Any Mac users in here?

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Having never used a Mac in my life, for some reason today I got the urge to try and pick up a cheap one just so I can get some experence of them. Be handy to actually get my hands dirty with Mac networking for my N+ as well. Having looked at ebay I'm more than a tad confused about what I should be looking at spending my cash on tho!
All I really want is something to pull apart and get get used to the OS and hardware, gaming really isn't an issue so I don't need anything overly powerful. Saying that, there appear to be some very cheap machines around.
Any tips on what sort of spec I should be looking at and how much I should be paying??

Lord Deckard.

 

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If you are thinking of buying a Mac purely for the A+ then i would save your cash! The course only touches on the Mac OS and as for hardware is very much "left alone". If you want to buy one to experiment then please go ahead.
Money wise, they will go for more money than an equivelant "Intel/AMD" machine but bare in mind they will run a lot faster at lower spec....

Hope this helps

 

perhaps noel can verify, but i believe this is not a good time for buying a second hand mac. apple just moved their product line to the intel platform. if you manage to find a second hand intel-based mac, it will most likely not be cheap (because it won't be old). if you find a cheap second hand mac, it will most likely be a ppc-based mac, for which there will be only limited support and development (no new tools, unless they are written as universal binaries).

 

Boyce: Not looking to get it purely for the N+ , just want to get hold of one to get some experience of the Mac in general. The wife is also interested in getting hold of one so she can play with some of the graphics packages.
d-Faktor: The intel based Macs look truly gorgeous and since they released bootcamp to let you use windows on them as well.... is it snowing in hell? I was in the apple store in meadowhall the other day and I actually saw 2 guys arguing about running windows on a Mac. One of them called it "an unholy abomination". They were both escorted from the store...
No way I can afford/justify a new intel powered Mac at the moment but damn, it's a nice looking machine.
But back to my original point, if I *was* to pick up a cheap 2nd hand Mac, what sort of price/spec should I be looking at?

Lord Deckard.

 

i'm not that into apple products, but as a rough guestimate i would say a g3 for 300 euros, and a g4 for 700 euros? something like that? anyone?

 

AJ I pasted this from Lords first post:

"Having looked at ebay"

kinda answers that question mate...

Lord Deckard, as the guys have been saying dont and I mean dont get a cheap Mac...a) there is a likely chance Apple wont support it (such as the G3 machines) and b) we will also charge you for support if you ever did ring Apple (plus the repairs are too pricey!!)...

If as you say its purely for mucking about purposes then fine...but this is one reason why I dont like Macs...u cant tinker with them the way you can with PCs...upgrading wise you have to make sure its all mac compatible and unless u visit Apple or someone who knows their Apple stuff u will struggle in this.

If you look at the new Macs with the Intel based processors they aint exactly that special either. Why I hear u ask? Well, most Mac users are graphic designers, music producers and film makers right? Well the software they rely on at the moment cannot run on the Intel based machines. take for example Adobe Photoshop CS2. Works perfectly fine on a Power PC Mac...but put it with an Intel machine and it wont like it at all. So this means poor old Adobe are now making their new software to work with these Intel ones...and how do u think their customers feel about it? Quite clearly not happy but its not them they aint happy about its Apple...in my opinion Apple brought out the Intel based machines way too early...my answer? Wait until early or mid 2007 before getting an Intel based Mac...if you have anymore queries on Macs and that let me know mate...HTH so far... *now where was I? oh yes this old ancient PC needs MS Office 200 installed on it*

 

To be honest with you Lord, I am not happy Apple have done this. Already we have had people with Power PC Macs asking if they can install Bootcamp to install Windows on their machine. If they could be bothered to look at the site properly it clearly states: You need MAC OS X 10.4.6, and Intel based machine, etc...but they dont see that!! If you look in the Lounge section of the forum Lord, you will see I have posted a thread called Windows Vista on a Mac, it has two links...one for a site where some complete moron installed Vista on an Intel iMac (why?!?!?) and the other link for the Bootcamp site...the first link makes me laugh as the whole point of the experiment is to see if they can dual boot Windows with Mac OS X...however only XP can be dual booted and not Vista and therefore this poor sod had to completely wipe off hard drive and install Vista on its own..so much for dual booting eh? check it out mate and see what you think....but my opinion is...if you want Mac OS X buy a Mac, you want Windows BUILD a PC (otherwise known as a PROPER COMPUTER!!) hehe...

To make matters even worse for these Mac users...Apple have said they wont support Bootcamp...so why put it on the Apple site and let them download it? But knowing Apple, when they release MAC OS X 10.5 (Leopard) it will have the techonology of Bootcamp in it and that means we will support it at some point.

What I cant get head my round (and I dont know about the rest of you) but Apple have been trying to compete with Microsoft for years...and yet what have they done in the last few months? Released new machines with Intel processors (erm arent these currently being used in PCs?) Also prior to this their IBM processors were called Power PC (emphasize on PC!!) and now they have given their Mac users (Intel ones that is) the ability to run Windows alongside Mac...I thought Apple was all about getting away from Windows? Seems like Bill Gates is having the last laugh here...dont u agree? Comments welcome please...

 

hey mate I was only messing...no biggie...all is well...its fine with me indeed mate......see am smiling...happy as always...

 

I dunno your budget but my mac mini was 550 quid, but I got a student discount (heh heh!!) and that made it 500... not cheap, but its quite powerful for a teeny weenie little box!

 

please tell me u got Apple care Protection Plan Clyde!!! if not ring tomorrow and ask for Waliu...hehe...

EDIT: damn just realised I am off until Monday!! oops