Throwback Thursday: Power Mac G4 Cube

By on Feb 3, 2011 at 5:37 PM
General February 3, 2011

For this week’s Throwback Thursday we’re venturing back to the year 2000. A time when the Y2K scare was in full swing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was floating around 5,000, and the Power Mac G4 Cube was hot technology.

First sold in 2000, Apple’s Power Mac G4 Cube came standard with a 450MHz PowerPC G4 processor, 128MB of RAM, 24X CD-ROM drive, 20GB hard drive, and 16MB ATI graphics card. The computer was popular amongst Mac enthusiasts due to is svelte form — 9-inches tall, 8-inches wide, and 8-inches deep — fan-less operation, and unique speakers. Like all things Apple, there was a premium that had to be paid for such a compact and dapper machine; the Cube’s base price was $1599 (CPU only).

While popular amongst die-hard Mac fans, the device never really achieved mainstream success and in 2001 the Cube was retired. Since the computer’s sunsetting, instructions have surfaced online explaining how to turn the Cube’s external case into a host of other things… including a fish bowl.

Anyone out there ever invest in a G4 Cube?

BGR’s Throwback Thursday is a weekly series covering our (and your) favorite gadgets, games, and software of yesterday and yesteryear.

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  • Mursin2

    I still have my G4 Cube, it was a graduation present to myself. I love the little thing, it sucks that it can’t upgrade past Mac OS Tiger, but it still there new to my Mac pro humming along. It might be outdated but it still garners more attention and questions than any of Apple current product…. Long live the Cube

    • Jazshow

      Hah! Only takes a little hacking — I’m typing this in 10.5.8 on my cube! I bought it off craigslist about 2 years ago and cloned leopard from a friend’s powerbook via FW target mode.

  • http://rmbo47.myopenid.com/ rmbo47

    It was an iconic design. Pure Apple. XLR8YourMac had some nifty upgrades for it too.

  • Dustin

    Went through 2 of them in 2001. They both overheated and died within 6 months.

    • Thirdshop

      seriously? 2? didn’t learn from the first fail?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_4ZYRQ3NQYDJWPVIETQ3WS4RUKM toeknee

    Yah I had one that I got second hand (along with the 22″ Cinema display) for $300 dollars. I upgraded its MLB to have a 1.6Ghz G4 and swapped in a 120GB hard drive. Unfortunately the MLB fried one day and after repairing it I sold it off (and the display) for $400

  • iPhonesRcool

    Ah yes, another piece of worthless overpriced apple crap. The memories…

  • http://twitter.com/carcomptoy Jeremiah

    Funny how my T-Mobile G2 kills that thing now, specs-wise. Nevertheless, this thing is still a classic…I remember lusting after it in the old CompUSA stores way back when…when I was like 12 hahaha

    • KCRic

      Funny how every computer out in 2000 killed that thing specs wise. Like you said though, it’s design is unique which makes it a classic.

  • Booboolala2000

    Wanted but never got. My transparent smoke mac is still plugging along. Albeit not as fast as my Droid X, or my Macbook Pro. But still use very occasionally. Can’t seem to get rid of it yet.

  • ML

    I’m not trying to be a complete douche… but I laughed my ass off on the Down Jone…

    • http://www.bgr.com Andrew Munchbach

      When I saw it was there… I laughed too. Fixed.

  • Joe Cool

    Andrew seriously????? And you wonder why people think this site is pure Apple news. If thats what you want it to be just admit it.

    • http://www.bgr.com Andrew Munchbach

      I’m not really all that into Apple. If you’d like, you can suggest the next Throwback Thursday topic and I’ll happily cover it :)

      • Maui88

        lolol that’s hilarious. He said he’s not really all that into Apple…hahaha

      • Maui88

        Oops I thought this was zach. My b.

      • Tee

        Oooo… Light Boy! For the original Game Boy. The magnifying glass/insanely bright spotlight that “helped” you play in the dark.

  • Anonymous

    I have one that I got from work for free. I put in a bigger HD, maxed out the RAM and added an Airport card. Looks nice, and it’s one of the most compact PPC desktops ever.

    Too slow to do much now, but it’s great for playing little old OS 9 games that never got ported to OS X. However it is hooked up and I have it running almost every day. Once you’ve updated it to the latest firmware version it’s quite stable. This was the final revision with the CD/RW drive though, so others with the earlier models might not be so lucky.

  • Anonymous

    I remember when this first came out and I thought (and still do) that it’s one of most retarded pieces of technology to drop from Apple. A pricier G4 in a cube form. Why? Just because! They tried to market this thing in so many ways (“it’s really quiet! albeit the regular G4 isn’t really loud to begin with…”) but really they could never justify it in the minds of consumers apart from “Hey it looks cool!” It just made so much more sense to buy the regular G4 tower if you wanted a Mac.

  • Anonymous

    The device(s) aside. If companies would just make watching Apple product intros mandatory then we would not have crappy presentations like the one we had at Google headquarters yesterday.

  • Badchad

    Typical Mac comp. I remember the damn touch sensitive button. When the thing froze it was tough to find. Then when you did find it, you had to unplug it anyway.

    I’m glad Apple has kept at least some of their design principles the same.

  • blah!

    Really? The Y2K scare was in full swing in the year 2000? I thought it was done by then.

  • Lrod

    Dow was at 10K not 5K… FAIL

  • Anonymous

    In terms of design its timeless and can’t touch any desktop that pc manufactures produce.

  • Anonymous

    Funny thing is, I’d always look over at the one I had and wipe the dust off the top of its clear smooth surface. And it would turn off.

  • oweyouabeer_Roo

    aw i miss mine. ran leopard…seriously

  • Anonymous

    still got my cube and 15inch cinema display at my moms house…runs 10.4 pretty good with 1gb of ram..

    doesnt like flash a whole lot though..

  • Anonymous

    I’ve had several over the years. One I even upgraded with a 1.7Ghz G4. Still, it wasn’t much faster than the stock CPU due to the 100Mhz bus speed. I even bought an upgraded case for that one. I don’t have one now, but I’d love to get one cheap off Ebay just for a collector’s item (I currently have an original Macintosh built in 1984..still works, and a Macintosh TV, which is the only black Mac sold in the U.S. and only about 10 thousand were made).

  • Anonymous

    That should be the only black desktop Mac ever sold in the U.S. There was the black Macbook laptop, of course.

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