Customer Reviews

Apple Power Mac G5 Desktop M9749LL/A (Dual 2.7 GHz PowerPC G5, 512 MB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, 16x Dual Layer SuperDrive)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you're reading this review you probably want to know if this is the computer for you. That definitely depends more on you than this computer. It's clearly too much money for web surfing and e-mail. If that's your primary use for a computer please, get something else. But if you really drive your computer hard, especially with graphics or video applications this computer is a great choice.

Why? Is this the fastest hardware when compared to Intel/AMD options in the same price range? In the real world it's right up there with the fastest. But, just as with cars, horsepower isn't everything. Handling is probably more important and and handling is, if nothing else, very different when driving an OS X based computer vs Windows.

Maxed out Windows PCs remind me of American muscle cars built with little thought to handling, comfort, or efficiency. Macs are a lot more like a Porsche 911 - plenty of horsepower connected to excellent engineering on every other part of the car. OS X on this 2.7 is the same way - there's no doubt it's a high performance computer, but it's also so well thought out it's a pleasure to drive hard all day long.

And this was my criteria for purchasing this computer. I use both a 2.5GHz G5 and a high end XP machine at work. I simply feel better at the end of the day driving the Mac. OS X is a plush ride for those who really push applications hard. This distinction could be subjective but I suspect that it's more like seats, vibration and noise in cars - factors that will wear you down no matter how much you tell yourself your muscle car is really comfortable.

If you get the hopped up PC you'll still get to Cleveland - maybe a few seconds faster, maybe a few seconds slower - but you're not going to enjoy the trip nearly as much as I do.

I don't need a long winded rebuttal. The guy who said he called for service on a new machine, and was told to take it to COMPUSA has never gotten service from Apple. Apple will cheerfully send you a box to your home next day air. They will also repair your machine in one day, and next day air it back to you. All free. They are the most reliable machines in the world as proven by the non-profit consumers union, and the rabidly pc positive PC-World consumer survey. Anybody that says that Macs crash ever, or that they ever had to reboot it, has not used a Mac since OS X came out. I do not care what real bench marks you used. I have never seen a PC that can download video from a HI-8 digital video camera withour dropping frames. My old 800 mhz Ibook laptop could do it with no problem. The special made PCs could render faster than my laptop, but I can wait for perfect rendering after a perfect download. The special PCs that cost nearly ten times as much as my old dinky laptop just could never produce acceptable home video. My dual G5 now renders slightly faster in the real world than my friend's $10,000.00 intel machine. He looks like a puppy told to go to his room for peeing on the floor. I really do not care if it is a little faster or a lot slower, just as long as it is perfect.

As far as business, and productivity software all machines are fast enough PC and Mac.

PCs alway have some little thing break that worked the day before. The windows task bar has always been buggy. Try setting it to auto-hide. You can't use it! PCs are a constant hassle. They are for professionals only. Because you have to be a professional to keep them working. I know, I am a Microsoft Certified System Engineer, and spend my day job hours making Windows Networks, desktops and servers work. I see no sign of a PC that can run an hour without some kind of little problem, and PC users have just come to expect it, and do not even try to make them work, unless the problem is so severe that they cannot possbibly do thier job.

I have never had anything stop working for no reason on Mac. Yes I have had hardware problems on Macs, twice. I got them fixed for free and within three days. My wife runs a 1998 250MHz blueberry ibook. My son runs a 500MHZ 2000 dual USB ibook, and I run a new 2005 1.4GHZ ibook and a 2.5GHZ desktop. I do not pay for antivirus, or antispyware. I also own a 1.4GHZ Intel server that I built myself that is unplugged, unloved, and sitting in a closet. I used to use it as a shared hard-drive for my whole family, but it was alway causing problems.

