Don´t buy a second hand mac !

[PowerPC Punk]

ahoi!
Imortant advice (?), i´ve read today, in this ****** newspaper:

Warum Sie keinen Mac aus zweiter Hand kaufen sollten

Viele kaufen gebrauchte Macs in der Überzeugung, dass sie ein Schnäppchen machen, begehen stattdessen aber einen großen Fehler!

www.macwelt.de

---
Sorry, in german "ignorance" only, but the main facts are:

1. Old Macs are not secure.
2. It´s hard to get spare parts.
3.There is no appropriate Software-Support.
4. The performance will disappoint you.
5. It´s only Intel.
---
Oh my God;
If they knew, what we are talking about here...

Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.

Never mind, have a punkin´weekend !

PowerPC Punk

 

[Hughmac]

Translation into English...
https://www-macwelt-de.translate.go...html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB

Cheers

Hugh

 

[aurora72]

The article assumes that whenever a Mac is for sale, it's for some bad reason, i.e. it's running badly, some part is kaput, doesn't support some newest software, etc. But of course that's not the case in reality. I once sold a Mac mini 2009 in mint condition, with all its accessories, packaging box included at a suitable price. I had made its hard disk 2 partitions one Yosemite the other ready for installing Windows, the buyer was super happy to buy it.

Recently I've bought a Mac mini G4 2005 80GB, BT, AP, 1GB for about $35 shipping included, and it works perfectly and I'm super happy with that purchase.

The Macs, particularly the older ones with the Intel CPU, have a very good ratio of performance, quality, aesthetics, usability over their prices.

 

[Amethyst1]

Oh dear. Some of the points the article makes are just plain stupid. Nice clickbait though.

 

[Bug-Creator]

They are not wrong (but also not fully right).

Macs that are so old that they are either are or soon will be unsupported aren't a good idea for the average user.

Intel Macs that are somewhat recent are an o.k. buy, but many of them either cost more then the base model Mini or MBA while offering inferior performance.

So no if any non-techie friends ask you on what Mac to buy either steer them to a "newish" M1/M2 based Mac or do the search yourself to point at the one unicorn of good value fully supported makes-sense used Mac.

 

[netsrot39]

Although German is my native language, I couldn't finish reading the article due to the misinformation. I would argue that the second and third point are the most outrageous in my opinion. Concerning the second point, I'd actually argue that that applies more to new Macs. The author of the article probably has never heard of OpenCore and the likes of it. The fourth point is debatable. If we take a maxed out Mac Pro 2009/2010/2012 for example, I don't think the performance will be disappointing. Just my 2 cents. With a little bit of insight you can easily debunk the article. I can't help but to think that the article is sponsored somehow or at least heavily biased ...

 

[Bug-Creator]

OpenCore

If we take a maxed out Mac Pro 2009/2010/2012 for example, I don't think the performance will be disappointing.

Once you got that to run Ventura (or just Monterey) it has taken more time than doing an Hackintosh and and your beyond the price a decent spec MacMini-M2Pro.


Coming from someone running a 2010 MP in just that way as a secondary machine.

 

[ToniCH]

One thing these ignorant/biased articles never take into account is what people really do with their Macs. During the whole of Mac history most heavy use pros have done their heaviest professional work with their current macs. This is because anything faster was not available. Could they do their job? Yes. But, are all Mac users super heavy users who need the fastest Mac on planet to do their daily job/use/hobby? Absolutely no.

So, when somebody says that M1/2 etc. Mac are much faster than the Macs few years ago, are they considering if people really need this speed upgrade? No, they are thinking of those movie/graphics/science pros who charge by the hour or otherwise really benefit from the absolute speed of their hardware. Or those who like to run synthetic benchmarks. Is this relevant to normal user? No. Is it a surprise that a hundreds or even thousands of euros/dollars more expensive new machine is faster that 4-10 year old top of the line machine? Well, it shouldn't be.

To normal user (90+% of all users) the absolute speed is not important. We surfed the net, used email and wrote documents/spreadsheets just fine 10 years ago and we can do it with the same computer today. Intel i5/i7 processors are fast enough to do all of this satisfactorily. And unless you are competing in professional market you can perfectly fine also do graphics work and video editing with the older gear (ie. all home users).

To me upgrading to newest hardware is a choice, not a must. I haven't done it since 2009 when I bought my last new Macs. Since then I have been more than happy with my second hand stuff. And mostly trouble free too. Some investigation prior to purchase is needed though.

