Looking for suggestions if buying a 2nd hand iMac

I am looking at buying an iMac 27" and I just had a look at some sites here in Dublin and came across a couple of people selling 2nd Hand 27" iMacs at reasonable prices.

However as this is my first foray into an apple product of any kind I was looking for advice o what I should be asking / checking / or looking for.

For example one of the sellers says that he has Apple care on the product til mid 2014 so i was wondering, is Apple care in the original customers name and if so would I have to get it transferred into my name or what happens here.

Another has the specs stating it has 14 gigs of RAM. Surely that's a typo and he means 4 gigs ?

If you are buying a 2nd hand iMac should you get it reset to factory settings ?

Any suggestions, comments or advice you can give would be most gratefully received.

Mark S.

markst33 said:

For example one of the sellers says that he has Apple care on the product til mid 2014 so i was wondering, is Apple care in the original customers name and if so would I have to get it transferred into my name or what happens here.

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Apple tracks Applecare via the computers serial number (at least in the United States)...not by the current owners name/address. If you bought this computer today...and if there was a problem with the computer in the future (before the Applecare runs out)...you would take the computer to Apple...and you (now being the current owner) would get full Applecare warranty coverage.

markst33 said:

Another has the specs stating it has 14 gigs of RAM. Surely that's a typo and he means 4 gigs ?

Click to expand...

Why not contact the seller to verify the info??

We would only be guessing (although 14gigs is unusual)...it's not impossible. Since many of the 27" iMacs have 4 ram slots:

- 4+4+4+2 = 14gigs
- 8+4+2 = 14gigs
- 8+2+2+2 = 14gigs

markst33 said:

If you are buying a 2nd hand iMac should you get it reset to factory settings ?

Click to expand...

Not necessarily before buying (the seller may not even know how)...but this is something that I would do after purchasing.

- Nick