A Big Decision: Fix the Old iMac or Buy a Mac mini?

[Charles]

A Big Decision: Fix the Old iMac or Buy a Mac mini?
"Greetings. I'm one of the new writers at Low End Mac. I learned computing on an Apple IIe in the early 80s and got my first Mac (an original LC or "Elsie") as a high school graduation present in 1991. It served me nearly seven years.

My main machine these days is a 12" 1.2 GHz G4 iBook G4 (the "iceBook"), while my wife has been using a 400 MHz G3 iMac ("Kihei")."

http://lowendmac.com/eubanks/05/1108.html

[Cubist]

I faced a similar situation with my Cube, on which I had already upgraded the CPU and HD over time. My old Cube was having lots of old age issues, like firewire ports that were problematic, and an optical drive that was no longer interested in playing DVDs. It would have cost me well over a thousand dollars to re-do my Cube, and even then, I'd still be stuck with a 100Mhz Bus, No USB 2.0 and firewire ports that were causing problems with my peripherals. I love the Cube but the mini solved all my problems, plus it brought USB 2.0 and a faster system bus to the party and it cost much less money to do it. My Cube now sits nearby, running Folding@Home.

It's worth the extra cash to get the faster processor with the Mini. I run mine with a firewire HD as the startup disc. About the only real drawback of a stock mini is the slow HD.