Bought first iMac - 2007 24" - Any advice?

[dannyd4315]

Hi All,

Just purchased an Imac as I have been after testing one out for a while, going to be used for general day to day use, browsing, media centre (xbmc) etc. The unit I have purchased is a 2007 7,1 24” Imac – 2.8 Core 2 Duo Extreme with 4GB RAM and 1TB HD (newly installed).

Got it for £310 inc magic mouse and wireless keyboard. Firstly is that a good deal?

Secondly, being new to Macs not too sure what/if any issues I should be looking out for when going to look at it before I pick it up. Do you old pros have any advice?

Thanks

Danny

 

[HipsterGG]

It's not that expensive because it does come with a keyboard & mouse.

My advise to you is up it to 8GB of RAM memory and install an SSD.
SSD's don't have to be that expensive since there are a few good cheap ones like Samsung 840 EVO.

By the way, your iMac is from 2009 if I recall correctly.

EDIT:
No it actually is 2007 and you can install 6GB ram max.

 

[AlanTheBrit]

Hi All,

Just purchased an Imac as I have been after testing one out for a while, going to be used for general day to day use, browsing, media centre (xbmc) etc. The unit I have purchased is a 2007 7,1 24” Imac – 2.8 Core 2 Duo Extreme with 4GB RAM and 1TB HD (newly installed).

Got it for £310 inc magic mouse and wireless keyboard. Firstly is that a good deal?
Danny

Had an iMac with same specs as yours. No problems with it - bar the usual software & OS troubles. After six years sold it to a delighted local shopkeeper for £200.00 without the original keyboard and mouse. I'd beefed it up with a 1.5TB internal HD and upped its RAM to 6GB. I now own a May 2011 iMac: i7 3.4GHz with 16GBs RAM and a 2GB video card - what a machine! And a few days ago an iPad Air 128GB, Wi-Fi and Cellular: Paradise…

 

[dannyd4315]

Thanks guys, its my first imac so hopefully will be ok!

Is it actually worth upgrading to 6GB Ram?

 

[nasacpa]

6 Gig RAM upgrade

If you can afford it, yes. Especially if you're gonna run Mavericks.

Well, wait a bit. Looking at your original post, for just browsing, you should be OK. If you don't see the old beach ball spinning too much, then I'd say your 4 GB RAM is just fine. And since upgrading with this model is easily done with just a screwdriver, you can wait and see how your day to day use goes before making this decision.

Cheers!

 

[jim4spam]

I'm running a 2007 24" 2.4 with 4Gb Ram (running 10.7)

It runs fine (office pack, email, browsing, etc) today and seems to be mostly constrained by disk speed not processor speed for these relatively simple tasks. I don't photo editing but did a bit of video (iMovie) in 2008-2010 and it chugged along nicely.

I would therefore recommend a SSD upgrade but personally I would't invest in any more RAM as the upgrade 4 to 6 Gig is not worth it. You can actually track this in OS X by keeping an eye on the amount of page outs (as this is a measure of whether your RAM is full and the system has to overspill using the hard disk like extra RAM). The following link explains that.

http://osxdaily.com/2010/10/29/does-your-mac-need-more-memory-how-to-know-if-you-need-a-ram-upgrade/

In terms of checking things before buying, here's a good thread and of course if you've a friend that knows their way around OS X to take along with you… then so much the better.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1532055/

 

[mmomega]

Hi All,

Just purchased an Imac as I have been after testing one out for a while, going to be used for general day to day use, browsing, media centre (xbmc) etc. The unit I have purchased is a 2007 7,1 24” Imac – 2.8 Core 2 Duo Extreme with 4GB RAM and 1TB HD (newly installed).

Got it for £310 inc magic mouse and wireless keyboard. Firstly is that a good deal?

Secondly, being new to Macs not too sure what/if any issues I should be looking out for when going to look at it before I pick it up. Do you old pros have any advice?

Thanks

Danny

I have the 20" 2007 with Maxed out RAM at 6GB and it really does work very well in Mavericks.
I wanted an older iMac to keep in my woodworking shop, which was where my 2001 iMac G4 was and I found this one on ebay for $115 shipped already with 6GB RAM, it was totally worth it.

Back to topic, after using the machine a bit and if it works just fine on the 4GB then you have a cushion of time to figure out if you want to go 6GB.
I try to buy double my normal usage, so with all of the apps open that I would use at one time I check how much RAM is used and double that, the older iMacs are limited in RAM upgrade yes but another 2GB could be all that you need.

 

[benjai]

I think that's a very good purchase price.

I sold my 2007 24" 2.8mhz Extreme last month for just over £500. I did have 6gb ram and a 128gb SSD but those are pretty cheap.

My advice is to definitely get an SSD. A regular hdd in such an old machine will be quite slow in running modern apps. With an SSD, apps will still load almost instantly.