Is this a good deal on an iMac i7?

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*** UPDATE ****

The offer I am considering is a 24" iMac 2.4 GHZ Core2Duo (or whatever), 8GB RAM, 10k Raptorp drive. I had mistakenly stated a Macbook below.

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I am considering a new Macbook Pro + 27" Monitor but a friend of mine is selling his 24" 3+ year old Macbook (2.4 GHz coreduo, 8GB RAM, and 150GB Raptor) for about $1000 without the keyboard. A 2.3 dual core Macbook Pro with 8GB of RAM would run me $1499....add a monitor and I'm up to $2000 before tax.

I have the following reservations about buying a Mac that is 3 years old.

1) Is this enough horsepower to run OSX and a windows instance on VMWare?
2) Will the next gen OS be supported on this hardware?
3) Is the unit quiet enough to run in my bedroom office? The raptopr may be a factor....but I'm concerned about noise when not using the machine.
4) Is $1000 considered to be a fair price (w/o keyboard and mouse). I am considering making offer of $700 if the answers to questins 1-3 are favorable.

Thank you,

ck
 

bobtomay

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15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
4. I'll take this one first.

$1000????? let your friend find some other suc... uhm... customer for that machine.

You can buy a brand new MB for $1000 - with warranty

The 8GB RAM - Retail is only $100 or less
The Raptor - again, only $99 from Amazon

The $700 you want to offer, imho that's about the most that 3 yr old machine is worth. $600 would be better. It's not worth that much if you ever intend to do any 3D gaming on it - won't do it.

As to the other questions:

1. Yes
2. No one knows for sure since it's not out yet, but sure looks like it will be at this time.
3. Guess that depends on your definition of quiet. You need to test that out for yourself. I've read that drive is quiet, but I've read the same about many that are anything but.

And the dual core 2.3 i5 is $1199 and already comes with 4GB. Not any reason for most folks to upgrade. Even so, an 8GB upgrade kit is only $113 here.

That 2.3 i5 will blow away that 2.4 C2D and you're sitting at $1312, not $1499.
 

bobtomay

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You'd be better off by posting in the thread again rather than editing your existing post in this case. Editing does not bring it back up the list again, so those that have already read it will never see the edit. Not even sure why I looked at it again.

With the 24" he's got it priced about the going price. Although, I wouldn't give that for it.

You can't compare the pricing of a desktop vs an all-in-one and you can't compare the pricing of an all-in-one vs a notebook.

Since Apple doesn't make a consumer grade desktop, you have to decide whether the all-in-one (iMac) is what you want or do you need a notebook. If you need a notebook then your friends Mac is no longer in consideration.

New iMac at $1199 vs that $1000, you get:
3.06 i3 vs 2.4 C2D
500GB vs 150GB drive - drive replacement is no easy job on these things
ATI HD 4650 vs 2600
DDR3 vs DDR2 memory
New vs 3 years old
Warranty vs no warranty

The only things you're losing out on:
21.5" vs 24" screen
And the 8GB RAM which you can still do youself for about $100.

If you can get that iMac for $700, I might be tempted. Any more than that, my money goes with the new one. And if you want to save a little be checking the refurb store. Same as new except for the fancy box, same warranty and get the price down to $1100.
 

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