Time has come to realise that the old netbook is not up to the task and we could really do with a family computer for general use (not entertainment) ie running writing apps, browsing, possibly photo editing

Looking to get a used iMac, any suggestions about how old a model is still considered usable, potential pitfalls etc much appreciated.

Isn’t it called Veet these days?

🙂

Take a look at the versions that can’t run current OS and work out a timeline from there as to how long you want to run it for?

Buy new from the refurb store. There’s quite a bit of the latest stuff on there at the moment as they clear out for the new stuff.

Age isn’t a massive issue second hand, my MacBook is 2011 and still runs perfectly well with the latest os, but at 5 years old that might not be the case much longer so I still wouldn’t buy one that old, especially given their resale value. Mine seems to be worth about £450 on eBay and I only paid £750 for it – I’d rather spend the extra on a new one.

If money is tight, why not get a PC?

Apple is a fashion company that wants to rob you blind.

2012 or newer, or whenever they changed to the new thinner design. Fusion drive or SSD makes a big difference to speed, fusion drive is cheaper. Processor speed does not seem to make a big difference – if you really need it you will already know because of the stuff you are doing. Base 8GB memory is fine, third party upgrade is easy on the 27″ but not on the smaller one – this alone makes 27″ the better buy. Retina display is nice to have, but you won’t miss it if you are looking to save money.

I was going to type something but then Tim above ^ said it all perfectly.

If you follow Tim’s advice though, what sort of money are you saving vs a refurb from the Apple Store? Would be interesting to know if you are really saving much.

Refuse to buy one till they supply SSD as the base spec.

Quidco has 4% on Apple store refurb sales.

My 2009 Mini (with extra RAM and better bigger hard drive) is still running very sweetly. It didn’t get the last OS upgrade but otherwise does pretty much all the latest stuff. The iMacs are generally better specced so anything from 2010 onwards would be fine for what you want. RAM is easy to add but hard drives more complicated as screen has to come off. I have bid on a few 2012 27″ (the screen size to get imho). If you can find a 4K Retina one used they are great

Avoid the melting graphics cards….dammit!

The 2009 iMac can take the latest OS upgrade, so might be a cheaper option if you go second hadn’t, but a look on eBay seems to indicate they’re not much cheaper. Would agree that 27″ is the one to get.

Thanks all, very much appreciated.

I remember paying over 2k on the never never for a desktop PC suitable for Photoshop, back in 2000, (Evesham,remember them?) it lasted a few years (five?) before was creaking along with the pace of tech. Looking at iMac refurbs costs has made my eyes water. Undo-able. Time to rethink, methinks.

My 2009 Mini (with extra RAM and better bigger hard drive) is still running very sweetly

Ah, we have a Mini with a stuck CD, maybe time to get that looked at. Of course Apple saw fit to make the unit guts eminently inaccessible. With the stuck CD, annoying problem getting native resolution on the widescreen monitor, plus ongoing probs with not being able to update itunes (think it’s Snow Leopard not sure what build) we just put it to the back of the cupboard and used my old netbook. Maybe the Mini could be resurrected? hmm….

There was a couple of threads recently which recommended HP Elitebooks. These are metal chassis/high build spec business-oriented machiens. I’ve got a 840 G2, which has i5 / 8Gb etc… I run Lightroom on it and it’s very nearly as quick as my MBP 2011 with i7, 16Gb etc… so would be perfect for your use. Cost me £135.

Some people were recommending buying them from Tier 1

here’s one of the threads:-

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/cheap-refurb-laptop-from-ebay-i-am-impressed#post-8357160

Malvern either post here or email me the details of your Mini and I’ll make some suggestions, if its late 2009 onwards its worth spending soms money imo. Not sure why CD issues are affecting screen resolution ? Most people don’t use the CD, I for for playing films and ripping them as my Mini spends 80% of its time under the TV as a media streaming device. People often replace the CD with another harddrive/ssd Assuming you have a reasonably recent one RAM boost to 8GB and a (say) 250ssd will cost you £175 ? For normal duties (so not the mega photo editing) the Mini is just fine and will still run OS late enoigh to have all fhe Cloud support etc. The Mini is pretty accesible for getting at the guts.

My 2007 iMac and macbook both work fine…. except I can’t upgrade….
This is a real serious downer as far as I’m concerned… as you then can’t use latest (compatible) versions of software…..

The problem for me with apple is it is a more trusting relationship than I’d like and apple have broken their side of it (IMHO) …

Equally Apple have pi55ed me off lately ….
An update to my iPhone stopped finger print recognition working…. (which is fair enough) but then apple stated categorically it couldn’t….. and the thousands who had a problem had dropped the phone etc. (which started to pi55 me off)

Then last update (after almost believing I must have dropped it) and having had a real pain trying NOT to update again (Now or later but no no thanks to Indonesian Emoji support) it suddenly started working… BUT they still deny it was software/firmware related….

This has seriously damaged my trust…. especially the silent fix after many had gone and bought new phones because Apple told them it was hardware from dropping the phone!

I had been considering updating my Imac …. but this has left me wondering… weirdly my iMac is slightly better spec wise than my macbook but the Macbook can take a later version of OSX ???

Equally lots of the apps I used to use have been crippled by making the functionality the same as a iphone/ipad – again really knocks my trust

My 2007 iMac and macbook both work fine…. except I can’t upgrade….
This is a real serious downer as far as I’m concerned… as you then can’t use latest (compatible) versions of software…..

