2008 I Mac questions

[expat42451]

I currently am in Ecuador, have been traveling and thinking about stopping for a while. My MBP still is excellent after 1 1/2 years on the road. However I would like something a little bit different in the apartment.

Found a 2008 IMac 20" with the Core 2 duo proc for sale. The machine has a failed hard drive but other than that appears to be fine. I think it might be purchased for between $300 and $400- no keyboard or mouse or HD at that price.

Question is is it worth it? I see the same vintage machines from Mac resellers for around $450- $500+ online. I would have to put a HD in it, buy a keyboard and mouse and-- would like to dual boot Mavericks (which I run on this machine) with one of the 'nuxes.

Question- for this vintage machine what is most likely to fail. I understand it depends a lot on how its been treated but-- given that I will buy it and use it for a year- does anyone know of common failure points or are these pretty solid machines?

Finally- I read that 6 GB RAM is max but- I have heard that they will use 8. Can anyone shed light on whether this is true or not?

Thanks very much for the read and any information

Expat

 

[rkaufmann87]

I currently am in Ecuador, have been traveling and thinking about stopping for a while. My MBP still is excellent after 1 1/2 years on the road. However I would like something a little bit different in the apartment.

Found a 2008 IMac 20" with the Core 2 duo proc for sale. The machine has a failed hard drive but other than that appears to be fine. I think it might be purchased for between $300 and $400- no keyboard or mouse or HD at that price.

Question is is it worth it? I see the same vintage machines from Mac resellers for around $450- $500+ online. I would have to put a HD in it, buy a keyboard and mouse and-- would like to dual boot Mavericks (which I run on this machine) with one of the 'nuxes.

Question- for this vintage machine what is most likely to fail. I understand it depends a lot on how its been treated but-- given that I will buy it and use it for a year- does anyone know of common failure points or are these pretty solid machines?

Finally- I read that 6 GB RAM is max but- I have heard that they will use 8. Can anyone shed light on whether this is true or not?

Thanks very much for the read and any information

Expat

IMHO for a 6 year old computer without a HD, keyboard and mouse it's worth about $200 maximum. I'd recommend looking at OWC (www.macsales.com) used Mac section or if you can afford it get a refurbished iMac directly from Apple.

 

[expat42451]

Thanks very much for the information. Looked at the page you suggested and I am prone to agree with you. Of course duty and importing will add to the price but an I Mac seems like a good fit for me during my time here....plus from reading this forum there seem to be a good number of them around- reading about conversion to SSD's.....so I get the impression they are probably pretty bullet proof.

Many thanks for the link and suggestions

Expat

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Found a 2008 IMac 20" with the Core 2 duo proc for sale. The machine has a failed hard drive but other than that appears to be fine. I think it might be purchased for between $300 and $400- no keyboard or mouse or HD at that price.

Question is is it worth it? I see the same vintage machines from Mac resellers for around $450- $500+ online. I would have to put a HD in it, buy a keyboard and mouse and-- would like to dual boot Mavericks (which I run on this machine) with one of the 'nuxes.

Does your budget allow for a 256 GB or bigger SSD?

Question- for this vintage machine what is most likely to fail. I understand it depends a lot on how its been treated but-- given that I will buy it and use it for a year- does anyone know of common failure points or are these pretty solid machines?

I had a 2007 iMac, the first aluminium ones and used it for five years. After having not used it for a year, I gave it to my brother (with a 64 GB SSD inside) and works quite well.

Finally- I read that 6 GB RAM is max but- I have heard that they will use 8. Can anyone shed light on whether this is true or not?

Early 2008 iMac models seem to only take 6 GB as maximum RAM. The early 2009 iMac models can take 8 GB RAM though.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/index-imac.html

 

[expat42451]

Thanks for the great information. The budget will stand a 256GB HD-- well possibly-- will need to see how readily available they are here at what cost-also interesting about your 2007 model still being used.

Again thanks for the reply

Expat