Great design, Brilliant performance, Intergrated hard - drive, Modern looks
Disadvantages:
Better for buisness than gaming, Sound could be better perhaps .
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
My brother runs his own buisness and is constantly telling me how he has to have a top of the range machine for his work as a graphic designer. He's gone out for the weekend so I though I'd give his Apple G5 a go just too see what it was like. What a machine! I must admit though I was fairly sceptical about Mac's before I used the machine because of all the bad press they get, but my opinion has changed completely and I thought that I'd share my new perspective with ciao!
First thing that's worth I first noticed was no hard drive! Well there is but no tower. All the components for the machine are mounted cleverly in the monitor giving you more space on your desk. And it looks incredible. It's all white, curved lines, almsot everything about it is innovative and well though through although I must admit it took me a while to get to grips with the mouse. Only one button! But it's just a matter of time before you get the hang of it.
Continuing on the theme of design I almost find it hard to put into words how modern, innovative and stunning this machine really looks. Everywhere you look there's something that makes you think what a great piece of engineering this machine really is. For instance the CD drive is mounted into the side of the monitor! (As pictured) And the monitor itself is pretty slim. It's not as slim as my TFT but considering the entire PC is inside it I'm not going to start moaning!
Now onto performance. Again I really cannot say how impressed I am with it. Compared to my 'Top of the range' Windows machine, it looks light years ahead. For example when performing demanding tasks on photoshop for instance the G5 is the clear winner, sometimes more than twice as fast as my PC. This is due to the superb processor this machine uses. I say this because on paper my PC should win hand's down based on specs, but the processor makes the difference.
But what is like for gaming then? Well thanks to its nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics chipset, its very good. It played all the demanding games I could find without any hitches but then again most of my games are not compatible on Macs. In comparison to my Windows PC the loading time and gameplay was pretty much honours even, I did not notice and real difference between the two. Pretty much the only thing I cannot say it beats the PC at! And that's got to be saying something about the Mac's performance!
Going back to the physical machine itself, another striking feature of this machine is the screen size...20-inches! It did seem a little large at first, because I'm using a 15" usually. But after a while you do grow to love the screen size. And for those that enjoy watching media on their PC on a reasonable sized screen, this is going to do the trick. I watched a couple of film's yesterday evening and the screen size was better than adequete in my opinion.
The G5 also comes with an impressive array of software iLife multimedia suite, zinio Reader, and quicken 2004. There's also an emerging market for Mac compatible software at last. Alot of games are still Wndows only however I'm predicitng they start taking notice of the Mac potential and start producing software that compliments it. However it must be remembered that the G5 is more of a buisness machine, It's not a pure game's console as many Windows machines are, although as previously mentioned it can keep up with my Windows machine without any problems.
In conclusion I must say this computer impressed me hugely. I would recommend it to anybody. It can be bought for around £700-800 and is worth every penny. It's unique, it's got lightning performance and is well engineered. The G5 is not just a computer, it's the future.
Heres some specs:
Processor PowerPC G5 Processor speed 1800 MHz RAM installed 512 MB Hard disk capacity 80 GB Graphics adapter Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra Graphics chipset Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra Graphics RAM 64 MB Monitor integrated Monitor size 17 in. Monitor type TFT LCD Operating system Mac OS X 10.3.5
