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I love my TRS80 but I am looking at an update someday.
How much can you spend?
OpenOffice is good free software, but also check out NeoOffice. It integrates better with the native OS X system and doesn't require X11.
where’s the “MAC CAUCUS” statement?
I’m running something much like your old computer.
Love that 9000 ATI AIW.
Buy a new iMac and have done with it!!
Life will be good! :-)
On the Macs, I’d suggest waiting a couple of weeks until Steve Jobs delivers the keynote address at Apple’s World Wide Developers’ Conference on Monday, June 9th at 10:00 a.m. PDT. It’s possible that new MacBooks will be announced, and perhaps a new Mac mini in a smaller case.
Most people don’t need professional quality image reproduction, but if you do, I’d recommend the Mac Pro and a Cinema Display. The 24-inch iMac is also a good choice if you prefer the glossy screen instead of a matte finish. Note that the 20-inch iMac uses six-bits per color channel on the screen, but the 24-inch uses 8-bit channels.
For digitizing broadcast video on Macs, check the products at http://www.ElGato.com
For MS Office-compatible applications on Mac, see Apple’s iWork suite. It costs about $80. A 30-day trial package is included on new Macs, so you can try it before purchase. http://www.apple.com/iwork/
Good afternoon, long time lurker, first time poster...
I highly suggest purchasing a refurbished mac. I just bought a “new” iMac earlier this week. The only difference with a store bought machine is you don’t get the “out of the apple box” experience and (on mine) there is a slight scratch on the back of the machine that I would never notice anyhow. Oh, and I saved $500 on the price. You get the same one year warranty as you would with any apple product. I took that $500 and applied it to a 3 year AppleCare plan and MS office for mac.
One of the things you should be aware of is how old a model is before you buy it - one of the worst feelings in Macdom is when you just spent a load of cash on a computer, and then see it get brand new faster specs for the same price a few weeks later.
That's why you should make sure to check out the MacRumors Buyer's Guide . You can see when certain models have been introduced, the historical gap between new model introductions, and a summary of "rumor" articles that may point to when it will be updated.
That being said, The Mac Mini is very overdue for updating, and would make a poor purchase at this time. I have one and love it, but with only "integrated graphics", it needs a boost in the video department. I'm hoping that the next iteration of the Mini has a graphics chip that - in an encapsulated way - handles decoding DRM video data. If this happens, it's more likely Mini owners can get access to HD movie rentals from the iTunes store. Also, having dedicated h.264 encoding circuitry would be great.
One of the things I love the most about the Mini is its tiny size. You can stick the little silent guy anywhere you want, running it headless if you want, accessing it with screen sharing (VNC). That gives it permanent utility for after its best days are behind it.
The iMac was updated at the end of April, and thus makes it desirable from a timing perspective. Since it includes everything in the box, it also makes it a hassle-free computer for most personal needs. Also, since it has a dedicated graphics processor, it is much better graphics programs that can (or require) shipping processing off to the GPU (not to mention games).
I hope this helps, and good luck!
I recently needed to replace my old PC. It sort of quit working, at least for ME, when my wife took it with her when she moved out. Anyway, I had been wanting a Mac for over a year, and went with the 20” iMac. Apple had just bumped up the processor speed from 2.0 GHz to 2.4 GHz. Anyway, Amazon has the previous 2.0 GHz version discounted over $100. My brother in law is a Mac user and didn’t think for my needs (yours may be different; I mainly just use it for the internet) I would even notice the difference in speed, so I saved the money and ordered from Amazon. No sales tax and free shipping. Sweet!
Your thoughts, please.
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I just bought a refurbished MacBook Pro....I almost had to sell my wife to do it but found some extra cash.
I would absolutely shell out the extra bread for a 24” screen iMac over the 20”..the screen is no less than stunning.
I think for your uses, I’d probably go with the iMac. It has a faster processor, which will help with video rendering for DVDs, and it can take up to 4GB of RAM (2 is standard), where the Mini maxes out at 2.
If you decide to run Windows in Parallels or VMWare Fusion, you’re going to want all the RAM you can throw at it.
The iMac allows you to keep your existing LCD display as a second monitor — and if you’ve never played around with two monitors, I recommend it. You can keep the main monitor as 100% work space, and use the second for stuff like palettes, updating news headlines, and e-mail and IM. I used to keep the weather radar widget up when there were storms coming.
I had a two-monitor setup for many years, and three for a while. It’s the one thing I miss with my Mini.
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The big drawback to the Mac mini is that it uses a 5200 rpm laptop hard drive, and it doesn’t have Firewire 800 so you can’t just get an external drive to make up for that (Firewire 400 max). It’s basically a laptop without a screen, keyboard and track pad.
Don’t get one unless you’re willing to take that speed hit as opposed to what you’d get in a regular desktop model.
If you like doing a lot of TV capturing and encoding, I would recommend a refurbished mac pro. One of the 2.66GHz ones can be had for $1999. With quad xeon processors you can compress video really fast. Plus, it has four bays for hard drives and you can upgrade the ram to 32GB.
As far as tv capture is concerned... maybe one of the Elgato devices (like the EyeTV 250 Plus?). I have a little usb HDTV capture stick. It works great, unfortunately mine is windows only. I dual boot my mac pro and so only capture (for now) on the windows side. I'm planning on buying a mac one soon.
The one warning I would have is that for 1080p playback you will probably need at least a 2.2 or 2.4GHz core 2 duo. Some of the less speedy mac minis won't cut it. I'm not sure if you are anticipating handling videos of that resolution, but I notice that you tend to keep computers for a while so it might be a good idea to future proof.
Actually, the used route might not be too bad. I've seen used mac pro 3.0GHz advertised locally for ~$1600 with lots of ram. You could probably get one from Fall 2006 that still has a good bit of time left on applecare pretty cheap. Thanks,
I have one of the original Mac Pros and love it. The mini is quite nice as well, just not nearly as fast. paridel
