Why is there an entire page dedicated to my eMac experiences? It was a computer I saw very often, and went through a good amount of them myself.
I bought an eMac off of eBay with the help of my dad on February 13th, 2016. I paid $50 for a good, working USB 2.0 model that had a 160GB hard drive and 768MB of RAM. It was a very nice machine!! I used 10.5 on there for a good while and I still remember that Safari 5.0.6 appeared to be somewhat usable. I vividly remember listening to "Nuthin' but a G thang (the instrumental)" on loop while looking for software to put on here... I don't remember why I chose that song in particular, but I seemed to have liked it. I was around 11 years old at the time, so shortly after I got a 2730p too. I wanted to have another secondary system, and I also wanted to try a Mac. I wanted a desktop system and not a laptop, so the eMac was the first thing that came to mind after I saw some at school many years prior.
That eMac lasted me a good 2 years before the CRT crapped out. I used it for my 7th grade homework and such, and I even remember running Vista in Q emulator for fun... it was abysmally slow with that. I did get great use out of it though, and the CRT looked stellar! I miss it quite a bit, but I have MUCH better eMacs now. :)
I ultimately had to get rid of it in May 2018. I salvaged whatever parts I needed and recycled it. :(
Mere months after the CRT issue on my last one, I got another eMac! This one was originally an ATI graphics model, except with a USB 2.0 board swapped in once I had to replace it someday in April, before my first eMac crapped out. I got the 820-1798-A board, which was a revised USB 2.0 board that was used in eMacs sold in the education market. This used to be my (mom's side) grandfather's eMac, who was the original owner of it too! He didn't have the box and such, unfortunately. It did come with a Pro Mouse and keyboard. I used this one for a good while, until Christmas when I got parts to build another computer. I managed to overclock it to 1.5GHz, and that made it noticeably speedier.
This eMac had a bad CRT in August 2019, and I replaced it with an LCD display at some point. It didn't look good, but it held me over until I found a completely tattered eMac at a burnt-down electronics store in October 2019. Lo and behold, that CRT was a working one! I swapped it into the eMac, and I had a complete system again. Around this time, I also discovered that my particular eMac board could go to 1.67GHz without a hitch. Yes, I now have a great machine for OS 9...
On May 10th, 2020... I found a 2005 eMac motherboard in a box of stuff at the city dump. I heard people got these to 1.92GHz, and I did just that. And that's where the somewhat infamous 1.92GHz eMac was born. I kept the old motherboard in case I got another eMac (in which I got 2 more in 2021) and used that recently to make a fast OS 9 machine. The 2005 eMac can only do OS X and Linux, but it's still a wonderful machine to have once boosted this high. I've had no problems with it whatsoever and it was on 24/7 for a couple weeks once as I did some work up in my room to study for a permit test.
I still have this computer and it's never had any issues in the past 2 years I've had the 2005 board. It's a wonderful machine, and if you're willing to mod a 2005 eMac to run at lightning fast speeds, go to 1.92GHz.
I was informed by the cinematography teacher at my school that she had 3 old macs; an ATI Graphics eMac, a USB 2.0 eMac, and a G4 QuickSilver. On October 7th and 14th, I picked up a USB 2.0 eMac and an ATI Graphics eMac respectively. On the 15th, I picked up a QuickSilver G4. These eMacs are nice to have as spares in case I run into another CRT issue, or if I just want to experiment around with them. So far, everything's been smooth with my 3 eMacs. I may have outmoded my 2005 eMac with an iSight iMac G5, but it doesn't mean it'll ever go away from me.
The eMac is an underrated gem; get them cheap while you still can. I've had much better experiences with eMacs than other all in one macs from the era, even the G3 iMacs. These are far more reliable and are built very well. Apple listened to the education markets, and they answered with flying "colors?". I'd highly recommend picking one up (if you're strong enough) if you ever get a chance. Unfortunately I did have to pass up a few as they weren't of interest to me or I already had one that was in better shape and of the same model. The only eMac I'm missing? A 2002 model. Hit me up if you have one and we're in business. ;)