Apple launched the iMac G4 in early 2002 as a replacement to the hugely successful original iMac range. Not only did Apple give the new iMac the more powerful PowerPC G4 chip, which had up until then only been used in its pro range of PowerBooks & PowerMacs, it also introduced a radical new design which was announced to the world on the cover of Time magazine.

The iMac G4’s design comprises of a dome base which houses the circular motherboard and the rest of the computers internals, and an LCD screen which is pivoted onto the base by a steel & chrome neck. This unusual design allows the screen to be moved into whatever position is most comfortable for the user and helped to earn it the nickname iLamp.

The first iMac G4 was available with a 700 Mhz Processor, 15” screen and the choice of either a CD RW or a more expensive DVD ROM/CD RW drive. The DVD ROM/CD RW model also came with a pair of external Apple Pro Speakers, as unlike the original iMac range, the new iMac didn’t have internal speakers.

During it’s production of 2 years the iMac G4 went under a number of small but significant revisions including faster processors, the introduction of USB 2.0 ports and bigger screens. The final (and best) iMac G4 featured an impressive 20” screen, 1.25 GHz processor, DVD-R/CD-RW (SuperDrive), 64 MB NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics processor, 1GB of RAM and an 80 GB hard drive.

If the iMac G4 range had one flaw it was the price, unlike the CRTS used in the original iMac range the iMac G4’s LCD screens were significantly more expensive to produce. As a result many users ended up purchasing eMacs which still had CRT screens but also featured the same G4 PowerPC chip.

These days the iMac G4 is considered a design classic and I would argue that in some respects it looks better than the more industrial looking designs that Apple seems to be moving more towards in 2008.

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Apple launched the eMac (education Mac) back in 2002 for the education market. It was significantly cheaper and more durable than the iMac of the time which had just been redesigned with a radical new lampshade form, comprising of a flat lcd screen pivoted on a dome base.

In contrast to the new iMac the eMac had a similar design to the original imac, a much bulkier form based around a 17 inch crt screen. Obviously the crt was the main area where Apple was able to produce the eMac much cheaper than the iMac. But although the eMac looked very different to the iMac on the outside, on the inside the eMac had the same G4 processor and graphics as the iMac. Unsurprisingly many consumers caught on to the idea of having a G4 based Mac at a price that simply hadn’t been possible before, and thankfully Apple decided to bow to consumer interest and made the eMac available to everyone.

The eMac was only around for 3 years and the design remained the same in that time, the only exception being the 2 speakers, which in later models came fitted with grills. Presumably the grills were added to protect the speakers in educational settings. Aesthetically the eMac looked better without the grills and it’s also thought that the grills may have lessened the sound quality. I recall people removing the grills on the later models using bent paper clips, though it had to be done with extreme care, as to much force could easily snap the thin plastic.

The eMac 1.25 GHz was the first modern Mac that I owned, like many other people it was the price that had the biggest impact on my decision. Ironically it was bought from PC world as it was the only place around where you could buy Macs from. The 1.25 GHz was available with either a standard DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive or a (DVD-R/CD-RW) SuperDrive, as I didn’t need to burn DVDs I went for the combo model. Back then the price of that eMac was £550, and when you consider that the cheapest Mac you can buy at the time of writing this post costs £400 without a keyboard, mouse or screen the eMac has to be one of the best value for money Macs that Apple has ever produced.

Although I found the eMac to be a very stable and reliable Mac it did have a few minor flaws. The speakers are very poor, music sounds distorted and because they are located just under the screen, the speakers can cause a slight flickering effect on the display. Once you plug in external speakers those flaws disappear though. Another thing to be aware of is that the eMac has quite a noisy fan, I never really noticed it when I was using it as my main machine - it’s only after using newer Macs that it seems quite loud. I suspect that if I had to go back to using it for longer amount of time I’d get to used to the noise.

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The Power Macintosh G5 was introduced by Apple in 2004 as a replacement to it’s hugely successful G4 range of PowerMacs. Not only did the G5 PowerMac offer greater processing power than the G4 range, it also saw Apple move away from the curvy, plastic cases that had been used for it’s pro range of desktops since the original blue and white PowerMac G3 of 1999.

Instead Apple introduced an anodized aluminum alloy case with a distinctive front grill - a design that is now somewhat cruelly referred to as being like a cheese grater. Despite this the ‘cheese grater’ case is still in use in the 2008 range of MacPros.

Although it was only around for 2 years, the PowerMac G5 range saw a number of revisions made to it’s processor, ranging from a single processor 1.6 GHz model through to the final 2.5 GHz Quad Core model - the most powerful of all Apple’s PowerPC based Macs.

My experience of using the PowerMac G5 has been positive, although it seems quite a bulky case it’s certainly not ugly. While it might not be able to keep up with the intel based PowerMacs it’s still a very capable machine and unlike previous PowerMacs it runs incredibly quiet.

All the PowerMac G5’s have easy to access internals making it relatively simple to add more RAM or bigger hard drives. Providing you have at least 2GB of RAM all of the G5 range should run Mac OS X Leopard with ease, later models (dual & quad cores) can be fitted with a massive 16GB of RAM!

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I must admit I have a bit of a soft spot for the G4 MDD (Mirrored Drive Doors), not only is it one of the best looking towers produced by Apple, the 1.25 Ghz version was also the last G4 model produced that was could still boot in Apple’s older Mac OS 9. This made it especially popular with users who still needed to run applications that couldn’t run in Mac OS X.

The MDD’s range included models with dual 867 MHz, 1.0 GHz and 1.25 GHz processors, the last of the MDD models had a single 1.25 GHz processor but could also be configured to come with dual 1.25 GHz processors.

Apple also produced three G4 PowerMacs sharing the same MDD casing, though these are referred to as FW models - the FW coming from the single Firewire 800 port that was introduced on these models. Unlike the true MMD PowerMacs, the Firewire's can’t boot in OS 9, they were available with 1.0 GHz, 1.25 GHz (x2) and 1.42 (x2) GHz processors.

I used a 1.25 GHz dual processor MDD for a couple of years in my job as a web designer. The company had about 6 of those Macs and although most of them were replaced with G5 PowerMacs, at least 3 of them are still in daily use.

I honestly can’t recall having any major problems with the MDD that I used, it was probably on 24hrs a day, 5 days a week, only shutting down at weekends. On the odd occasion the fans would suddenly become extremely loud for a few minutes and then return to normal, it probably only happened once or twice a month and was probably more down to being on in a warm office with poor ventilation all day.

Thanks to an easy to access interior it’s relatively simple to upgrade these models with bigger or second hard drives and all the MDD models can be fitted with a maximum of 2GB of RAM - which is quite impressive for models up to 5 years old.

With enough RAM MAC OSX Leopard should run at decent speeds on all of the MDD range, though for ultimate performance it might be best to stick with MAC OSX Tiger. You can buy RAM for the MDD range from crucial.

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