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i'm looking to buy an older imac just to use for accounts and for the wife to do her etsy store with, its for the compatibility with our iphones, airdrop etc, that i want an imac.
just looking around this morning at machines around 2010 i saw some mentions that some cannot be upgraded to the current o/s, whatever that version is the new one as its 15 years since i last had a mac, so just wondered if anyone can tell me what versions or pre 20XX to avoid?
any other advice what to look for much appreciated, for instance are they all wifi?
Mine's a 2009 model. Went with OS upgrades as far as Yosemite (10.10.3), not sure how many more I could have applied nor what the latest is.
Definitely slower to start up than with the original OS which was either Leopard or Snow Leopard. Has built-in Wifi so I'd imagine all later models are the same but also has an ethernet port. Mine might have been the last version that had a DVD drive as in the pursuit of slimness that went by the by.
Generally it just keeps going. Struggles if I try to edit 4K video but that's not that often so it's usually set it going and go get a cup of tea or two.
Might be worth checking the forums on macrumors for more info.
https://www.techradar.com/news/apples-macos-1014-mojave-cuts-the-number-of-supported-macs
All wifi. Be aware that upgrade options are limited, and at nearly 10 years old, 2010 machines might have SSD/HDDs on there way out.
I'd still use a Mac of that age if I already had one - I wouldn't go out and buy one though.
Fair enough if you get given one, I wouldn't spend money on a 2010 Mac though (or any computer for that matter!).
Buy a new one, it'll last 10+ years so will cost you pennies per day. As it's a business expense you can offset it against your wife's Etsy earnings when she does her tax return 😉
I have a 2008 iMac. It still work, doesn’t get used that much, replaced the hard drive with an SSD which helps.
Not sure I’d go out and buy one
I've got a 27" mid 2011 imac here, only goes up to 10.13, but it's still a pretty solid machine with an SSD and 20 gig in it.
If you are looking for the last OS, probably looking at 2012/13 machines, but they'll probably not support 10.15 when it comes out soon.
We use 2009/2010 vintage iMacs at work. 10.13 is the latest and last software that they can use and mine will need replacing soon to ensure we don't have security problems for card payments. If you can get a 2010/2011 age machine it will do the hand-off to the phones (earlier ones have the wrong bluetooth version).
If you do buy one a new SSD is a must (around 500GB in size) and as much memory as you can afford. Your purchase should be guided by how much maximum memory will cost. Security updates should be available for another year before Apple make them EOL and stop supporting them.
If you're planning on doing card based transactions on it then you will need something much younger as card security requirements should be uppermost in your needs.
Put an SSD in, and then use dosdude's patcher to upgrade it to Mojave.
http://dosdude1.com/mojave/#requirements
Bung him some money as well as he puts a lot of work into this stuff.
You really want at least a late 2012 27inch. These have the easy to upgrade ram hatch (up to 32gb) and thunderbolt 1 port for external ssd boot drive or ideally replace the internal hard drive with ssd. You can upgrade this to the latest osx and it will be more than powerful enough for your needs. The screen is no retina, but still very nice which means the computer has to work less hard.
I was running a 2009 MacBook until about 12 months or so ago when the battery decided to die and swell. Was running fine with the latest version of OS at that time. I had maxed out on RAM and replaced the HDD with a hybrid one, SSD would be even better. Was only used for basic stuff so nothing too challenging. Still booted up and shut down quicker than any windows machine i’ve ever used, never crashed and worked fine by never challenged it.
I think you could get a working one no problems but how long you could keep it going i’m not sure.
My dads got a very old iMac, the first gen of the current design, and it still works ok. It’s slow and creaky but operates. It’s still running off it’s original HDD having said that.
I use a late 2012 27inch iMac for a home business, bought new. Since I'm heavy graphics based I went top spec to last as long as possible and upgraded RAM to 32GB. I've been contemplating upgrading just this last week when I was in the middle of Photoshop job with enormous file sizes and it was slower to handle than I need. Still works great for everything else...wiping everything and clean OS install would help it no end too.
I could do with a push to suck it up and upgrade so if you're interested drop me a message.
Sorry if this sounded like a sales pitch...genuine coincidence that it's time for me to get a new one.