Which Mac should I buy?

G

goynang

Some guy
OK mac community, help me decide which shiny new Mac should be my next machine.

I currently have an ancient G3 300mhz/320mb Ram machine - the beige AV one. I've had it 4 years (I think).

I wanna use the shiny new machine for the following...

  • Web Development (Tomcat, JSP, Apache, PostgreSQL etc)
  • Java Development (and perhaps some Cocoa stuff)
  • Audio (midi, cubase, reason, etc)
  • 'Net (email, web, etc)
  • Design (Photoshop, illustrator etc)

All in OS X - none of that classic nonsense ;)

I had been holding out for some spanky new G5 model that would be a real giant leap forward but reality bites - so a decent G4 it will be (which will still be a lot quicker than my G3 methinks).

I'm currently tempted by the lower end Power Mac combined with my existing 17inch Monitor. I was thing of getting it as stop-gap until the G5's (or whatever) do come out and then upgrading again (in around a year?).

I do really want a TFT though so perhaps the iMac 17inch ??

Hmmmm - whaddya reckon?

My budget tops out at around £2000 but I'd prefer to spend more like £1500 if possible - especially if I do then upgrade again in a year.

(edited as I accidently posted it before putting most of the message in - sorry Matrix agent!)
 
Consumer, Prosumer, Professional?

Video Editor?

Travler?

Gamer?

We need to know what you want to do before we can suggest anything.
 
Further to my original post, has anyine got the 17" iMac, and if so, what's it like (bearing in mind what I want to do - see above) ???
 
Originally posted by goynang
...I currently have an ancient G3 300mhz/320mb Ram machine - the beige AV one. I've had it 4 years (I think)....a decent G4 it will be (which will still be a lot quicker than my G3 methinks).
Click to expand...
I don't want to sound like a spoiled brat, but I upgraded my B&W G3 350 to a g4 867... and I REALLY regret not getting the dual processor.

I do lots of Web work on my machine (BBEdit for HTML and Apache Tomcat JSP and PHP... Photoshop still in Classic... iPhoto, iTunes, etc.). but the things that really kill me are trying to run MS Office X and Virtual PC (with 256Mb RAM for Windows 2000). I've upgraded my RAM to 1GB, but that a'int the problem... I should've got a dual.

Also I've had 2 low end Mac's and there has always been something crippled about them. I got the 7200 (shouuld have got the 7500), and the low end B&W G3. both times I kicked myself for not doing better. I was REALLY sure I had finally done the right thing with the G4... but it still is not what I was hoping for.

Yes, I AM spoiled, but still consider taking my advice to NOT get the low end machine... And if you are doing development with any tools that gobble screen real estate, you definately need to get a BIG monitor or multiple monitors... even if neither of them are LDC's.
 
Originally posted by Paragon
look at this thread...

http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21140

...next time do a search on the forum and you'll be able to find it yourself.
Click to expand...

I had looked at that thread and it didn't really get into any specifics of using the machine for the tasks I mentioned.

It seems to just go on about version numbers and the installation process.

I was kinda hoping for more detail on real world use to see if anyone was doing what I wanna do and how well the machine held up.

...next time don't assume so much ;)
 
Your question is an easy one, you purchased a Pro machine back then.
and look at all the work it did for you. Now, you are tempted to go on the consumer side because of all the power and new features. but beware
you look like someone who wants to keep your Mac for a long time.
Sorry to tell you that Bud, but you are stuck in the Pro world.

So you need a tower.
1) Easy to open and upgrade
2) Can have an extended Desktop
(working with more than one screen is a must to me now)
3) Having more than one drive inside your Mac ( for scratch in photoshop )
4) Serious music editing often needs third party PCI cards
5) Just for the smooth ride....

I know all of this I just stated can be worked around using firewire externals
(except for the screens) but at what cost?

Here we have Huge specials on the previous line of G4
I am talking about a $500.00 CDN rebate on the PowerMac G4 800MHz

Maybe you should look around if you can find one of those deals.

-Sighter
 
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