Need Advice: Used iMacs (macofalltrades)

[phillyb]

My partner is looking to buy a refurbished iMac from macofalltrades, and I am trying to give her to best advice possible. I am not in any way familiar with Apple products, so your advice will be incredible helpful! She is on a tight budget, and buying a new Mac is out of the question.

She will not be using the machine for any heavy lifting, but we are looking to get a machine that will last a while and work with any OS/software upgrades released by Apple in the foreseeable future. We have, I think, narrowed down the choices to these two machines:

http://www.macofalltrades.com/iMac-21-5-inch-3-06GHz-C2D-Late-2009-p/im-215-306-l09a.htm


http://www.macofalltrades.com/iMac-20-inch-2-66GHz-C2D-Early-2009-p/im-20-266-e09a.htm

What are the substantial differences between the two? The Late 2009 is currently $100 less. We are considering upgrading to 8gb of RAM. How will these machines run Mavericks? Is the processor speed difference significant? The hard drives?

Would the following model ($200 more) be a significant upgrade?:
http://www.macofalltrades.com/iMac-21-5-inch-3-06GHz-i3-Mid-2010-p/im-215-306-m10a.htm

Any and all advice is welcome. Thank you for your help!

 

[CrickettGrrrl]

My partner is looking to buy a refurbished iMac from macofalltrades, and I am trying to give her to best advice possible. I am not in any way familiar with Apple products, so your advice will be incredible helpful! She is on a tight budget, and buying a new Mac is out of the question.

She will not be using the machine for any heavy lifting, but we are looking to get a machine that will last a while and work with any OS/software upgrades released by Apple in the foreseeable future. We have, I think, narrowed down the choices to these two machines:

http://www.macofalltrades.com/iMac-21-5-inch-3-06GHz-C2D-Late-2009-p/im-215-306-l09a.htm


http://www.macofalltrades.com/iMac-20-inch-2-66GHz-C2D-Early-2009-p/im-20-266-e09a.htm

What are the substantial differences between the two? The Late 2009 is currently $100 less. We are considering upgrading to 8gb of RAM. How will these machines run Mavericks? Is the processor speed difference significant? The hard drives?

Would the following model ($200 more) be a significant upgrade?:
http://www.macofalltrades.com/iMac-21-5-inch-3-06GHz-i3-Mid-2010-p/im-215-306-m10a.htm

Any and all advice is welcome. Thank you for your help!

First of all, you can save money by purchasing & installing RAM yourself. It's not difficult and there are guides on Apple's Support site.

The first Core2Duo only takes up to 8GB RAM, the second Core 2 Duo will accept up 16GB RAM and the 2010 i3 can take up to 32GB. To run Mavericks you should consider no less than 8GB RAM, and you'll be much happier with the performance of the 2010 i3. If you can't swing that model, I'd get the 21.5" Core2Duo over the older 20" version.

Reviewing info on MacTracker, the early 2009 is "unsupported" while the other two still are.

 

[mad3inch1na]

If you are worried about performance for consumer tasks, you absolutely must get an SSD for the computer. Honestly, your parter could run Mavericks on 2GB of RAM, but the HDD will make the system unusable. If she is tight on money, get the cheaper system and spend 120$ on a 256GB crucial M500 or Samsung 840 EVO. It is the number one upgrade to get on a consumer computer. I cannot stress that point enough, especially for outdated systems. RAM will be essentially useless for consumer tasks.

Matt

Edit: If you are looking for a consumer computer that will be supported for the next few years, and last for a while, this is the computer to get:

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/detail.jsp?skuId=6292736&pid=1218725803711&pcatId=abcat0502000

It is 950$, down from 1200$ in April. Up until the 14th, you can get it for 800$ with a student discount. If you do not have a .edu email address, message me and I would be happy to give you my code. The Macbook Air will outlast the iMac by quite a few years, and will perform significantly better than the 700$ system you are looking at. If your partner can stretch her budget a little bit, it would make a huge difference. This model sells for about 750-800$ used, so 800$ new is a really good deal.