I have been using Macintosh computers since the SE30 we had in college and I have watched Apple put out better and better machines and this G5 is their most amazing machine yet. It was fast out of the box, but after upgrading to 8gb of RAM this machine screams. You can zip through huge Photoshop files, high definition video, and everyday computing with ease. Regardless of what industry you work in, your work (and play) will benefit from this computer and with Amazon's $200 rebate, you can't find a better price.

As this unit was produced, Apple published reviews where the speed tests over-killed anything in 3Ghz segment Intel devision. It was a true and it is still the true. Apple "revised" they reviews because of the recent twist toward Intel, however if you actually work with this thing you know what I'm talking about ;).
This unit the last one in Apple's model line that takes PCI or PXI-X, all of the following units use incompatible PCIe that means that all PCI cards you may have will not fit. I still have very nice PCI cards that work incredibly well and have no intention to swap them. Notably all M-Audio's interfaces are PCI-X and will not work in newer machines. PCIe has a benefits of speed for input-output operations such as disks but for most devises there's no increase in performance at all. The computer is very quite and if you do audio projects it is very important. So far it was reliable and nice!

Apple is, quite simply, the best and most innovative computer manufacturer. Consumer Reports recently identified Apple computers as the most reliable computers currently available and a PC magazine user survey reached the same conclusion. Also PC magazine has picked a Macintosh G5 as the best multi-purpose desktop computer. Now Apple has this even more powerful Macintosh G5 computer with dual 2.7 GHz processors.

Yes, most people use Windows-based PCs, but do you want to be just another member of the PC herd -- with all of the problems and frustrations (including frequent crashes and virus attacks) presented by Windows-based PCs -- or are you looking for a computer which is user friendly, seldom crashes, and is virtually impervious to virus attacks? If these virtues are more important to you than being one of the crowd, please seriously consider buying an Apple computer. The Power Mac G5 is Apple's top-of-the-line computer series and this is the most powerful G5 ever -- essentially a desktop supercomputer. Like all Power Mac G5s this computer is more than twice as fast as a Pentium 4 with the same clock speed and has dual 64-bit processors. All computers will have 64-bit processors some day but very few PCs, except for Mac G5s, have them at this time. If you're looking for a super fast, versatile, easy to use computer (and want to stop worrying abut virus attacks) and are willing to try something off the beaten path, you'll love this new more powerful Power Mac G5. If you want the virtues of Apple computers and G5 power at a lower price consider the Power Mac G5s with dual 2.3 GHz or dual 2.0 GHz processors or the new G5 iMacs.

I am a long time Mac fan; Apple has about $25,000 of my money over the last 20 years. I've bought at least a dozen different models in that time.

After waiting for the 3 GHz machine for too long, I broke down and ordered this latest model. Before it arrived, Apple announced the switch to Intel. I called Apple and cancelled my order because I felt the machine was going to be an orphan. It showed up anyway and I broke down again and kept it. Then the machine broke down.

I had the random sleep problem, where regardless of the settings, it would go to sleep, right in the middle of anything. I found the exact online support description of the problem, which said to upgrade the OS. I already had the current OS. I called Apple, and they said the only thing to do was send it off to the nearest CompUSA and they gave me the address and phone number. The place didn't exist. The next nearest one (that actually existed) was 175 miles away. I wouldn't be dropping it off. On top of the more than $3000 spent on the brand new top of the line system, I now had to pay out of my own pocket to ship it off for repair ($50). They refused to reimburse me.

The Apple certified technician did everything Apple told him to do. After a month, he gave up and shipped the system back to me. Since this one had my personal data on it, I told Apple I was keeping it until the replacement showed up and I would swap the hard drives. Apple said fine, give us your credit card number in case you don't send the extra (broken) one back. Apple legal then sent me paperwork that said I agreed to send the broken one back. Then the shipping label showed up by courier with a letter saying I need to ship the broken one back within 30 days.

The only problem is, they won't send a replacement computer. After three weeks, I finally got a courtesy call saying parts are back ordered in the manufacturing facility and it's still going to be awhile. On a whim, I checked the Amazon website and guess who has computers in stock? So is Apple saying nobody got computers in the last three weeks, or that I don't rate high enough to get one?

