Buying an Imac secondhand?

[Shenden]

Is that worth the shot? My old 2011 imac finally bite the dust and I'm looking into buying a new one since I'm pretty deep down into the apple echo system. The new Imacs, even the standard ones costs a ton and as far as I've heard, the harddrive on the new standard Imacs sucks. So I've been looking through the second hand (swedish) market and for example I stumbled upon an 21,5 inch (2017) imac with 1tb fusiondrive, 3,5gh quad-core, 16gb ddr4 memory and a Radeon Pro 560 4gb graphics card.

I think I can get it between $1000-$1200. Would that be worth it? And should I worry about the longevity of a imac from 2017?

Thanks.

 

[throAU]

I think I can get it between $1000-$1200. Would that be worth it? And should I worry about the longevity of a imac from 2017?

I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole at that price personally. YMMV... depending on your appetite for risk.

Why?

Because its a roll of the dice. It's out of applecare and not really end user serviceable - RAM isn't even upgradable on the 21.5". You may be fine - you may blow that money and have it fail next week.

I'd go down the new mac mini route and an e-GPU if you need it. You'll get whatever GPU you like (not a gimped low performance RX560 to try and drive a 4k screen with), user upgradable RAM and a warranty.

Sure you'll need to BYO monitor, but that also gives you the option of whatever screen you like. 4k 27", 144hz ultra-wide, 55" 4k TV, whatever.

 

[Shenden]

@throAU

Being able to connect a mac mini to a 4k lg tv would definitely rise my attention. Would the i5 processor with 8gb RAM, 256gb ssd, be good enough to cover my bases such as I would get from an Imac? I also heard that updating the RAM size on the mac mini is not easy to do on your own.

I'm not going to play games on this, but I still want some good performance out it and being able to work with, say photoshop/illustrator at the same time as surfing the web, streaming movies without hiccups.

Thanks for your feedback!

 

[throAU]

If you aren't gaming or doing 3d stuff, the integrated GPU on a mini will drive a 4k TV.

I wouldn't buy a machine with 8 GB in 2020, however a 16GB i5 will probably do what you need. It's much more powerful than the 2015 macbook pro 13" that i do that sort of thing with.

I'd go for the 6 core mac mini with 16 GB. storage depends on how much you plan to store on it, but 256 might be fine. i think 512-1tb is the sweet spot these days though, in terms of comfort (not needing to shuffle data around) vs. expense.