Looking for my 1st Mac

[Justin]

I'm looking to dip my toe into the Mac world for the first time...again, please don't turn this thread into a Mac vs PC debate, been there done that, printed the t-shirt (sorry )

What's the best/cheapest route into Macsville? I've been looking at the Mac Mini, 2nd hand appears to be around £250.

What OS should I be looking for? The latest? Also, is the software expensive, i.e. Photoshop in particular?

[Paul]

I am looking for Imac for editing my photographs but can no afordit at the moment

[Justin]

That would be the ideal but not going to happen just yet! Thought something like the Mini would get me used to the interface etc.

Photoshop Elements looks like a decent way to get into that, probably more than capable.

[bms]

My Mac is about 20 years old now - it's a Mac Classic which only takes a 720k floppy disc and has a 5" mono screen. The discs have MacWrite and MacPaint on them and that's about it. 20 years on my next purchase will be the iPad 2. Always tempted by the macs, but the prices always put me off.

[Justin]

They certainly aren't cheap and I'm by no means a convert. It's just that, for future career possibilities, I think it would be good to get my head around them.

[swimwivsquid]

If you don't want to spend too much money Justin why not look at a used g4 tower with OSX in some form or other. I am using a g4 with tiger osx and it runs perfectly well for photoshop.The only thing I would say about the Imacs is that they are a sod to get the screen colour balanced as the density and colour changes depending on the angle that you view them at. We did a job a couple of years back and our client loaned us a couple of imacs to work with but we ended up using our towers with a crt screen for predictable colour balance. Still using a Mitsubishi Diamond plus with a G4. The mini might be a good start hooked up to a decent monitor.You could probably use one of your existing monitors. Don't get me wrong the imacs are great for a lot of applications but I would go for a tower G5 and separate monitor if I was upgrading. Come over to the dark side......

[smitch6]

depends on whether u want a lappy or desktop????

if its a laptop you want get a white macbook
make sure you egt the right one though you want the 2.4Ghz because you can upgrade it more than the others
they can be bought at a reasonable price esp on eBay.

i bought mine 18mths ago for around £400

i can't comment too much on desktop as i only have a lappy

but if you need any help info on macs gimme a shout as i have quite a lot of good extras for them

and trust me you'll NEVER go back

[smitch6]

when i bought mine it had Tiger OS on it
i looked on apple's website and for the latest Leopard version the price was £25 for a proper genuine CD delivered
try getting a genuine brand new windows OS for that price

[Justin]

Thanks guys, food for thought

[smitch6]

i actually have a spare macbook
it needs mending though the power plug blew up for some reason i think someone (not me i bought it like it) plugged the wrong charger in

it site in my bow compartment i keep meaning to get it sorted but haven't got around to it lol