Computers and processing

[bramley]

Right, I have a half decent PC laptop, 17" screen, it's a couple of years old nearly, 120gb HD, 2 gig of ram, dual core etc. I've got Photoshop 6 (lol) and only the Canon software for RAW files (though I rarely shoot in RAW). I have external storage for commercial images, but the laptop is used for personal stuff by me and the wife, as well as business use.

I've been offered a Mac G4 (yeah, it's quite old) with CS3 and Aperture for £50. The monitor is about 15", not very high resolution and it doesn't look very sexy but in theory it should connect to my external drive and could be used purely as a processing machine. Has a gig of ram, but quite a slow processor (500mhz ish iirc).

I'm thinking that although it's old and not very fast, for £50 I get some great software and a stand alone image processing machine which would free-up the laptop for other things.

Should I buy it?

[CVP]

For the price of a curry & beer, why not? You could always add extra RAM and a decent size monitor if you want to.

Chris

[bramley]

That's what I was thinking, though I've just found out it won't run Aperture! Gonna try CS3 now...

[Andy M]

A 500mhz G4 is very capable, but is a bit of a relic compared to what's available today. I'd buy it, but would probably only use it as part of a home cinema setup, or maybe download machine.

[CVP]

If you get on with CS3 it could be worth it but the Mac commands are a little different to the Windows commands if you use keyboard shortcuts rather than use the mouse for everything.

Chris

[bramley]

CS3 is loading on, but taking a g e s !

Edited by bramley on Wednesday 14th January 14:58