Are these Mac's still reasonably useable?

[TechLarry]

My Sister just replaced all of her Apple stuff with new. She is offering to give me her old stuff, which includes:

Titanium MacBook Pro. It's a 15". I'm pretty sure that's a G4 unit. It is fully operational, but the palm rests are pretty much worn out. I may be able to get a new top piece for it. I think it's about 6 years old.

iMac 20". It's a G5 unit. She bought it just before Apple went Intel. Everything works, but it needs a new CD drive. I can use an external or replace the internal.It's around 5 years old

Are these still reasonably useable units?

What is the highest version of MacOS X that can be used on these?

My work keeps me eyeball deep in PC's, and I haven't owned a Mac in a decade. it would be nice to have one around, but I don't want to take in something that's pretty much worthless for today's software and end up on my already way too huge junk pile


BTW... I haven't set up a Mac in 10 years. I set up her new iMac, MacBook Pro, new Airport N, and Wireless Printer in under 40 minutes. And that includes un-boxing everything, running MacUpdate, setting up the Airport and wireless, etc... It reminded me why Apple is so popular with Home folks

 

[Abit667]

The single G4 and G5 are going to be pretty painful for browsing the web, especially on newer sites and any YouTube type shit with flash. Flash runs really poorly on the PPC machines.

I'd keep them around (the iMac G5) if you want to play around with Apple specific stuff like garbage band, however they will be terrible for most modern internet activities.

You can run up to 10.5 on them, however you might want to do 10.4 on the powerbook. I used a dual G5 1.8Ghz up until last summer and it was really the terrible performance on the internet that did it in. With 10.5 I found Safari to be the quickest browser on PPC.

 

[Tomahawk]

If it's a Ti Powerbook, it's older than 6 years.

The original Ti Powerbooks (released in 2001) max out at 10.4.11; however, the later Ti models (released in '02 and discontinued in '03) are able to use Snow Leopard.

Back in the day they did well, but I wouldn't recommend using even the G5 iMac for much more than the very basic stuff today.

 

[450]

My Sister just replaced all of her Apple stuff with new. She is offering to give me her old stuff, which includes:

Titanium MacBook Pro. It's a 15". I'm pretty sure that's a G4 unit. It is fully operational, but the palm rests are pretty much worn out. I may be able to get a new top piece for it. I think it's about 6 years old.

Does it say Macbook Pro or PowerBook?

If it's a Ti Powerbook, it's older than 6 years.

The original Ti Powerbooks (released in 2001) max out at 10.4.11; however, the later Ti models (released in '02 and discontinued in '03) are able to use Snow Leopard.

Back in the day they did well, but I wouldn't recommend using even the G5 iMac for much more than the very basic stuff today.

Incorrect. The might be able to use Leopard, but NOT Snow Leopard, since Snow Leopard required an Intel CPU.

 

[Tomahawk]

Incorrect. The might be able to use Leopard, but NOT Snow Leopard, since Snow Leopard required an Intel CPU.

Yes, that's correct. It was a typo on my part. The later Ti models max out at 10.5.8

 

[TechLarry]

Good question about the PowerBook. I'm not sure now. I can tell you it looks like a Ti. It's very VERY flat, and only has 802.11 wireless built in if that helps.

And yes, it could very well be 8 years or more old. She's had it a damned long time.

And as long as she's owned these machines, I've never once had to reload either one of them

 

[pxc]

If the G4 is 1.25GHz or faster and has 1GB or more memory, performance will be fairly decent with Tiger. Web video like youtube will be hit or miss, especially anything higher than 480p. An 866MHz or faster G4 can run Leopard, but it's often more sluggish than Tiger, especially with lower end graphics.

A G5 is not bad, but Leopard is the end of OS support.

FWIW, I have a 933MHz G4 with 1GB that works acceptably with Leopard for general use, except for playing many > 360p web videos. It's nowhere near as good as my nearly 2 year old C2D mini of course.

 

[TechLarry]

I didn't think about the Mini. I just happen to have a stashed away Gateway 22" Widescreen I could use on it.

I really don't have much time to work with Mac's, and have 2 PC Servers, 4 PC Laptops and two PC Desktops to maintain already, but my company is talking about adding support for Mac's to our contract, and even though I have 20 years of Mac experience (I hold every certification), it's been 8 years since I've owned one. I need a reference machine for those "how do I do this" type of questions.

I would not mind managing my iPods and iPad from it either, since I think the PC version of iTunes sucks eggs.

Thanks for the info guys

 

[Zumino Zufeilon]

I would not suggest either of those as a 'reference' machine, as almost everything anyone will be asking about is an Intel Mac, and running Leopard, Snow Leopard, and soon Lion.

Basically, one of the things that brought about the surge in Apple popularity/acceptance was the Intel Switch. It made it easier for people to compare performance, which in turn made them realize that they weren't actually paying that much more for a Apple vs. a PC, which made people with iPods/etc more likely to switch.

At least that's my experience form when I was the only Tech-Savvy computer nerd in the PCHO department of a Worst Buy

Picking up a Mac Mini, or maybe splurging for a MBP (I'd avoid the MBA/MB at the moment, they should be refreshed soon though, and will probably be good choices then) would be your best bet. If your company is planning to support OSX, then you should probably see if they'd buy you one. A reasonable argument on your part might be getting you a MBP and going full BootCamp with it. That way your laptop is a reboot away from being either OSX or Win7 as needed.

Just an idea.

 

[TechLarry]

I like your thinking