Did I waste my money?

[zaccameron]

Hey guys,
I'm on a gap year and working casually, so funds are a bit tight at the moment. Anyhow, I decided I'd like to buy a desktop Mac for storing all my music, movies and TV shows and perhaps use it for a side of light gaming (Sims etc). So I found a 21.5" Core 2 Duo iMac for AU $400 (US $307) but I managed to barter the seller down to AU $375 (US $288). We already have the early-2009 20" model as a family Mac, and that's been choking with Yosemite. Anyway, I was wondering in your opinions if I wasted my money - I've been trying to save but I just feel really guilty because it isn't as snappy as I expected (even under Mountain Lion). I'm waiting for Yosemite to download and then I'll perform a clean installation and maybe upgrade the 4GB RAM to 8GB or 16GB. I have a mid-2012 MacBook Pro 13" with an SSD and that runs perfectly - which is where my guilt stems from: did I really need this?

Thoughts? Thanks.

 

[mooblie]

Going from ML to Yosemite will slow it down further. I would stop at Mavericks, if you can find an installer.

 

[zaccameron]

I installed Mavericks over the top of ML, it's by no means slow and unusable, a few animations are stuttery (like the full-screen transition) but aside from that it's been running fine. I suppose Yosemite with all it's translucency and background services would probably make it worse.

 

[AppleFan360]

I think you will be fine with Yosemite as long as you upgrade your memory to 8GB.

 

[Sirmausalot]

Yes, you wasted your money. You made a mistake. What you REALLY needed was an external monitor and an external portable hard drive. However, mistakes happen and can be rectified. Simply sell the iMac for whatever you can get for it (you may take a loss of around $100, who knows) but better to live and learn than be frustrated with your mistake. You'll still have more than enough for a simple portable drive and a nice monitor. It will never get close to the speed of an SSD MacBook Pro with an i5 and you'll always be frustrated with it. Get rid of it.

 

[zaccameron]

Hard to hear but completely true! I was going to sell my hardly-used iPad mini and an older Playstation 3 to make up what I spent, but I guess if it's going to frustrate me then maybe I should keep them and sell the iMac.

Oh to be young and make mistakes!

 

[Wirbowsky]

I use a Macbook Pro 13' from mid 2010 with Yosemite.
It is also a core duo (slower cpu than you have), 4 gb ram, no SSD.

Sure it is not up to today's standard but it work. I suppose your issue is that you are used to a better machine that the one you bought.

May be selling it is the best option.

 

[minimalism]

Rather than dwell on the past, why not make improvements on your purchase?

If I were you, I'd open the case up, dust off any dirt. Change the HD to SSD, max the RAM to 16GB and do a clean install of OS X.

Those upgrades will not cost much and your machine will feel snappy for sure.

 

[matreya]

Rather than dwell on the past, why not make improvements on your purchase?

If I were you, I'd open the case up, dust off any dirt. Change the HD to SSD, max the RAM to 16GB and do a clean install of OS X.

Those upgrades will not cost much and your machine will feel snappy for sure.

I would agree that upgrading to an SSD and upping the RAM to 16GB should improve your Mac.

 

[Meister]

No, you didn't because it didn't cost much.
Stick an ssd insie, if you dare

 

[MistrSynistr]

I have a 2008 iMac I put a 128 SSD in, it's a dream now. I have Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign CS6 on it as well and is blazing fast. It's all about that hard drive.

It also runs Yosemite, and with the new beta update a few days ago it's the best it's ever been.

 

[Sensamic]

Do the same as I do on my 2009 27 iMac: boot from an external SSD.

No need to open the iMac. It's faster than the internal drive at least.