Quick question

[bigbrandon]

I have a buddy who wants to sell me a 2008 model iMac for $500. 20.1 inch 2008 iMac with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. Comes with Mac OS X Lion are the specs he sent me. I don't do anything real intense on the computer mainly surf the web, netflix and sometimes a few games. I was wondering if this computer would be fine for me and if that is a fair price? Please let me know and thanks in advance!

[chscag]

You can check the average selling price by going to this web site and putting in the specs: Mac2Sell.net

[chas_m]

I personally would not buy it at that price, and Mac2Sell says it is worth $460 (and it tends to be optimistic).

The unit is a perfectly fine computer, and should meet the specs for Mountain Lion (checked: it does). However, my concern for you is that the graphics card (which is not upgradeable) is a 128GB card. GREAT for casual/moderate gaming, not really good enough for heavy gaming. This machine would also struggle with anything above 720p video.

I think this machine would make a great computer for casual use for another couple-three years, assuming its in sound mechanical shape. I'd strongly suggest maxing out the RAM when you can, maybe consider replacing that small HD with an SSD or at least a larger, faster HD and I think you'll have a very decent machine that could last you several more years.