself if I bought something that didn't work, even after being warned..
 
My brother-in-law bought an imac g5 in April. He has no problems with his, although he does occasionally find the fans a little off putting. He readily admits that his (very old! 6 years!) pc was a lot louder, but he is so used to the quiet now that the fans seem noisy!

Personally I think that you pay your monies and you take your chances.

You may be very unlucky and have a mac that has hardware issues aplenty.
On the other hand, your experience could be as good as mine and you'll have very few problems switching.
 
If you are really concerned there is Apple extended warranty

In which I don't have on my eMac that I have the complete confidence in anyhow...

As for burning Macs, hmmm, I was at a yard full of PC's once. I played spot the Mac and I lost, first time I enjoyed losing :rolleyes:

A friends Hewitt Packard XP died the other day, only 3 years old (it was always slow too). He's extended Warranty at the store replaced it with a new machine which was some unknown brand and not a Hewitt Packard replacement. Which basically says stores could pass on anything to you.

Apple don't do that. They give you what you are paying for and take care of you too. If you iMac happens to "burn", they'll replace it with an iMac. Have faith in Apple products, I still have a Mac from the 80's and runs better then what my friends 3 year old Hewitt Packard ever did :D

And you'll love OSX better then then XP too :)
 
My $0.02:

an iMac with problems is just as likely as a pc with problems. anything that was designed/built by a human has (even slightly) a chance of human error. as mentioned above, if you are really paranoid, get the apple extended warranty.

however, the 20" iMac is incredible. if you upgrade the ram (the standard spec ram is good for everyday stuff, but image manipulation is very memory intensive) to about 1gb or higher (do this after sale - www.crucial.com/uk - apple ram is not cheap) then you will never have seen such a speedy computer for photoshop, unless you go for the dual processing G5s...

plus the 20" screen runs at 1680x1050 - plenty of screen real-estate, trust me, i have the same display, pretty much, and i'm a graphic designer.

Macs do have problems, everything this complex will, and this site proves they do have problems, but the thing to remember is - they have a lot less problems than windows, and the problems they do have are much easier to solve, generally. ever tried to remove some bad spyware? you won't on a mac. no virus', no adware, no spyware, no toolbars adding themselves to IE, a completly safe environment for P2P etc, no disk defragging, no registry, no real unistallation issues. after 2 years, a PC can be about half as fast as when it was new. because they get clogged up. a mac doesn't.
 
i am in my second month with my mac mini and i can say without a doubt it's the best move i have made with respect to computer technology in a long time. everything i despised about windows machines is now a thing of the past. i have had a few questions about little odds and ends, but everyone here has been very helpful and it's more a matter of learning where things are located. i'm happy beyond my expectations.
 
Reportedly many of the problems with the original iMacs, as you've implied, have been fixed or improved with the second release. Heat and noise "problems" are definitely improved after minor redesigns.

Of course, the problems do tend to affect a very small percentage of machines, but it's good to be concerned.

All I can say is that my original series 20" 1.8Ghz iMac G5 is my favorite machine that I've owned. It can be a TAD noisier than I expected when I'm using the CPU heavily (nothing like my AMD and Intel "windtunnels", though), but I love this box =)
 
thats just because you get used to just how quiet it is normally. it has intelligent fans, which is not a standard thing on PC's, which just blow constantly.
 
my parents purchased a 17" iMac G5 during the aforementioned timeframe and have not experienced any of those issues (in the first post). It is a good buy, and worth it not to have to deal with Windows on a day-to-day basis. Go for it!

BTW: props to LT. on the post above (#9). Couldn't have said it better myself. Every machine out there has problems. The benefit with Mac's is that they are actually fixable! (IMO) I had a gateway years and years ago (during Apple's dark times, before the age of "X"), and every single time I opened the DVD drive tray, the computer locked up. And when it came back up (with the drive still open) and I closed the drive tray, it locked up again. So, to put a CD into the computer, I had to go through 2 restarts (at least). My life (back) in the land of Apple is so much simpler.
 
sirstaunch,
Thanks... For the most part unfortunitly searching on the internet for a particular product's "review" is like opening a daily news paper, or turning on CNN... NEgitive, negitive.. You don't hear about the good things, other then by a site that sponcers the product. That is what stole my excitement, after returning form the apple store, I did some research online to find... pages and pages of negitive feedback on how the machines have many flaws.. so I thank you for helping me out and spreading some good word.
 
delsoljb32 said:
I had a gateway years and years ago (during Apple's dark times, before the age of "X"), and every single time I opened the DVD drive tray, the computer locked up. And when it came back up (with the drive still open) and I closed the drive tray, it locked up again. So, to put a CD into the computer, I had to go through 2 restarts (at least). My life (back) in the land of Apple is so much simpler.
Click to expand...
I am willing to bet you could have simply just reinstalled the latest version of the drivers for your DVD rom and it would have worked fine :D
 
Lt Major Burns said:
thats just because you get used to just how quiet it is normally. it has intelligent fans, which is not a standard thing on PC's, which just blow constantly.
Click to expand...

No. I have PCs that are quieter under heavy loads. My iMac is somewhat louder than I expecte. It doesn't especially bother me, but my experience is apparently somewhat common, and the new iMacs ARE slightly re-engineered to be quieter. Thanks for letting me know why I think the way I do, though.
 
I have two iMacs G5 s that fall into the repair ser. numbers range but never had any problems with them.
 
kainjow said:
I am willing to bet you could have simply just reinstalled the latest version of the drivers for your DVD rom and it would have worked fine :D
Click to expand...

hehe, i wish it had been that simple, i spent countless hours on the phone with the gateway folks trying figure out what the heck was wrong with that thing. no avail. ah well, water under the bridge...
 
Undecided said:
Fryke,
Thanks for your help. Perhaps the older system had the Nvidia 5200, and or the salesman mistakenly misinformed me. I find this surprising that on PC Mag.com it is advertised with having the Nvidia card and not the Ati 9600. Well at a closer look this PC web page was reviewed last year.... Question Answered! http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1648796,00.asp

Thanks for the advice..... I'll be sure to check the actual unit and its serial numbers before taking it home..
Click to expand...
Hint #1:

Don't got to PeeCee sources to get information about Mac's... What the 4#77 do they know/care?
 
The only PC site that I would trust with Mac information would be Anandtech. Those guys really do their homework and have been quite impartial when it comes to reviewing Macs. Ars Technica is another one. But yes, the best place to get information on Macs is most definitely a Mac-oriented site. :D
 
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