Home > Consumer Reviews > Apple Power Mac G5 Desktop M9031LL/A (1.80-GHz PowerPC G5, 512 MB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, DVD-R/CD-RW Drive)

The G5 looks like something out of a sci-fi flick, and performs even better. The really scary thing is the surface is just being scratched on this thing, with few programs compiled around its 64-bit processor. More on that in a minute ...

Despite being a beast of a machine (nearly 60 lbs!) and probably the complex computer Apple has ever sold, it is a breeze to set it up and get it going (remember this is a Mac!) I bought it with a seperate Airport Extreme Card that was trivial to install. The G5 even comes with an external Airport antenna.

The included keyboard is very minimal and can take some getting used to. The keys are so tight that I often found myself hitting F13 when trying to hit the delete key. The mouse is a classic Apple mouse, i.e. one button and no scroll wheel. Personally I like Apple mice because they are very natural to use, even though it would seem like two buttons and scroll wheel could be added withot upsetting the ergonomic...

The G5 is amazingly quiet ... most of the time. I have it sitting just a few feet from a P4 2.4GHz and the difference in sound is amazing. I have got the G5 to be noisy though, while installing Panther, and it was incredibly loud then. Nothing else I've done has been able to get it to be quiet. The superdrive is a little noisy, though really no more than most high speed optical drives.

My G5 came with Jaguar pre-installed, but with a full retail version of Panther included in the box. I was very pleased with this, as most computers (not just Apple) only come with "restore" disks. I could write a ton just about Panther, but I will keep it short. I setup the G5 with Jaguar then immediately installed Panther. It took less than 20 minutes to install it, which is amazingly fast (no doubt because the hard drive was nearly empty!)

I was also pleased to see that the G5 software bundle included a Photoshop patch to optimize Photoshop (7.0.1) for use with the G5 cpu. You could download this from Adobe's website, but it was cool that they included it anyways. I didn't run Photoshop on the G5 without the patch, so I can't really say what the net effect of the patch is, but Photoshop on my G5 is so much faster than Photoshop on my P4 ... there is no comparison!

iTunes and iDvd are also very speedy on the G5. I could rip CDs to 256 kbps AAC at speeds over 16x. Again this blows away my P4. I was also able to make a dvd of my wedding, using a dv recording of the 15 minute ceremony, a 10 minute slideshow of pictures (made with iPhoto), and more pics and music for menus. iDvd made it a breeze to put together, and burned the dvd in less than 30 minutes. I made a similar project once using a friend's G4 and it took almost three times as long.

Finally, when it comes to picking your G5, I must recommend the 1.8 GHz as being the best bang-for-the-buck. The 1.6 GHz version has notable downgrades in comparison (no pci-x, no ddr 400, etc.) The dual 2GHz is virtually identical to the 1.8 GHz version, but having dual processors. Also, I recommend sticking with the cheaper NVidia graphics card. The ATI cards are more highly regarded, but most of that is for their superior DirectX 9 implementation. DirectX 9 is a Windows technology, so it is meaningless on a Mac. Everything on a Mac uses lots of OpenGL, and NVidia is superior on OpenGL. So the NVidia card is really better than the ATI 9600 that is available, though it is cheaper. The ATI 9800 probably outperforms the NVidia, courtesy of having twice the amount of memory, but it is $350 more.

I just bought my new G5 and it is the first Apple I have owned. My first G5 did not work and it was new sent directly from Apple. This happens from time to time. It took almost 2 weeks to get from order time with ground Fed X shipping. I was a bit surprised at the length and it was not very clear when ordering from Apple that it would take this long. They did send me a new PC since the first was broken, but I had to package up the broken one and bring it to a Fed X shipping drop off some miles away from my house and it took many phone calls to Apple. The second computer was supposed to be sent 2 day, but that did not happen either. A mistake was made on their end that delayed my second computer from arriving. In all, it took just short of a month to receive my working G5. Apple customer support is difficult to contact, obviously I had to make several calls (first sales, then tech support, then sales again, etc about 7-8 in all) which each had a wait time to talk to someone of at least 25 minutes. It was a time consuming process, but the tech support was great and worth the time to wait there.

I am an experienced PC user so it was and still is a bit of a transition. Once you get the function variations down, you notice that operating the Mac is so much simpler than a PC. My favorite thing is not having to negotiate through Internet popups of course. Simple things such as this are built in to the Mac and are so easy to enable and disable. The G5 is super fast and silent. My only discontent with the machine actually is with software and hardware compatibility. I have since found that it is hard to find software and some hardware locally that is compatible with OS X panther. Programs I love to use, like MSN or Yahoo Messenger, lack in functionality with the Mac. The costs of my Children's games are quite a bit higher as well and most do not work in the OS X platform yet either. When purchasing equipment such as web cam's, printers, etc, it is critical that you verify and double verify that they will work with your PC. This is really not a MAC issue, more of an industry issue, but it is real and limits what you can do, especially if you are an old PC user. This is becoming less important as I find good Internet sites and other resources to find Mac support; it just takes a bit of getting use to.

