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ivrob

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 3, 2012
2
0
Looking for some thoughts whether or not this would be a nice starter Mac for my 4 y/o. A few educational websites can't be accessed by ios. Plus we have some DVDs for reading. Its priced at $549
Thanks again


Refurbished Mac mini 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Originally released June 2010
2GB memory upgradable to 8GB
320GB hard drive
HDMI port with support for up to 1920-by-1200 resolution
SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce 320M with 256MB memory
 

\-V-/

Suspended
May 3, 2012
3,153
2,688
Looking for some thoughts whether or not this would be a nice starter Mac for my 4 y/o. A few educational websites can't be accessed by ios. Plus we have some DVDs for reading. Its priced at $549
Thanks again


Refurbished Mac mini 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Originally released June 2010
2GB memory upgradable to 8GB
320GB hard drive
HDMI port with support for up to 1920-by-1200 resolution
SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce 320M with 256MB memory

That's not a good deal, honestly. You can get a brand new one for 50 dollars more. Be that as it may, that Mini should be more than enough to handle any educational websites or games for your kid.

The new one doesn't have an internal DVD drive, however... so that's probably a deal breaker.
 

GlynJones

macrumors 6502
Jun 15, 2005
346
20
Looking for some thoughts whether or not this would be a nice starter Mac for my 4 y/o. A few educational websites can't be accessed by ios. Plus we have some DVDs for reading. Its priced at $549
Thanks again


Refurbished Mac mini 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Originally released June 2010
2GB memory upgradable to 8GB
320GB hard drive
HDMI port with support for up to 1920-by-1200 resolution
SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce 320M with 256MB memory

I bought one of these from the UK site a couple of days ago. The benefit over new was that it has a DVD/CD slot and can bootcamp into XP so I can use some of my older software without having to upgrade.

Also sometimes you get a bonus. Mine arrived with 4gb of memory instead of 2, a 500gb 7200rpm drive instead of the 320gb 5200 rpm as standard.
 

vastoholic

macrumors 68000
Jan 28, 2009
1,957
1
Tulsa, OK
I'm just confused as to what you mean by "for your 4 y/o". Is this going to be their computer? Do you not already have a computer at home to access these sites? Why the need to get a mini just for the child?
 

hipnetic

macrumors 65816
Oct 5, 2010
1,266
562
That looks like a bad deal to me (I'm assuming these are US dollars). You can get a brand new current-gen Mini for $565 (no tax and free shipping) from MacMall. You won't get a disc drive, but you have a couple of options there:
1) An external drive. I just got a laptop-sized external Blu-ray drive for $42 from a recent eBay deal, so these can be found cheap.
2) Ripping the discs and playing them off of the hard drive.

If you absolutely want a disc drive built-in, I would think that better deals could be found.
 

CausticPuppy

macrumors 68000
May 1, 2012
1,536
68
I'm just confused as to what you mean by "for your 4 y/o". Is this going to be their computer? Do you not already have a computer at home to access these sites? Why the need to get a mini just for the child?

I've been known to use my kid to justify purchasing new gadgets. :eek:

I mean, she's only 12 months old, and I just bought her a mac mini server. I'm going to keep it down in the man cave for a few years until she's old enough to use it.
 

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Apr 13, 2010
6,362
248
Howell, New Jersey
Looking for some thoughts whether or not this would be a nice starter Mac for my 4 y/o. A few educational websites can't be accessed by ios. Plus we have some DVDs for reading. Its priced at $549
Thanks again


Refurbished Mac mini 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Originally released June 2010
2GB memory upgradable to 8GB
320GB hard drive
HDMI port with support for up to 1920-by-1200 resolution
SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce 320M with 256MB memory

you want the 2010 2.4 model . when apple has it in stock at the apple refurbished store it is 469. it is the same as your model the slower cpu would not be a problem. plus you would save 80 bucks.
 

NewbieCanada

macrumors 68030
Oct 9, 2007
2,574
37
I've been known to use my kid to justify purchasing new gadgets. :eek:

I mean, she's only 12 months old, and I just bought her a mac mini server. I'm going to keep it down in the man cave for a few years until she's old enough to use it.


I don't have kids, can I use your daughter to justify my purchases? In return you can use my nieces to justify yours. This has the added bonus of them never trying to collect their purchases since we don't know each other.
 

ivrob

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 3, 2012
2
0
Thanks for the input everyone. Another great benefit of having kids are those justified purchases haha!!!

That mini was on last night, but gone as of today.

Maybe I'll look at a refurb i5 http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC815LL/A
with upgrading of the ram and external DVD drive.

Do you folks think when an updated mini comes out, that the current refurbs will take another price cut?

Thanks again!!
 

fungus

macrumors regular
Sep 30, 2008
213
2
@unclefungus
Do you folks think when an updated mini comes out, that the current refurbs will take another price cut?

Thanks again!!

Yes, but not until refurbs of the new mini start showing up in the store, which would take at least a few months.

Check back daily for that older 2.4 w/DVD. IIRC, new refurbs used to begin showing up in the store around 11:30am Eastern. Good luck!
 
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