Should I buy a mac mini 2011?

[eddikal]

Hello,
One friend of mine offers me a mac mini 2011 for 300 euros. It is has an i5 processor at 2,3 GHz, 500 gb hard-drive and 8 gb of ram. My question is: is it still worth it? I will use it for Java programming and web development.
Thank you in advance.

 

[Algus]

That's not that great of a price on that old of a machine, though it sounds like he has put some extra RAM in so it will run pretty good. The 2012 is a fairly significant improvement, especially in graphics support, while sporting the same design but both machines are fairly good. If you or a friend have some technical expertise, you can add an SSD to that computer and it will perform very well.

I still use my entry level 2012 mini to power my desktop (albeit I have put my own parts in it) and the only major issue I have is I can't output my second display to 1440p (but it isn't a thunderbolt display so that is more my problem)

 

[Tomorrow]

That's a LOT of money for a 5-year-old computer. I wouldn't pay anywhere near that much.

 

[monkeybongo]

Hello,
One friend of mine offers me a mac mini 2011 for 300 euros. It is has an i5 processor at 2,3 GHz, 500 gb hard-drive and 8 gb of ram. My question is: is it still worth it? I will use it for Java programming and web development.
Thank you in advance.

No major problem but I'd recommend the 2012 versions simply for the USB3 and improved wifi.

 

[MattA]

I've had a 2011 Mac Mini for the last 5 years or so. It's a very capable machine. I've got 16GB of memory and a 750GB HDD in mine. I also upgraded when I purchased it with the i7 and Radeon 6630M graphics in it.

I would say the only negative of the machine is no USB3 support. Otherwise, it's been pretty rock solid. I'm not sure what it's worth these days, but I do know that if you put a SSD in it, performance wise it would do everything you wanted very competently.