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scoostraw

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 2, 2006
21
0
Upper Midwest US
I want to get a newer iMac (newer than my Intel Core Duo 17" which can only run Snow Leopard). And by necessity I need to do this as inexpensively as possible.

There is one currently for sale on craigs list that intrigues me. It is a 20" Intel core 2 duo 2.40ghz. 3 gb ram, 320 gb hard drive with Mac os El capitan. Apple keyboard and mouse are included. The seller also has some software (iWork) that he is including.

I may be able to get it for something close to $100. I'm thinking I could increase the ram to 6g, and at some point put in an SSD.

I would appreciate any and all thoughts. Thanks!
 
Seems like a good deal to me if it is in good condition. You won't be able to go beyond El Capitan, but that's still much better than what you currently have.
 
If it's a model in which you can replace the hard drive from a spinner to SSD and max out the RAM, then you should be able to get some meaningful life from it.
 
For $100 you can't really go wrong, especially if you max the RAM & throw in an SSD.

If you're looking for something that offers much more longevity than a Core 2 Duo iMac, a 2011 model isn't a bad shout -- max user-upgradeable RAM @32GB, and with an SSD it'll be butter. That would be more expensive though, so as long as you're not breaking the bank, the 20" iMac you're looking at is a solid deal.
 
Thanks guys for the feedback. I really appreciate it.

I went and got it today. Paid $120. It's a really nice machine. Already compared to my old one, it is very snappy and quick.

In the process I met a nice man who refurbs machines. Turns out this one he had gotten with no HD. He put in a new drive. And he's giving me 10 days to test-drive.

So yes I'm happy so far. I paid $1100 for my original machine. It blows my mind to be able to pick up something like this for this amount of money. Yes it is not cutting-edge, but man...
 
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