Is a mid 2007 imac a good deal? Or is it too old?

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Hey, I really need as much help as I can get. I'm hoping to buy my first imac but I'm on such a budget that I've been looking at a used mid 2007 model 24", 2gb, 2.4ghz and 320gb for £400. I'm a design student and heavily use photoshop and other adobe software, would this computer be efficent enough for it? I was hoping to upgrade to 6gb ram so do you think it would be fast enough?
I'm really worried that with it being 5 years old it might not have much time left? I'd want it for about 3-4 years and I've hurd mountain lion will be the last update.
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I've also found some used 2010 imacs for £600 even though thisnis completely out of my budget do you think I should save up and be looking for slightly newer models?
My plan was to only spend £400 on the imac 2007 and possibly splash out after christmas on an sdd drive and have a computer shop fix it in for me and then in a couple of years when I'm in a better financial situation buy a brand new one from apple and sell my 2007 with a profit hopefully if I've upgraded it.
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Any thoughts please help
iMac
 

dtravis7


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MacMini M-1 MacOS Monterey, iMac 2010 27"Quad I7 , MBPLate2011, iPad Pro10.5", iPhoneSE
Others might disagree, but due to Financial reasons I own and use daily the 20" version of that 24" Machine. Same specs. I am using 4GB (going to go to 6 later) with Mountain Lion and it's fine. 6GB would be better though as I tend to run many things all at the same time. It's never turned off and running 24 a day. No issues with ML. 2gb ram though for Mountain Lion and even Lion if you run more than one thing at a time is a bit low.

If I had more $$$ I would try for a larger screen and newer one, but so far this is doing fine and I even play Grand Theft Auto Vice City and it's dead smooth.

Not sure on the price as I am bad with Pounds to dollars. I am sure someone else will chime in.
 
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Claire, the iMac you are considering works well as long as you don't need the processing power of the new iMacs. There are only a few things to consider and look out for. The 320GB hard drives are fairly unreliable, back up regularly until you replace it with an SSD. You will need spacers for the 2.5" SSD so the 2 screw in pins and the black plastic clip off the old drive will mount it securely. Before purchasing check the optical drive is working, and on a white screen check no dust has been drawn into the LCD causing patches similar to clouds, as you can't remove it. A memory upgrade to 4GB is cheap, but disproportionately more to go to 6GB. Crucial have good prices, but won't display the 6GB SO-DIMM against your iMac model, although they sell it. And finally, once a Mac reaches 5 years old, Apple can discontinue spares for it.
 
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Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
£400 is just a little too dear for a +five year old iMac. It should however run Mountain Lion but you may need to up the memory as Dennis points out.
 
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chas_m

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I cannot recommend this plan. As you point out, this machine is on its last legs (at best) compatibility-wise.

If you're stuck at CS 3 then I think it would work a treat with loads of RAM, but if you're hoping to use anything more recent I think it would be unsatisfactory and the idea that you can make it last ANOTHER 3-4 years is a pipe dream.

You'd be better off with a recent Mac mini and a separate (good quality) monitor, quite frankly.
 

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