From: Ken Hagler (khagler_at_orange-road.com)
Date: Tue Sep 21 2004 - 16:52:48 PDT
At 01:45 PM 9/21/2004, you wrote:
>- What's a fair price?
About a year ago I bought a G4/550 (the next model after the one you've
been offered) with twice as much RAM for $800. Given the additional year
and the reduced RAM, I wouldn't pay more than $600 for it.
>- Is it good?
Yes, with a couple of caveats I'll get to later.
>- What can I expect from the rechargeables, and how expensive is the
>replacement? Is a DIY hack possible to recell the pack?
Don't even try. The batteries are good for around two or three hours--I
never had mine replaced, but it's probably around $100. I just plug mine in
most of the time.
>- What do I need to check this machine for, what's the usual traps, bugs
>and caveats of that series?
Others have mentioned the slot for the CD/DVD drive. In earlier examples of
that model CDs tended to get stuck when ejected, but this was fixed after a
few months. I suggest taking along a CD when you inspect the machine--if it
doesn't hang up after ejecting a CD half a dozen times, it probably never will.
The other, more serious problem is with the clips that hold the DIMMs in
place in their slots. In my G4/550 these are made of soft, flimsy plastic,
which the hard edges of the DIMMs can wear through. This is especially
likely if the memory has been upgraded at some point, as mine was by the
previous owner--when you push the clips aside to pop out a DIMM, the edges
shave off the plastic of the clips. Pretty soon the clip won't hold a DIMM
in place in that slot any more.
If that happens, Apple will refuse to repair it under their usual $350 flat
repair fee--instead, they'll say it's "not a manufacturing defect"
(technically correct, it is a design defect) and charge you $900 for a new
motherboard. Mine has only one DIMM slot now, and sooner or later I expect
that one to go too.
That shouldn't necessarily scare you off, though. If the memory has not
been upgraded by the previous owner, and nobody ever really carried it
around with them (most laptop owners only carry their laptops to and from
their cars) it will probably last for a reasonably long time.
>- Can I upgrade to modern OS X releases w/o losing the option to boot into
>MacOS 9.x?
Yes. If nothing else, you can have two partitions with OS X on one and Mac
OS on the other. Note that the latest version of OS X will be pretty slow
in comparison.
>- Can this machine run GarageBand?
Probably so, but slowly as GarageBand is an OS X app. If you don't mind a
steeper learning curve, I'd suggest looking at ProTools instead. They used
to have a free "light" version on their web site.
--
Ken Hagler
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