Advice on buying a secondhand Mac

June 26, 2009 5:02 AM

Looking for a second-hand Mac desktop - what would you advise?

New to Macs (much to my sister's disgust) and looking for one as a second computer. It won't be used for much more than surfing the web and word processing - in theory - but in reality if it did other fun or cool things (GarageBand?) then I suspect they would end up being used...

A desktop will give me much more bang for my buck, yes?

There's two things to balance here - (1) wanting it to be as cheap as possible and (2) wanting it to do as much as possible.

So where's the sweet spot, in your opinion? What should I be looking for and how much should I expect to pay? (I'm in the UK.) If my budget was say £300, would I get something worthwhile? £400?... Would it have to be more?

Bonus points for a set-up that will play nicely with my existing (and presumably Windows-centric) wireless router (Linksys WRT54GS) and printer (Epson C66).

Thanks Applephiles!

posted by monster max to technology (12 comments total)

What you could do is get a new mac mini. The base line ones are pretty cheap (about $600US approx £350) The only thing is you would need a display and a USB keyboard and mouse.
You could then (if you really need it) install Bootcamp to run windows on it as well.

You shouldn't have any problems with the router but the printer is another story (no mac drivers)
Good luck
posted by ShawnString at 5:42 AM on June 26

Just for the record there is a new windows program, Cakewalk Music Creator 5, that's kind of a Garageband clone and really cheap ($35). If you ended up staying on the other other dark side.
posted by sully75 at 5:49 AM on June 26

Don't know about the prices outside of the US, but that equates to $500 - $650 with current exchange rates. If prices are equivalent, that's enough to buy a brand new Mini rather than a used desktop. For your purposes it should be a great machine. If you already have a decent monitor you're set. The Mac desktops hold their value well enough that you're not likely to find many used Intel-based desktops in your price range, and you don't want to be buying into a PowerPC processor at this point in time. Too much software is Intel only by now.

Plus a new Mini will have new components - latest video cards, processor, memory, and will be ready for Snow Leopard when that system update is released in the Fall. It should easily be fast enough to do what you want. The only real thing you sacrifice with a Mini is upgrade ability - because the case is so small, you can't do much besides increase memory or add a higher capacity hard drive, but the same thing is true of the iMac desktops. Plus, check the price difference between that and a Mac Pro and I think you'll see the benefits of the Mini.
posted by caution live frogs at 6:06 AM on June 26

(also I personally thing Epson printers suck, but you can find Gutenprint CUPS drivers for the C66 at openprinting.org - CUPS is the printing service from Apple that is used to control printers on Macs, Linux and Unix systems. I've had good luck with the drivers from this site.)
posted by caution live frogs at 6:09 AM on June 26

I love my mac Mini. It's a Intel Core Duo 1.66ghz. I've replaced the hard drive and maxed out the RAM, and it purrs like a kitten with no worries whatsoever. I bought it refurbished from apple in 2006.
It was (as Jobs intended) my gateway drug to things mac and apple, and I'm picking up my new iPhone 3GS tomorrow. That last part is kind of warning.
posted by willmize at 6:17 AM on June 26

Since you don't have huge plans for this machine (such as editing video) a mini would probably be OK, so I'll second caution live frogs.

But if you can find a 2nd-hand Mac Pro with an Intel CPU, go for it. Much easier to upgrade. (OS X loves having lots of RAM.)

My dual 2ghz desktop is still going strong after six years, and I get loads of work done with it.
posted by omnidrew at 8:06 AM on June 26

As a first Mac the Mini isn't a bad choice; I think that's what it's made for in large part.

I'm partial to the big Power Mac tower machines myself, but that's because I want I/O and expansion. If you don't think you'll need to stuff your machine full of PCIe cards, or hang a few TB of external storage off it, then the Mini ought to be fine.

I would just get an Intel based on rather than an older PPC one. I have a huge soft spot in my heart for the PPC architecture, but the Intel based machines are faster, offer better performance/watt, and let you run Windows either via Boot Camp (ew) or VMWare/Parallels (yay).
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:38 AM on June 26

Since the mini starts at £499 you're looking at used Macs, though maybe one possibility would be having someone in the US buy a new mini and bringing it on their next trip back.

So I think you should check out the specs of Snow Leopard, Apple's next operating system, coming in September. The most important requirement is an Intel processor. Prior to the Intel switch a few years back Macs used PowerPC processors. Those were good in their day but that day has passed, in Mac terms. PPC will not be supported by the new OS and so as time passes less and less software will be written that PPC Macs can run.

It can be hard to tell on some models whether they are Intel or PPC but if you click the Apple menu in the upper left of the screen and select "About This Mac" it will tell you the basics, processor and RAM.

Beyond that, were I buying a used Mac I'd want it to have a Core 2 Duo processor or better, not a Core Duo or Core Solo (used in some minis, and not a mini I'd recommend). The C2D is a 64 bit processor. The other issue is the graphics. See linked page but OpenCL won't be supported by all graphics chips/cards used in Intel Macs. These may not be significant issues today but could be potential limitations in the future, depending on your uses.

The models in your price range are the Mac mini, the iMac, and the MacBook. The mini is the very compact desktop, and requires you to purchase or find a monitor, mouse, and keyboard. The iMac is the all in one desktop, that looks like a bit bigger and thicker LCD screen. It will come with a keyboard and mouse. The MacBook is the 13" laptop (comes in Aluminim, White, and discontinued Black).

I think it would be hard to find a MacBook Pro (high end laptop) or Mac Pro (high end desktop) for £300-400.

If you get something used with less than 2GB RAM be sure to upgrade to at least 2GB. That's cheap and a significant performance benefit because you won't be hitting swap as quickly (swap basically frees RAM by writing the contents to the hard drive which is much slower to access than memory in RAM).

I don't know about the UK but in the US Craigslist is a good place to find used computers and you can verify the condition and functionality. Bring a CD or DVD to test the optical drive, too.

Any other questions feel free to ask or MeMail.
posted by 6550 at 8:56 AM on June 26

You may want to go to the Apple Store online and check their refurbs. You can sometimes get a pretty good deal, and they'll sell you Applecare with it (which I recommend highly to get if at all possible).
posted by mephron at 9:49 AM on June 26

The minis have laptop drives which are slower than 3.5" drives.

The best bang for the buck IMV is the iMac. They went Intel in early 2006 and all models since then are good.

But if you can find a 2nd-hand Mac Pro with an Intel CPU, go for it. Much easier to upgrade. (OS X loves having lots of RAM.)

No, no, no. Memory upgrades are easy to do on the iMacs, and a Pro is overkill for nearly everyone who isn't making money with their Mac. 2GB is a useful minimum for Macs these days.
posted by @troy at 9:58 AM on June 26

A word of warning re 2nd-hand iMacs: 1st generation G5s have faulty logic boards and power supplies (check the serial numbers posted on the Apple site--sorry, can't link). Replacement parts will also fail after 2-4 months.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:51 AM on June 26

I'm editing a one hour HD documentary right now on my Core Duo Mac mini (refurb, 2007 I think), and it's ticking over quite nicely. They're more powerful than you might think. I second the recommendation for at least 2GB of RAM.
posted by leebree at 1:31 PM on June 26