So let's see. Long time loyal customer, top dollar on Apple's best computer, two and a half months waiting, and still stuck with a partially functioning computer that they're likely to again bill me for in the next 10 days. I certainly wouldn't give them two stars for customer service.

Okay. We all know that Apple / Microsoft, Mac OS X / Windows, have had a war going on ever since they were invented. I have been reading reviews for a long time, and I have been a Mac and PC use for a long time. For those of you who read this reviews to gather infromation o whether or not to by a product, then I am here to help you with something.
First off, I would like to thank the guy at the bottom of these reviews, (the one from Sydney) for pointing out things that are in fact true. OS X is based on Unix, and the OS X techlonogy was not completely orginal, it came from a comany before Steve Jobs came back to Apple in the Late-90s. But all of that is a huge History of the Mac archive. If you really want to find out what the whole tale of Mac OS X is, then I suggest you start reading some of the books on Steve Jobs.
Now onto the Mac itself. The Mac is a simple design, it is made to just work, which it does when taken care of. I have used every single Mac on today's current line-up. (iMac G5, iBook G4, Powerbook G4, Mac mini, PowermAc G5, and iPod models from 3rd Generation all the way up to the current iPod nano.) They all run pretty much the same, the ones that preform less are simply not as advanced as those who preform better.
I currently own a Late-2001 iBook G3, which is entirley obsolete copared to todays Apple machines, and it is still working exactly like it did the day that i took it out of the box. But keep in mind, great care has been put into this machine to keep it running at optimal preformance. I will not lie, not all computers are perfect. My iBook freezes, has internal system problems, it has good days and bad days; just like any other computer out there. Macs are not perfect, they have their flaws, but you will find that they are more concrete than your regular PC.
Now, being a long time Mac user, I know how to repair many problems that come up, and they are small problems, things that happen all the time in any computer. But for some, and there is not a problem with this, they simply do not know how to fix them; therefore, they say that Macs are a piece of crap and should be destroyed. It all comes with knowledge. If you know how to solve a problem, then you solve it. It is when you don't know, that you give up and call whatever you are angry at a piece of crap.
Still, I cannot choose your purchase for you, I can only tell you what the turh is. If you take the time to learn about your Mac, if you come to know how to repair problems that might occur, and if you treat it with care on both the hardware and software, you will find that the Mac will last until it becomes obselete from the technology around it.

This is the new version of the Power Mac G5. I currently own the G5 with the dual 2.5GHz in it but now I'm willing to upgrade. They have four versions of this Power Mac right now: Single 1.8GHz, Dual 2.0GHz, Dual 2.3GHz, and Dual 2.7GHz. They have lowered the prices too which is nice. For some reason I like to go with the most expensive because if you think about it in the long run I would rather spend money on a exceptional computer with technology not even seen on most computers today and have it for 10 years. AMD and Intel are now making dual core processors but they can't stand up to the G5's dual processor capability. No Windows desktop can even have 8GB of RAM either. Most Windows PCs I see today have up to 4-5GB of RAM. This one had 512MB RAM which I would upgrade to atleast 2GB. 250 GB Hard Drive is good but I would recommend getting a 500GB or 800GB hard drive so you'll know you will always have room to store things. It has DVD+/-RW drive upgraded from the DVD-R drive from the previous model. This is better because now the drive can be rewritable. I love the design of the G5 and I can't wait what Apple will do with the G6 or their next power house PC. It comes with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger which is brand new to the market. It's better than the 10.3 no doubt. I haven't upgraded to it the 10.4 yet but I am soon since I am getting this G5. Everything from this model I have heard about is awesome and I can't wait until I pick mine up.

I love my dual processor PowerPC. I sure hope they don't suck after they move to Intel processors. Yikes.

Funny that the product has yet to be announced by Apple.