I agree that using older gear has its drawbacks if one is not a computer savvy person or one does not have one such person in the family or otherwise readily available. More so older the stuff is one buys. Parts are not readily available and people who know how to repair or maintain these machines professionally are getting rare. Lots of them in the hobby and forum -circles though. But, an intel-machine from few years back is not yet a problem for anybody - other than it might have Apples design faults which cannot be repaired. But this goes also with new Apple stuff. One never knows when the next bad GPU, butterfly-keyboard or soldered SSD is innovated in Cupertino.

 

[ericwn]

The article is certainly a bit clickbait but at the end of the day in plenty scenarios, if you buy a used, declared obsolete , Mac under the assumption that it’s always as smooth sailing as when buying new, you might yourself proven wrong.

 

[EuroChilli]

Yea, don’t buy a 2nd hand Landrover either, been there, done that, but I still have it 8 years later.

I remember reading an article a few years ago about 1 of the first Apple 1’s hand made by Wozniak himself being sold for $250k. Should that buyer have taken this advice?

Edit: just looked it up. I was wrong, £250k. But read on, another 1 fetched £412,500.00

 

[LeeW]

The article is certainly a bit clickbait but at the end of the day in plenty scenarios, if you buy a used, declared obsolete , Mac under the assumption that it’s always as smooth sailing as when buying new, you might yourself proven wrong.

This. I mean the article isn't as wrong as much as it is written badly.

 

[Smartuser]

Although German is my native language, I couldn't finish reading the article due to the misinformation. I would argue that the second and third point are the most outrageous in my opinion. Concerning the second point, I'd actually argue that that applies more to new Macs. The author of the article probably has never heard of OpenCore and the likes of it. The fourth point is debatable. If we take a maxed out Mac Pro 2009/2010/2012 for example, I don't think the performance will be disappointing. Just my 2 cents. With a little bit of insight you can easily debunk the article. I can't help but to think that the article is sponsored somehow or at least heavily biased ...

Same native language, same difficulty reading these kinds of articles.

The simplest of all considerations that even any non-tech person can follow is "What exactly is 'old'?".

I've sold my M1 Mac mini (from 2020) to a friend near the end of last year, do any of the OP's points apply to this? No! So then why doesn't the article explain this better and gives some guidelines? Because it would reduce its value as clickbait!

 

[Unami]

Pretty sure that confusing article was written by ChatGPT.

 

[Amethyst1]

The article is certainly a bit clickbait but at the end of the day in plenty scenarios, if you buy a used, declared obsolete , Mac under the assumption that it’s always as smooth sailing as when buying new, you might yourself proven wrong.

Sure, but isn't this common sense, i.e. not even worth mentioning? Caveat emptor.

 

[ericwn]

Sure, but isn't this common sense, i.e. not even worth mentioning? Caveat emptor.

One would hope so but according to two German authors there still seems a need to call that out and have an entire article about this stuff.

 

[za9ra22]

Of course, that article is simply not going back far enough.

1 Old Macs are not secure....
Well, you can't get much more secure than an old Mac that has zero connectivity, a Kensington lock to keep it bolted down, and where the user has floppy disks in their pocket.

2 It's hard to get spare parts....
Tell the folks at TinkerDifferent or 68kmla this, and they'll point you at places you can get almost anything you need.

3 There is no appropriate software support....
Except for Macintosh garden and others, plus dozens of sources on the internet for help, and freely available manuals and guides online.

4 The performance will disappoint you....
Not on period-appropriate software it won't. And that's before you might add accelerators or overclocking.... or of course replace your 68030 system with a G3!

5. It's only Intel....
Ah, and there's your problem!

 

[robertosh]

I think it is even the oposite! Old macs are still powerful, rock solid and fully user serviceable. And the software is way better.

 

[za9ra22]

I think it is even the oposite! Old macs are still powerful, rock solid and fully user serviceable. And the software is way better.

I certainly agree with this entirely!

 

[Amethyst1]

One would hope so but according to two German authors there still seems a need to call that out and have an entire article about this stuff.

Being German has nothing to do with it. You’ll find people with this mindset anywhere. () The article isn’t about caveat emptor (in that case it could have said “Be careful/mindful when buying second-hand Macs” or something like that), to me it’s more like “Clever people don't buy second-hand Macs” (with the implication that those who do are... not clever). Total BS, and insulting too.

