Some Questions for iMac Users

My old 7300 / MaxPowr G3 250 that I set up at my parents house for them to use (for word processing and email mostly) is about to croak. Being far past the point where it would be worth sinking addition money into, I'm looking into the low end iMac for them.

My reasoning is pretty simple: it would perform much better than the current machine, take up much less space on their desk, and with a USB - to - Serial adapter, can use their exisitng printer....also it will be able to utilize OS X if I decide to go that route (not sure at this point whether I want to go down that road or not, since they're less than techno-literate).

My questions are:

1. How likely is it that by January or February, the bottom of the line iMac will be faster or otherwise more capable than the existing 500Mhz Indigo model on Apple's site?

2. How easy is it to upgrade the RAM on these things? Anywhere near as easy as say a G4? If so I'm going with the smallest amount of RAM from Apple that I can, and will buy some modules from Crucial and install them myself.

3. How well do the lower-end iMacs handle OS X, given a decent amount of RAM (say 256MB or more)?

4. Anyone have bad luck using their serial printers via USB-to-Serial connectors? I tried that once with my G4 (tryed using an old modem) and it was bad. Couldn't get the setup to work at all -- even with latest drivers, etc. Have the connectors gotten more reliable?

5. Anyone out there want to make the case that my Mom would be better off with an iBook (for added $$)? All she's going to use (once I get done setting everything up and "teaching" her) is MS Word (for letters, mailing labels, etc), Entourage, Explorer and maybe some language CD-ROMs and other odds-and-ends. I figured an iMac would be more than enough for her, but if someone wants to make a counter-argument I'm all ears.

Thanks in advance....

Artman: I had a feeling screen size might be an issue with iMacs and OS X, although by extension the same issue would apply to the iBook I suppose.

Glad to hear RAM upgrades are a snap. As for the printer, I thought about the "buy an iMac get a free printer" thing...just trying to consider the possibility, since the printer she has works well and is more than capable enough for her (Epson Stylus 740).

Anyway, the more comments the better as I want to do this right the first time and not have to think about it for another four or five years....

It would indeed. I don't know if either an LCD 15" screen or a 17" CRT will happen, but either would make it an easier buy...either in the sense of more screen real-estate for OS X, or in the sense that the 15" CRT variety would become very cheap very fast.

I could be wrong, but it's an early-model 740, so I think the only ports on the back are serial (what's being used) and parallel. Any such animal as a printer with both serial and USB ports on board?

Good point NeoMac. Maybe They'll include a combo drive standard on all the new rev models in addition to more Mhz, etc. Hopefully at the same price points.....

<img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />

Yah, I realize that this type of question is asked fairly often. I just figured we were so close to MWSF (and I really don't follow the rumors too much) that perhaps getting feedback today might bring very different results than if I'd read a thread from two months ago for example.