iMac G5 is nice
My 20" iMac arrived on the 9th. I'd only seen the 17" model before mine arrived, amazing what a difference the extra 3" on the display makes.
The PowerMac G3 doesn't support [link|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583|FireWire Target Disk Mode](plus my home files were on the slave drive), so I wasn't able to try the [link|http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/upgradetonewmac.html|Setup Assistant] to automatically migrate my data & apps from my old system. I'm just about finished setting everything up, just the scanner and a few infrequently used apps & utilities left to install.
I used the wireless mouse for a couple days. While it was nice not having a cord to deal with, I much prefered my [link|http://www.kensington.com/html/2200.html|Kensington Expert Mouse Trackball] with it's 4 buttons and scroll ring. I like the wireless keyboard, though on occasional it takes a bit to "wake up" when I turn on the system.
The system performance was OK for the first few days, but became extra snappy once the 2 GB of RAM arrived to replace the 256 MB the system came with. It's hard to believe my first computer only had 5 KB.
I've been running SimCity 4 w/Rush Hour at 1680x1050 with all the detail options maxed out and the game is very responsive, smooth scrolling and no lags when day/night changes. I also configured [link|http://www.pangeasoft.net/enigmo/info.html|Enigmo] to run at 1680x1050. Other games run well, but don't look so hot due to LCD scaling if I can't set them to run 1680x1050. Another problem I've noticed is that some games will get stretched to fill the wide screen, while others are either centered with black bars to the left/right or all the way to the left with a large black bar on the right. I'd prefer the 4:3 resolution games to show with bars to either side, but I haven't found a setting to control it.
I gave AppleWorks a try, but it was missing some financial formulas I use(such as cumulative interest). I ran into some trouble setting up OpenOffice, the install program would abort without any error messages. I ended up installing [link|http://www.neooffice.org/|NeoOffice/J](Open Office using Java for the GUI instead of X11). I'd tried it on the G3 350MHz system, but it was a bit sluggish. Runs very well on the G5. I really like that it directly supports my printer - in OpenOffice I had to create PDF files & print those to get hard copies.
