Help me buy a 2nd hand mac please :)

[MSIC]

Afternoon all, I would be most grateful for an opinion or two, although I will state right now that any purchasing mistakes are mine and blame lies wholey with me....

A friend of ours who lives in rural france is wanting a Mac (no previous experience but is fed up of getting viruses on his old and cheap Win XP laptop). I agreed to buy one 2nd hand for him, but I will get it, prepare it etc, and then give it to him. As he lives in france, I dont want hassles and it's going to be once every 6 months until I can fix it (although if need be can advise him to see a local repair shop, but that defeats the purpose).

He wants a computer that is simple, wants to browse the internet, and do some personal video editing.

His budget is £250 - £300.

He currently has no monitor although does have mouse, keyboard and printer for his current Windows XP laptop. Also an external DVD writer.

I dont think there is any preference for laptop or desktop, since it will literally sit on a desk 24/7 plugged in, so equally battery life on a macbook isnt needed.

Looking at fleabay, I have found a few options, and wanted some other eyes please

iMac 17" G5 with OSX 10.5, £250. (no discs, not sure if thats a problem but makes me uneasy)
iMac G5 20" with OSX 10.5, £240 (looks a better buy, includes discs but no apple keyboard & mouse)

A Powerbook G4 15" with OSX 10.5, £240.
A more modern Macbook 13" with OSX 10.6 for £310 although the description of cracks in bodywork makes me nervous.
Finally, this 13" MacBook, CoreDuo with OSX 10.4 for £225 makes me suspicious since it looks too good to be true, although the seller has over 2000 positive ratings...

If anyone could cast a glance at a few, i would be very grateful.

[watercooled]

...but is fed up of getting viruses on his old and cheap Win XP laptop).

No need to spend money to sort that problem, not to mention Macs aren't virus free and if someone gets viruses on Windows, they most likely will on a Mac too. Educate him not to click random links/install a decent AV or if you think an OS swap will help, let him try Linux for a while.

[MSIC]

No need to spend money to sort that problem, not to mention Macs aren't virus free and if someone gets viruses on Windows, they most likely will on a Mac too. Educate him not to click random links/install a decent AV or if you think an OS swap will help, let him try Linux for a while.

Thanks for the thought, however I have a total of zero minutes with him until next Spring time, and then will have about 5 minutes once every 6 months.... so I wont be educating him on anything i'm afraid. Linux did cross my mind and it frustrated me to have to rule it out, on exactly the above reasons.
Also, his XP laptop is donkey slow, so new hardware is on the cards anyway.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

XP

That explains a lot!! If XP isn't properly patched it is quite vulnerable. Is SP3 installed?? OTH,one of my relatives still uses an old XP laptop which is properly patched and it is fine. If anything the age of the IGP means flash heavy content is the main problem.

Also,Apple does have a habit of dropping support for older models after a few years.

Just get him a new Windows 7 laptop and install some anti-malware software.

[MSIC]

Is SP3 installed?? OTH,one of my relatives still uses an old XP laptop which is properly patched and it is fine. If anything the age of the IGP means flash heavy content is the main problem.

Yep, is SP3, and in the 30 mins or so I used the machine it wasnt just websites, but the ton of crap installed to load at boot also, plus spyware apps that install spyware etc etc...
To be honest I really just wanted to wipe and re-install, however I didnt have my discs there as I was on holiday. As i said, it was in france and I cannot now get to the machine for about 9 months.

Just get him a new Windows 7 laptop and install some anti-malware software.

To be honest this is a definte maybe.
I saw a £299 compaq with a pentium dual core CPU and 2GB RAM in staples earlier, that might end up being the better bet... but I keep thinking that he isnt bothered about it being new, and isnt bothered about a laptop, so buying a new laptop seems like im wasting money somewhere.

[jim]

I know we're taking this majorly off-track, but if you've got to get it to France a laptop might be a convenient option, no?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I just realised that you are looking at a G5 iMac!! Run like the wind!!

I have used two G5 iMacs and they run hot and you can hear the fan labouring even under simple tasks. The ones I used also struggled too even when moderately pushed. Also,as they are quite old support is going to be patchy too. Apple dropped use of the G5 as it was hot running and relatively power inefficient too. The G5 Power Macs needed liquid cooling as standard.

[Peter Parker]

I've got a 1.33GHz G4 Powerbook, 1GB ram - I'm quite happy with it as a machine to check emails, browse BBC News etc. However beware of some problems you might encounter:

• Mine struggles with YouTube video, as I think modern codecs need a little more CPU 'oomph'. Doubt even the 1.5GHz machine would be good enough - certainly not for HD.
• No more Mac OS X upgrades possible. And so it won't be long before iTunes leaves you behind too, since they already dropped iTunes support for the old Intel Core Duo chips that replaced the G4 and G5!
• Notorious ram compatibility issues. Sounds like the one you found has 1GB+256MB, which is OK, but it's often the case that you can only get one of the two sockets working. I never found a way to get it to accept 2x1GB DIMMS

Apple Macbook A1181 -13.3" for £310 ... Cracked plastic and doesn't charge the battery so not usable as a laptop ... might have been dropped but I can't see anything on their (admittedly blurry) pics. 1GB RAM is a little low. Of course for £350 you can get a brand new cheap Windows core i3 laptop from somewhere like Scan! And then you could modify it

The 13" Macbook for £225 ... look at the details. Needs a new battery (guess £30 Chinese copy), RAM is only 512MB so probably needs an upgrade (ask around on here!), OS is 10.4 which is about 4 years old or something, and again Core Duo not Core 2 Duo so can't run latest iTunes. All considered it might not be worth it.

[MSIC]

Thanks all for the helpful advice.... am now thinking a 2nd hand mac isnt really for the best.
I appreciate the experiences.

[abaxas]

As long as it's a core 2 not a core. You can then install lion (if needed).

Make sure it has 2gigs if memory, or is possible upgradable to 4. That just depends on what they'll be using it for. 99% of people will be happy with 2gig but that is the max in some white macbooks.

Apart from that, buy on battery and condition. Should get a nice one for 300(ish).

[Unique]

one other thing to remember is in france they use a different power system, and their keyboards have some letters in the wrong place!

so if he has his old keyboard it would be fine for windows, but for a mac it might be a bit confusing with a different keyboard layout learning a new OS, particularly for the type of user you describe. and with a laptop that may be another problem as you wouldn't want to use another keyboard with it and the keys would be stuck in the wrong place unless you can physically pull them out and swap them

he would be better off finding someone in france who can buy and set one up for him over there

[MSIC]

Went with an ASUS Win 7 laptop in the end, Pentium 2.13Ghz, 3GB, I fiddled & fixed it so it's all secure.
All in all a better £320 than second hand..... thanks for helping me think it through chaps