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iMac Upgrade or buy new?

M

MeezErased

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 7, 2015
4
0
Hi all, I'm new to this forum and I would really appreciate any advice from those in the know about hardware versus OS versions. :) My friend has a iMac 8.1 (Intel) and it is currently running on 10.5.8 and she can no longer use web stuff requiring flash. Is it worth me buying the Snow Leopard disc and upgrading for her or shall I recommend she just ditch this old Mac (bought new around 2008) and get a new one? It has the standard 2gb ram is already a bit slow, I wondered if anyone would know how far (OS wise) I could upgrade it to before it would grind to a halt without buying more memory? She only uses it to surf the web and watch streaming tv really, which isn't currently working due to the Flash issue. Thanks very much!
 
I'd suggest trying OS 10.8.5 "Mountain Lion" on it first (I believe the 2008 iMacs can run that).
 
Fishrrman said:
I'd suggest trying OS 10.8.5 "Mountain Lion" on it first (I believe the 2008 iMacs can run that).
Click to expand...

Thanks Fishrrman. :) Am I right in thinking that I have to get the snow leopard disc first and then update from there up to mountain lion?
 
"Unfortunately, installing Mountain Lion requires that you already have a Mac running Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) or Lion (OS X 10.7). If you're currently running a Leopard system, you're out of luck, and need to pay $29 to upgrade to Snow Leopard, and then an additional $20 to upgrade again to Mountain Lion.25 Jul 2012"

That sucks!
 
AlexisV said:
"Unfortunately, installing Mountain Lion requires that you already have a Mac running Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) or Lion (OS X 10.7). If you're currently running a Leopard system, you're out of luck, and need to pay $29 to upgrade to Snow Leopard, and then an additional $20 to upgrade again to Mountain Lion.25 Jul 2012"

That sucks!
Click to expand...

Yes that does suck!! I thought I could just get away with only paying for the Snow Leopard disc and then the rest of the updates would be free... It confuses me how some OS updates are free and others aren't. Thanks AlexisV :)
 
Leopard is pretty much obsolete on Intel Macs. Just upgrading to Snow Leopard will allow you to install a modern browser and Flash player. Unless there's a big need for modern software compatibility or security, that's the farthest you'd need to go, and it runs well on older hardware that hasn't seen RAM or SSD upgrades.

MeezErased said:
It confuses me how some OS updates are free and others aren't.
Click to expand...
OS X updates weren't made free until after Mountain Lion (starting with 10.9 Mavericks).
 
redheeler said:
Leopard is pretty much obsolete on Intel Macs. Just upgrading to Snow Leopard will allow you to install a modern browser and Flash player. Unless there's a big need for modern software compatibility or security, that's the farthest you'd need to go, and it runs well on older hardware that hasn't seen RAM or SSD upgrades.


OS X updates weren't made free until after Mountain Lion (starting with 10.9 Mavericks).
Click to expand...

Thank you Redheeler!! So helpful :) :)
 
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