Need advice on iMac's

[BuckeyeMac]

I've never owned a Mac computer, but I've always wanted one (but couldn't afford one since I just graduated college). Anyways, my work has a computer purchasing program were they sell their older computers to employees at a discount, and this time they are selling a few iMac's + random PC's. I put my name in the drawing but wanted some advice:

They have two late 2006 20" iMac's with 10.5OS for $100 (2gb memory, 250gb hd)

One early 2009 24" iMac with 10.5OS, 2gb mem and 1TB hd for $150

Two mid 2007 24" iMac with 10.5OS, 2gb mem and 350gb hd for $125

One iMac G5 with 10.5OS, 1gb mem, 250gb hd for $50


None of these have any other software that comes with them. My question is which one should I hope to be drawn for? How difficult will it be to get word,excel,etc for these older machines? Is the OS upgrade able from 10.5?

Thanks!!

 

[Stewart21]

I've never owned a Mac computer, but I've always wanted one (but couldn't afford one since I just graduated college). Anyways, my work has a computer purchasing program were they sell their older computers to employees at a discount, and this time they are selling a few iMac's + random PC's. I put my name in the drawing but wanted some advice:

They have two late 2006 20" iMac's with 10.5OS for $100 (2gb memory, 250gb hd)

One early 2009 24" iMac with 10.5OS, 2gb mem and 1TB hd for $150

Two mid 2007 24" iMac with 10.5OS, 2gb mem and 350gb hd for $125

One iMac G5 with 10.5OS, 1gb mem, 250gb hd for $50


None of these have any other software that comes with them. My question is which one should I hope to be drawn for? How difficult will it be to get word,excel,etc for these older machines? Is the OS upgrade able from 10.5?

Thanks!!

iMacs from mid-2007 onwards are capable of running Mountain Lion, the latest version of OSX so those are the ones I would hope for. I run a mid-2007 iMac with Mountain Lion and I'm using Microsft Office 2007, I don't need anything better. You may want to try an Open Source office suite they are very good. I did a quick check on apples website about Mountain Lion compatibility and it says you need OSX 10.6.8 or later in order to upgrade to 10.8.2 so you may have to source intermediate version of the OS and install them before moving on. Both the 2007 and 2009 models can accomodate more than 2GB RAM which is the minimum requirement for Mountain Lion, I recommend getting as much as you can in there as a first upgrade, the 2007 models will take 4GB for sure. Of course there's nothing wrong with Snow Leopard or Lion so you may wish to stick with one of those versions for a while unless you have IOS devices which Mountain Lion has tighter integration with. I recommend a good trawl through these forums and Apple's Support website once you actually have a machine.