Poll: Let the A2000 or A3000 go?

[Ami_GFX]

I'd keep the A3000 just because it takes up less space if you're really not using it very much and it has 31khz video out and Zorro III. Less room to expand, true but you don't need a lot of boards to have a good setup. I've got just 3 good ones in my A4000: a Toaster 4000, a Picasso II and a Fastlane Z3. All I really need in the Zorro department. If you sold the A2000 and put a A3640 in your A3000 with some of the money, you'd have a lot faster machine.

I seem to be cursed with A3000s. A few years ago, I was trying to buy one and every deal fell through and I saw an A4000 Video Toaster on ebay, put one bid on it and won it and a whole lot of extra Amiga hardware and just gave up on the A3000 and have been happy with it ever since.

[Ami_GFX]

One thing about thinning down your collection and keeping the A2000 is that the A2000's have always had a good track record for longevity.  I wouldn't be surprised if there are more A2000s still running than any other big box Amigas. So if you are going to have less Amigas then the A2000 seems a good choice.

My A2500 has been running since 1992. I did replace the motherboard once. It wasn't dead by any means but it would only recognize half the chip ram. I got a complete A2000 in bad cosmetic condition with the same motherboard revision for next to nothing which gave me the new motherboard and enough spare parts to keep it running forever. With the stock A2630 accellerator, GVP SCSI card, DKB 2632 memory expansion and A2320 Amber flicker fixer, it has just about everything an A3000 has except a Zorro III bus with more room to expand.

My A4000 has been a bit more probmatic and I had to replace the CPU card recently but it was originally owned by a technical college for video editing classes and has seen some heavy use before I got it and, all and all, is doing well for it's age and amount of use it's had. I do like using the Toaster 4000 with the AGA graphics. I had a Toaster 2000 and sold it and kept the Toaster 4000 due to the better video graphics.

I saw the A3000 listing and I would have considered buying it if I had more time and space for it but I'm in the thinning mode myself and just sold my spare Atari Mega 4 St to pay for the parts to fix my A4000.

[Ami_GFX]

The A2000 is sturdier and better built over all. The chips and other electronic components are either socketed or soldered in plate through holes which are a lot easier to desolder and replace than surface mounted chips.  

The battery in the A4000 is right near the simm sockets, buster and other sensitive areas. I got mine out before it did much damage but I did have to clean up a bit to get it to recognize all the memory simms. The A4000's A3640 CPU card has 5 surface mounted electrolytic capacitiors  and 3 are usually mounted with the polarity reversed which makes them tend to leak and cause damage. It was one of the ones with correct polarity next to the 68040 that leaked and killed my first A3640, ironically.

Of all the big box Amigas, the A4000 is the most ergonomic and space effecient. The internal 5.2" drive bay helps a lot compared to the A3000. It still takes up a lot of room but a lot less than an A2000. But, hey, the Amiga came out long before the era of laptops and way before the era of smart phones and, if you want one, you are going to have to set aside some space for it.