The Mac for the Future
Written: Feb 26 '01 (Updated Feb 26 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: speed, ease of usage, memory
Cons: durability, reliability
The Bottom Line: The Mac absolutely tops the competition in areas of speed, and reliability.
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| maddieslyo's Full Review: Apple Power Macintosh G4 Base |
I had some doubts about buying the computer initially. However, one day my friend (who owns the computer) convinced me to buy it so I did. When my friends had doubts, I brought my computer over to their house one day to show what this machine can do.
First, I showed off the computer's graphics muscles with Photoshop, Pagemaker and even playing some games like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3. Then I showed how easy it was to network with the G4, just plug into the Ethernet port on back and turn on File Sharing. Lastly, I brought up Windows 98 with Virtual PC and began to do my VisualBasic and C++ programming, on the Mac. Finally, some of my friends began to recognize the Macintosh as a very, very good machine (the best actually).
The speed is nice, but it most cases you probably won't notice it. When the CPU really has to work on something is when you start to see small differences. Overall though, having the speed is nice. Applications do come up faster on the G4 then the G3 and rendering visual effects does seem to happen faster. Watching the processor decode DVD is pretty impressive from a speed point of view.
I am able to do anything I need and a lot more on this computer. I am running a Mac OS (9.0.4), Windows 98 (and it is more stable on the Mac than a lot of PCs I have used), and I am also starting to use the Virtual PC RedHat Linux 6.1. Awesome!!! This computer is so amazing!
I only have a few qualms with the computer. The OS 9 has a few bugs such as not being able to access the internet without open_transport_2.6 download and finding a compatible USB cd-rw drive. Compatibility problems with OS 9 persist when using a Sony Spressa drive to record on cd format. Two more downloads are necessary to be able to burn cd's. Even then, the drive can only be used to burn and not to read.
I think that if you are a designer or art director, you will want to be on one of these new machines. They simply blow away all others, including G3s. Applications scream, even the ones not yet upgraded to Velocity Engine compatibility.
Overall, I'd say it is the fastest computer I've ever used. In short, it is a very fast processor with an easy to use interface The model I bought has a 20GB hard drive, built-in Zip drive, DVD-ROM drive, and came with 128MB RAM - which I doubled already. It handles Bryce, and PhotoShop with very little problem. The AirPort is extremely efficient and responsive, especially with games and Ethernet connections (10 MBps).
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 2200
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor: PowerPC G4
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Epinions.com ID:
maddieslyo
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Reviews written: 23
Trusted by: 26 members
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