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How Old Is Your iMac?

OldCorpse

OldCorpse

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 7, 2005
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I received my iMac in February 2010, it's the late 2009 model i7 2.8Ghz 27". My AppleCare expired in February of this year, but I still have until Feb 2014 coverage under my American Express.

My iMac is doing what I need. I'm not really feeling motivated to buy a new one. The only thing I kinda miss is the USB3 connectors (I don't care about Thunderbolt at all). On the other hand, I do like my optical drive, since I watch quite a few DVDs and burn some too, makes it convenient, and since I have a bunch of older external hard drives, I like the FW800.

I suppose when the AmEx warranty expires early next year, I might think about buying a new one, but I anticipate money being tight, so unless they come up with something irresistible, I see no reason to upgrade.

How about you?
 
I bought my iMac mid-ish May 2011, I think they had only been out for a week or two. I'll just upgrade once my current iMac doesn't suit my needs anymore, simple as that.

I think that will be a while away from now though. I'll be throwing an SSD inside at some point and replacing the ODD with another HDD. Hell, I still still need to get a couple f 8GB sticks to bump RAM up to 20GB (4 is just not enough) but money is tight at the moment.

The only thing I see holding this iMac back in the years to come is the GPU, but I'm not a big gamer these days anyway so I'm not fussed :)
 
OldCorpse said:
I received my iMac in February 2010, it's the late 2009 model i7 2.8Ghz 27". My AppleCare expired in February of this year, but I still have until Feb 2014 coverage under my American Express.

My iMac is doing what I need. I'm not really feeling motivated to buy a new one. The only thing I kinda miss is the USB3 connectors (I don't care about Thunderbolt at all). On the other hand, I do like my optical drive, since I watch quite a few DVDs and burn some too, makes it convenient, and since I have a bunch of older external hard drives, I like the FW800.

I suppose when the AmEx warranty expires early next year, I might think about buying a new one, but I anticipate money being tight, so unless they come up with something irresistible, I see no reason to upgrade.

How about you?
Click to expand...

The iMac that I have been using for the past 3 years is the same as your model... Late 2009 2TB i7 27". My wife and I shared it during this time.

Now that machine is strictly used by my wife, and I have a new late 2012 27" i7 with the top GFX card and 768GB SSD. I'll continue to use this machine for another 2-3 years... at which time it will be handed down to my wife and I'll get a new one.

This way, I always have a machine that is ~ 0-3 years old... yet I get 5-6 years of planned life out of every computer I buy. The only way that I would upgrade my machine quicker is if her's had a malfunction that was uneconomical to repair... at which time, I would just waterfall my computer quicker.

The fact that she doesn't care at all about computers helps satisfy my technology addiction. ;)

/Jim
 
I bought a 27" iMac in January of 2012 (it's a mid-2011 i5). It works well for me.

I'm not a huge fan of the new iMac design, so I guess I'm not in a huge hurry to upgrade. I like having the SD card slot on the side of the machine and I still use the optical drive now and then (although I do have an external blu-ray drive that I could really use for all my optical drive needs).
 
OldCorpse said:
I received my iMac in February 2010, it's the late 2009 model i7 2.8Ghz 27". My AppleCare expired in February of this year, but I still have until Feb 2014 coverage under my American Express.

My iMac is doing what I need. I'm not really feeling motivated to buy a new one. The only thing I kinda miss is the USB3 connectors (I don't care about Thunderbolt at all). On the other hand, I do like my optical drive, since I watch quite a few DVDs and burn some too, makes it convenient, and since I have a bunch of older external hard drives, I like the FW800.

I suppose when the AmEx warranty expires early next year, I might think about buying a new one, but I anticipate money being tight, so unless they come up with something irresistible, I see no reason to upgrade.

How about you?
Click to expand...

Same as you but AppleCare expired in Jan. I'm debating buying one in 2014. I have that and a 2011 Air and I really don't want to spend more money on apple products right now. I'm amazed at the Amex warranty. I believe I bought it with my Amex too but I'll doublecheck and at least have some peace of mind for one more year.
 
Mine is the March 2009 24" model iMac with a 2.93 GHz Core 2 Duo processor - the final version of Imac before Apple introduced the 27" display.

So far I have experienced very few issues with this machine. Everything is just as fast today as it was back when I bought it. However since upgrading to the latest OS X (Mountain Lion) I have experienced a few freezes of the machine. It happens a couple of times per month and is really annoying. Usually while Safari is running and I browse the internet.

I never use the optical drive, so for me the new design is tempting. However I have decided to not upgrade as long as the one I have is working alright. However when I do upgrade I will 'go large' and 'max it out' with RAM and storage. I always did that when buying new machines, and so far it has been worth the while since the machines last long and give fewer headaches.

