forced upgrade advice

minis

I need some upgrade vs replacement advice



Well now Apple is forcing my hand. I still have 10.2 and I can't buy music on iTunes anymore and I can't replace my 3rd gen ipod (the screen isn't so great anymore and it's on a second battery)



It've been spoiled with trouble free computing since I bought my 867MHz 640Mb ram PB ~4.5 years ago (that's if you don't count it's trip down the stairs without me and the resulting hard drive replacement surgery) My brother's Toshiba didn't hold up that long. He just bought a new MacBook!



My PB still does a fine job but is a little slow. It's only used for surfing the web, MS office, itunes, iphoto and the occational imovie...



should I try 10.5 on this old computer or get a refurbished iMac?



new imac ~$1100 vs. os upgrade ~$300*



* $130.00 OS X 10.5

+ ~100 an external HD for backup (I'll want to do a clean install due to some mistakes I made partitioning the replacement HD)

+ ~$70 to upgrage ram if I can swap my additional 512Mb for a 1Gb but I'm not sure that it's possible yet...

----------------

$300 (I now the HD and memory prices may be much lower)



Is an OS upgrade a long term fix or will I be forced to buy a new mac when 10.6 eventually comes out or would my money be better spent buying an imac and relaxing for another 5ish years?



Do you recomend the 2.0MHz aluminum over the 2.16MHz white imac (assuming they're still available when I'm ready to buy?



Also am I right to ignore the mac mini. It just sees like all the extras you get with a base imac make up for the price jumb from the mini... Also I've enjoyed dual monitors with my PB but i guess I could give that up.

backtomac

There's no way you'll be able to run 10.5 on your old PB. The minimum requirements are a g4 running at 867 mhz.



The iMacs are good choices but are you ready to give up mobility? If not have you looked at the Macbooks? They're probably Apples best value of all the computers Apple offer.



If I were in your shoes I would just make sure that whatever Mac I got had a core 2 chip in it. That will probably have the longest 'shelf life'.

a_greer

If you want to push back the purchase by a few months, or maybe a year, you could upgrade to a gig of ram and buy a 10.3 or 10.4 disk on ebay...that may be enough to tide you over until we ring in 2009, I dont see Apple breaking 10.4 , or even much in 10.3 for a year or two anyway, and really, 10.2 is such an old kernel, upgrading to 10.4 would probably gain you a little bit of speed...10.3->10.4 on my 1.2GHz mini, I saw a speed increase

minis

Quote:

Originally Posted by a_greer


If you want to push back the purchase by a few months, or maybe a year, you could upgrade to a gig of ram and buy a 10.3 or 10.4 disk on ebay...that may be enough to tide you over until we ring in 2009, I dont see Apple breaking 10.4 , or even much in 10.3 for a year or two anyway, and really, 10.2 is such an old kernel, upgrading to 10.4 would probably gain you a little bit of speed...10.3->10.4 on my 1.2GHz mini, I saw a speed increase

If I'm still thinking about a new ipod (eventually) 10.3 is out.

OS X 10.4 is still going for $90+ (plus shipping) on ebay



I'm so close to breaking down and buying a refurb imac but it's just so expensive!

Of all the great things about mac's their prices aren't among of them. I could buy a very good new HP for like $400. I'd suffer anoyances every freaking day for the next 3-4 years but I'd get a roughly equivalent computer for less then half the price. Of course there are the hidden costs like a subscription to anti virus and spyware software. The hours lost to frequent crashes....





I'd almost be happier if my PB died because then I'd have no choice but replace it.



Also does anybody know about the 1GB ram upgrade for the 867 power book? I've seen vague references to it but I don't know if the PB actually supports 1GB chips. Apple only sells 512's online and I couldn't find any PC2700 DDR266 SO-DIMM 200pin Ram at all on Newegg.com last week.