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I'm thinking of trying out an Apple computer. How old is still viable?
Posted on 1/8/23 at 2:05 pm
Posted on 1/8/23 at 2:05 pm
I know that Apple computers are known for being usable while being quite old. I see lots of used iMacs on sale on FB Marketplace. Just saw a 27” iMac 5K Display 2TB Storage for $350 (includes Magic Keyboard). They say that it runs on Monterrey, so it's not 100% up to date.
I have no idea how to ID this specific one or how old it is, but I just wanted general advice on how old was too old.
I have no idea how to ID this specific one or how old it is, but I just wanted general advice on how old was too old.
4
Posted on 1/8/23 at 2:11 pm to SlowFlowPro
I have a 2013 MacBook Air that runs just fine except the battery is shot and I have to keep it plugged in.
Posted on 1/8/23 at 3:43 pm to SlowFlowPro
My iMac sucks. Takes at least 5 minutes to power up and connect to the internet. Our 6 yr old Dell laptop works better
Posted on 1/8/23 at 3:51 pm to SlowFlowPro
quote:
I have no idea how to ID this specific one or how old it is, but I just wanted general advice on how old was too old.
You will see the M1 Mac Mini go on sale for $569 pretty regularly at Costco and right around $600 from relatively reputable places (Wal Mart’s website is at $620 right now). This does not count eBay/3rd party that isn’t a major retailer/individuals.
The problem is that in late 2020, Apple began parting ways with intel. You’re looking at an intel machine- the development for intel OS X will be calling off rapidly if it will exist at all soon.
Without verifying, you could be buying either an SSD or a “fusion” drive which had a small ssd + mostly HDD. The performance of this would be less than ideal on already abandoned hardware.
So, you’re looking to “try it out,” what has you interested?
The office suite?
The OS in general?
The “cool look” of an iMac specifically?
I probably wouldn’t buy any intel mac that isn’t upgradable to the current OS. I wouldn’t buy anything without an SSD. And unless the hurdle between that and $570 is too much, I probably wouldn’t buy anything other than an M1 Mac Mini to “try out” unless there was a very specific thing I was interested in.
That will give you 8gb RAM which, for what most people want to do, is plenty on that system. The 256gb ssd is a bummer, but storage is so absurdly cheap right now that I wouldn’t necessarily call it a dealbreaker.
They get a lot of flack for their price, but a lot of their software is specific to their hardware and free (the GarageBand alternatives aren’t as good as GarageBand. I honestly like libreoffice better than the iWork suite, and you can’t buy the iWork suite outside of OSX, so it’s hard to say what its value is. But there is no denying that it has a large following and is freely available for OSX hardware).
This post was edited on 1/8/23 at 4:00 pm
Posted on 1/8/23 at 4:02 pm to Hopeful Doc
If I came across a good deal on an m1 Mac (especially a laptop) I'd probably scoop it up just for the battery life and to play with it, but yeah I wouldn't pay very much for an Intel Mac, unless the deal was good, the hardware was still powerful and you wanted to dual boot into Linux or windows.
Posted on 1/8/23 at 4:18 pm to LSshoe
This is why I made the thread.
This may be a stupid question but is final cut free on apple computers these days?
This may be a stupid question but is final cut free on apple computers these days?
Posted on 1/8/23 at 4:23 pm to SlowFlowPro
Posted on 1/8/23 at 4:34 pm to LSshoe
quote:
came across a good deal on an m1 Mac (especially a laptop)
I’ve been posting in a lot of Apple threads lately.
I bought a Mac mini when they came out out of morbid curiosity. It was fine. I played around with the Siri dictation on it, and it was decent enough that I said, “what the hell” and when I saw a MacBook Air for about $850 at Best Buy I went ahead and grabbed it.
So I do use a MacBook Air daily.
I have a Mac mini at home
I have posted about my difficulty with writing a process to upload files on a network share to an SFTP server, and I solved my problem with Automator and the terminal before I could figure out how to make it work on the command line/powershell (and I was just starting to play with python before I found a solution), so there’s a Costco special Mac mini (only thing special is the price and that it’s a base model) sitting at my office that just runs that process.
I post that to say I have a 16gb RAM + 2tb SSD version…and it only matters because it’s not upgradeable storage and is capable of using a swap… and two base models. There was, at one point, a memory leak problem (posted about it) that has been solved, and for most daily tasks there is no discernible difference in performance for most basic activities. I do play around with some very basic music recording and editing. I do not do very much photo/video editing. But the overall performance from the fanless MBA to the Mac mini with double the ram is negligible.
I have no real need to pay the premium for the better processor or more RAM, but the price of the machines that have those things is certainly daunting. If you’re dabbling in Final Cut, it’s possible you push the limits (but probably not…the upgrade is more for people who use it day in/day out and would benefit from a small performance upgrade)
Posted on 1/8/23 at 5:30 pm to SlowFlowPro
Not sure, but I just got a M1 MacBook Air and I'm really enjoying it so far. It's my first Apple computer so I'm still getting use to it. Hoping it will last me a while.
Posted on 1/9/23 at 2:19 am to LSBoosie
Just try VirtualBox (free), if you have enough RAM. Taste the MAC.
I won't tell you how to download MacOS to avoid violating TOS, but given how many people on this board openly pirate movies, I'm sure one of them will help. It's not hard to download as an ISO, which you mount, and install into the VM instance.
I won't tell you how to download MacOS to avoid violating TOS, but given how many people on this board openly pirate movies, I'm sure one of them will help. It's not hard to download as an ISO, which you mount, and install into the VM instance.
Posted on 1/9/23 at 2:25 am to LemmyLives
Posted on 1/9/23 at 2:48 am to LemmyLives
AWS resource. I think I pay under 70 cents a month to back up more than 10TB to Glacier storage via Backblaze, so running a virtual Mac shouldn't cost much for a few weeks.
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