As a side note: I still have a perfectly running 13" white Macbook from may 2006. It works just nice and is still able to run all my programmes perfectly. A few months ago I brought it with me to a conference, where I held a Powerpoint presentation using that machine. All went just fine :)
 
My iMac is the first generation aluminum 2007. It's working pretty good but slowing down a little. I had a graphic card replaced right before AppleCare expired. Other than that it's been a wonderful computer. Right now Best Buy has $150 off iMac's and it's very tempting. The iMacs are due for a refresh soon so maybe I'll just wait, but 150.00 off great. I wonder if they are depleting their stock for newer models?
 
I have a early 2008 iMac that still runs great that I haven't upgraded anything in. 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 500GB HD and 2GB of ram. I just use that for surfing the web. A few days ago I picked up a late 2009 27" 2.66GHz i5 with 12GB of ram that's extremely fast. I'm using that one a lot more now but my over 5 year old 2008 is still running like the day I bought it!
 
December 2005 PowerPC iMac isight model which I am still using.

Has worked very well all these years with no hardware issues.

Starting to creak seriously now due to high demands of the web and software requirements. Cannot use flash or other sites which need up to data JavaScript within Safari.

Time has come to upgrade methinks.

Do you think I will notice the speed bump?
 
Which one?

I have ones from fourteen years ago, thirteen years, eleven years, eight years.
 
I still use my 2008 iMac daily--not for anything too difficult as it is not so fast anymore and is still running Leopard--but I use it every day for my iTunes library--still runs great and hardly ever gets restarted. :)
 
In April, I purchased a 2012 iMac, which now has pride of place in the living room computer area. I then brought the late 2009 Mac Mini into the bedroom and have it installed there. This works out nicely for using the Mac Mini's Superdrive to watch DVD movies at night! I still use both machines on a daily basis. I also have a 2007 MBP 17", which has been having problems lately and has been throwing kernel panics every now and then, and I have a first-gen (2008) MBA which is still ticking along very nicely. Prior to installing the Mac Mini in the bedroom, the MBA is the one which I had used most there. I also have the first-gen 2006 Mac Pro which is sitting patiently waiting for a new home, and it's all ready to go with the HD wiped, etc., so I don't use that machine at all now. Bottom line: lots of Macs in the house and all of them in working order despite their age!
 
Mine will be 3 years old in November. It works great and hasn't given me any trouble (well, except the spotty WOL over wireless).

The only real reason I can come up with to replace it with a late 2012 is to get better frame rates for gaming. So, I'm thinking I'll likely wait until next refresh which I hope will be later this year.
 
I'm still using an iMac G4! :eek: Perfect screen size, and still looks great. I don't like the bigger cinema screens to be honest. They are really hard to look at with all the glare and the resolution makes everything too small for my liking. Photoshop CS2 works a breeze.
 
My main mac is my late 2006 24" iMac. Still just about fast enough for my family's daily usage. Wish my handbrake encodes were faster though :(

iPad is used much more. Which surprised me at the time.

So very close to buying a macMini when they came out, but will now wait for Haswell to arrive. iMacs look too expensive now. Especially as no DVD, difficult to upgrade.

I have upgraded the RAM to 3gb and the HD to 1tb in my iMac.
 
My main mac is a 2010 i7 2.9, with 32gb of ram, my applecare is good till mid 2014, I have swapped out the 2gb hard drive for a pair of 500gb SSD's and to be honest can find no reason to upgrade.

For the first time in my life i am hoping to make a machine last more than 3 years!
 
B... said:
3 years.
Click to expand...

Mine turns three come June 12 on my birthday, its a great machine my only gripe is that the 1tb hard drive is dwindling in space and the graphics is not sparkling anymore. i guess I will hang onto the machine as long as I can. However i am considering in the future going mobile by updating only my macbook which will save space and money of course.
 
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Early 2006 iMac - recently decommissioned!

One of the original Intel (Core duo) models was used as my main machine, and media server for Apple TV until I recently picked up one of the new fusion drive models.

It meant I couldn't install Lion, so missed out on Photostream until the upgrade, but I found myself waiting for the 'just around the corner' refresh that took an age to arrive.

6-7 years of continual use, never had a problem, and I still use it for the optical drive from time-to-time.

Great machines.
 
Still rocking an iMac G4 from 2003. Works great on Leopard and even iTunes Match works ;)
 
27'' iMac late 2009 3.06C2D model here. Works great with 16GB of RAM and the 1TB HD w/ 120Gb Samsung 840 SSD. I also recently installed the HD4850 512mb graphics card (from a high end 2009 27" iMac) to replace the HD4670 256mb.

A few months ago I also disassembled the screen to remove the dust that was making black spots on the screen. Works fine and looks great. Fast machine with the upgrades.

I acts as a secondary display for my rMBP often though.
 
FWIW, I binned my 2006 iMac when I bought my 2012 Mini.

For most standard tasks, it still worked well on Lion with 3Gb of Ram. -- browsing, email, most apps -- even some old games. But it was showing its age with some of the heavy lifting.
 
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