The problem for me with apple is it is a more trusting relationship than I’d like and apple have broken their side of it (IMHO) .

so 10 year old tech is no longer supported by Apple, what agreement did you enter into with Apple that implied compatibility 10 years later?

so 10 year old tech is no longer supported by Apple, what agreement did you enter into with Apple that implied compatibility 10 years later?

I’m not ASKING they support it…. I’m asking why they specifically prevent it installing. This is a big difference…. and something they do in an arbitrary way to force you to buy new hardware. The hardware isn’t needed …. but they just write an arbitrary piece of code to check the model and prevent upgrade if it’s not on the list … I can circumvent that …. (indeed I have) but the point is that has now broken the trust. I’m no longer buying into the trusted relationship…. which is what I bought into in 2007….

Before my Apple’s I ran linux only… so I thought long and hard about the apple and the attraction (being a new father at the time) was being able to just trust the upgrades… even when I got my first iPhone I trusted upgrades and you could choose not to install one… now you have no choice .. and as I have no choice I no longer trust them. (As apple don’t list known vulnerabilities which I understand this means I have to trust them….) I can’t examine the source code or check known vulnerabilites as I do in Linux…

When I bought for example Aperture or iMovie or Keynote they had specific features…. Aperture I can’t upgrade as it is OS version dependent… so despite paying for it I moved to iPhoto but that can’t be upgraded and iMovie/Keynote has had most more advanced features removed…

Sadly I’m writing this from a Windows PC… not dis-simlar age but one I can run Chrome and Firefox from….

When I upgraded IOS they deleted all my music that wasn’t purchased from apple… sure I can copy it back… but their aim is to get you to repurchase form apple….

Another point is Apple keep changing the ToS…. and 99% of people are not going to read a 90 page document every time they are FORCED to update so again it requires you TRUST them.

Sadly I’m writing this from a Windows PC… not dis-simlar age but one I can run Chrome and Firefox from….

My mid-2007 iMac runs Chrome and Firefox quite happily…

The prohibition on running Sierra is to do with the processor and the wireless chips, but as you probably know you can bodge your way round that if you want. Personally when I bought it I never expected it to last 10 years so I’m quite happy to run El Capitan.

Hmm,

I have a mid 2007 iMac that was the oldest model you could upgrade to Mavericks but I held off doing so due to an aged hard disk that I am planning to replace. If the latest OSX version has another gateway to use will I still be able to get something more recent than the Lion based one it is currently running on? or have I missed the boat?

Personally when I bought it I never expected it to last 10 years so I’m quite happy to run El Capitan.

Neither did I ….. but what I didn’t expect was features removed from software…. and then upgrades limited by OS .. for example I see no reason I can’t use ibook creator on my iMac but I can on the macbook..which gets me one version further despite being less well speced but the iMac can do 10.9.5 and the macbook 10.9.6 however it keeps telling me to update to Lion… (even though it won’t without hacking)

However, I thought I’d choose to upgrade when I needed more CPU or memory etc. not due to some artificial limit… or why I can run iMovie on a phone or Ipad but the dual core 8GB RAM iMac is deemed “unsuitable”

but as you probably know you can bodge your way round that if you want

But my reason for buying a mac was so I didn’t need to…. cripes that’s now work for me so I’d prefer my leisure time isn’t the same…

something more recent than the Lion based one

I’d guess you can get as far as El Capitan. Worth it for the security updates and the app store (Mountain Lion onwards) if nothing else IMHO.

My 2009 won’t run Sierra so I miss out on some Siri features. It has had all the other updates till then. FWIW I have never used Siri on my iPhone or iPad either. No big deal. The Mini supports all the iCloud stuff etc which tbh is enough for me.

Where you based? (I can probably make an educated guess!)

I have a couple of 27″ iMacs for sale (not sure of the year without checking) but think they were purschaed in 2014/15, certainly the slim design.

Unfortunately they are the 1TB hard drive versions (8GB ram). Now I’m a massive Apple fanboy but even I’d have to admit these are not great computers. Put in a SSD and they are passable, however the upgrade process is a faff (involves breaking the glue that’s holds the screen on and re sticking) but it’s not too hard, you should really add an inline thermal sensor with a third party SSD too.

Anyhoo if you are interested let me know 🙂

But the reality is you’re lucky to get two car lengths, regardless of your speed.

Where are you based and what sort of price?

I’m not really bothered about performance… to be fair the current iMac disk failed and it’s running over a firewire disk … I’m just too lazy/time poor to replace it.

My old model the screen comes off pretty easily with a suction cup, from what you’re saying the slimmer ones its more tricky?

Where are you based and what sort of price?

Brighton, not sure of the price – i’ll have to look on ebay. I entered the details into the apple trade in thingy and they offered £230 🙁 so i’m thinking it will be around £400 on ebay.

My old model the screen comes off pretty easily with a suction cup, from what you’re saying the slimmer ones its more tricky?

Yea the screen is glued to the chassis. You still need the suction cups but you have to split the glue with a tool like a guitar pick then re-stick with adhesive strips when you are finished. Not hard, just a PITA

They suggest its non up gradable, i think its to make people buy a apple priced SSD at the start or replace with a whole new unit when theirs goes bad. Bit shit really imo.

i’m thinking it will be around £400 on ebay.

I think you might get more, my 2012 i7 Mac Mini (<advert>8Gb, 1Tb </advert>) is trending around 450 on EBay .. just about to put it up for sale, Sierra capable I believe…