Even with all of the problems I had, I would highly recommend this product. I do believe Murphy had a bit to do with my experience and with the exception of the long wait times, and I am hoping Apple gets on this one, they did handle it in a professional and very acceptable manner. I love my new machine and am slowly building up a software inventory that has awesome graphics and play speed. I am even getting good at locating drivers for devices from sources other than the hardware manufacturers, since they are so slow to step up to the plate, which expands the hardware compatibility issue.

Based on the review "Lame Duck" I think that the writer is a "Lame Brain".. I have operated a small business for the past 12 years with nearly all Mac's, and have never needed to take a Mac to a service technician.. This new G5 is the fastest and easiest machine to use yet.. For the record, we still have a 10 year old Quad 610 Mac for accounting that has never needed service, aside for adding some memory and a larger hard drive which any 4th grader could do..

The office presently has 5 Mac's and one Windows XP machine.. The Windows machine which is only handling faxes and UPS software requires more maintenance restarts to keep it working than all the Mac's combined! We have one Mac that is 3 years old, that we use as a server for all the sales machines.. It runs 24-7, and has not been turned off for the past 6 months, and then only because we needed to move it, and blow out a hand full of dust.. Frankly I am in business to sell other products, and can't afford to be bothered with the high maintenance required by the popular neighborhood machines.. Perhaps the writer of "Lame Duck" should actually try a Mac..

Even if you don't smoke, you might want a "hit" after playing with this super-sonic speed demon. My boss ordered this computer as a "surprise" for me to replace my aging G4. If I had been let in on the surprise, I would have asked for a dual processor, but I'm not complaining.

If you've got the $, you'll want to get the dual processor, because all future OS X apps are moving in that direction - especially when Tiger (OS 10.4) debuts in Spring 2005.

Having a DVD-R and a CD-R that reads the 800MB CDs is sweet. The machine is relatively quiet and simply gorgeous to behold - a true example of industrial art.

The grille helps to circulate air to cool the hot CPU. The only 64 bit computer a mere mortal can afford at this time... Apple has once again raised the bar to previously unthinkable heights.

This is a machine that will still be a workhorse 5 years from now - you can't say that for any PC on the market. PCs are ready for the "old age home" by age 3 nowadays, but Macs keep truckin' on.

I still have an old G4 at home that is over 5 years old and I probably won't move on up to a G5 (or G6!) for another year or two - and that will be more for selfish reasons that true necessity.

A true plus is the addition of frontal ports which supplement the rear ports. How wonderful to have a headphone jack in the front! Hallelujah!

My less than perfect rating stems from no way to forceably eject a stuck CD. Older models let you use the old "paper clip" trick to eject a disk that wouldn't mount, but your only shot is to reboot while holding the mouse button down - and that won't always work - in which case you have to take the machine to an authorized Apple Technician.

The metallic door where the discs go in is super sexy, as is the whole machine.

The handles are a bit hard to hold comfortably - Apple should have included some plastic molded (and removable) handle cushins or something.

The case doesn't show scratches like plastic does and the screened Apple logo is so classy. All they need now are dual chrome exhaust pipes and a cup holder to make this baby drool worthy!

I'll grant you, I am Macintosh through and through. I started working on a little SE at Kinko's back in 1985. Over the years, I've kept up to date fairly well. My iMac sits proudly on my desk at home. I carry my iBook when I need the portability. Up until about two weeks ago, I was working off a G4 that was starting to show it's age. I recently upgraded to the new G5. Wow!

This machine is everything it's promoted to be, and that's without full OS or software support of the 64 bit processor. My work has me dealing with large Photoshop files quite a bit. The G4 used to strain just to open them. Now, I can open, make a minor change, and be done before they would have been opened on the old machine.

Whether it's software or OS related, there seems to be a bit of issue going between OS X (10.2.7) programs and Quark XPress 4.1 (under Classic environment). But that's a minor issue that I can live with. Especially once I upgrade a few programs and minimize the need for Classic.

Just so you know... The overall size is about 10% larger than the G4 it replaced. I wasn't quite prepared for that. Also, when the cooling fans come on, you hear about it. And, the caps lock (on) diode is hard to see on the streamlined keyboard. The mouse also seems to be more sensitive than before.