But then, that's the internet. It is full of BS.

 

[TVreporter]

If I could find someone to cheaply fix my 2011 iMac I would (graphics card - do not send me into that insane, convoluted 10,000 page fix-it thread!)

It’s still sitting in a box and faces daily garbage dump threats from my wife!

 

[Matsamoto]

The article assumes that whenever a Mac is for sale, it's for some bad reason, i.e. it's running badly, some part is kaput, doesn't support some newest software, etc. But of course that's not the case in reality. I once sold a Mac mini 2009 in mint condition, with all its accessories, packaging box included at a suitable price. I had made its hard disk 2 partitions one Yosemite the other ready for installing Windows, the buyer was super happy to buy it.

Recently I've bought a Mac mini G4 2005 80GB, BT, AP, 1GB for about $35 shipping included, and it works perfectly and I'm super happy with that purchase.

The Macs, particularly the older ones with the Intel CPU, have a very good ratio of performance, quality, aesthetics, usability over their prices.

Serious question🙂
I’m quite new to Mac, so is it safe to buy an old Mac?
Don’t need to have the latest OS, but thinking of security updates?
I understand of course that you have to think about what sites you are browsing, and use common sense.

But is it safe to buy an old iMac for example from 2010 for easier task?

 

[eyoungren]

Serious question🙂
I’m quite new to Mac, so is it safe to buy an old Mac?
Don’t need to have the latest OS, but thinking of security updates?
I understand of course that you have to think about what sites you are browsing, and use common sense.

But is it safe to buy an old iMac for example from 2010 for easier task?

I do not know where this thread was originally posted, but it is currently sitting in the PowerPC Mac subforum of MacRumors. I guess the mods thought this was the right forum for 'old Macs'. Never mind there is also a Early Intel Mac subforum.

But anyway…if security is your thing, then you'll want a Mac that Apple considers to be 'Supported'. 'Supported' models still receive updates. I believe the 'supported' tag is from one to seven years. After seven years, you move into 'Vintage' and then 'Obsolete'.

The type of Mac you get also depends on how much you are willing to learn/work. If an older 'vintage' or 'obsolete' Mac is acceptable to you, then you have a learning curve and some work to do. But it won't be receiving current security updates. For a lot of people, that makes them 'unsecure' and there is a blind, unreasoning, inflexible and rabid mentality about not using 'unsecure' Macs in other parts of MacRumors.

You have to decide what you're ultimately going to be using your Mac for.

On a related note, I am typing this message in on a 2009 Mac Pro running Mojave (OS X 10.14.6). It was considered obsolete long ago, but is actually my youngest Mac. All the other Macs I own are older. But, the browser I am using is the latest version of Vivaldi, which still supports my OS.

 

[Bug-Creator]

But is it safe to buy an old iMac for example from 2010 for easier task?

a) not really
b) a (used) M1 Mini is a little more and with dumpster dived KBD/mouse/monitor your set up for years


BTT:
Since the article is from Germany, don't forget that any old Mac that would even come close to todays baseline performance is is gonna eat some real power, which ain't cheap around here.....

 

[ericwn]

Being German has nothing to do with it. You’ll find people with this mindset anywhere. () The article isn’t about caveat emptor (in that case it could have said “Be careful/mindful when buying second-hand Macs” or something like that), to me it’s more like “Clever people don't buy second-hand Macs” (with the implication that those who do are... not clever). Total BS, and insulting too.

But then, that's the internet. It is full of BS.

I am not hinting that being German has anything to do with it and was solely including the fact of their origin. And I wrote this being a German myself.

The article reminds me of a couple of reasons why I haven’t bothered reading that particular magazine in a long time.

 

[mzeb]

Serious answer 😁

Apple seems to put out security updates for the past four to five releases of the macOS. There isn’t a stated lifetime for each version but this is what seems to be. This means they get security updates and should be secure.

A new macOS version comes out annually so this means that you can count on any machine made in the past four years or so having the latest security updates. Each Mac gets (on average) three to four years of updates so if you could potentially see a four year old OS on an eight year old machine still up to date with security updates.

These are rough estimates. There are machines as old as 2012 that can run macOS 10.15 which still receives security updates so that is an eleven year old mac that is up to date and secure.

The only way to really be sure is to figure out what OS a machine can run and see if it is still getting security patches but rough guesses by age can give you a general feeling too.