[X4U] Best System Version for Old iMac

[Stroller]

On Oct 27, 2005, at 4:53 am, Rick Gordon wrote:

> A friend with an old 400/128 G3 slot-loading iMac ... She is a light 
> user, basically email, web, Word, and a bridge game she'd probably 
> have to run in Classic if she upgraded...
>
> With a pretty basic OS X installation, what kind of performance might 
> she expect on that computer (compared to running native in OS9), and 
> which OS level would offer the best performance? I'm sure she'd do 
> well to have a more modern browser to work with, but outside of that, 
> she'd probably opt for not having to learn new tricks.

I was given a slot-loading 400mhz G3 iMac a few weeks ago, and Panther 
seems to run fine on it - I'm sure it would be fine for the email & 
web-surfing of a light user. I think I shoved some extra RAM in mine, 
as it's now got 256meg, but RAM of this age is cheap & plentiful.

Is an iMac of this age worth, however, the cost of the new o/s? If one 
has a family edition of OS X then the additional license cost may be 
zero, but in the UK Tiger retails for £89 or so. This equates to 20% 
reduction off the price of a 1.25ghz eMac [1] and her iMac might have a 
surprisingly good resale value if offered in the local classified ads. 
Alternatively I'm seeing eMacs going on eBay in the £300 - £360 price 
range. A 1.25ghz G4 would surely be a much more pleasant computing 
experience and it might only cost her £100 or £200 more than an 
o/s-only upgrade.

Stroller.



[1] It looks like in the US one must be a student or teacher to 
purchase an eMac, but this doesn't seem to be the case here in the UK, 
and many people will have a family member who qualifies, in any case.