So if you are like me and you want to go to the Mac camp but find yourself limited on funds? Then this article is for you. First off you might want to stay away from the newer Macs if you have a limited cash flow so look for at least a G4 Mac. If you are entirely new to the world Apple then you need to know that G4 Mac computers are that the CPU ranges from 500MHZ to 1.25GHZ. While this might not be enough to play a lot of the newer games it is enough to allow you to surf the web, check e-mail, use iLife and iWork 08, even PhotoShop. So now that you know how powerful it is now you need to know what you can get and for how much.

Basically there is two Macs you can buy for around, and under, $500.

 G4 iMac: The G4 iMac, which I use by the way, is a great starter mac computer. You can find it in the 15" or 17" screen size. The computer supports all the way up to a 1.25 ghz CPU and is plenty fast enough to do all of your computing needs. On eBay you can find on of these with Buy it Now for under $400. I bought mine, 1ghz and 1gig of ram, for $297. The computer works great and is still stunning to look at.

  G4 iBook. Before the beautiful Macbooks you had the iBook. This laptop sports the same classy white look of the Macbook and is just as compact and lightweight. Unlike the Macbook this notebook doesn’t have a built in camera. The average Macbook on eBay has about a 700mhz CPU. You can find one of these for around $500, sometimes over sometimes under.

So there you go two great computers that you can buy without breaking the bank. Remember OS X leopard does support the G4 chipset so you can upgrade that old mac into a real MAC. If you know of any other place to get cheap Macs please leave a link as a comment or if you need help picking out a Mac then list your issues as a comment.