At a second hand store I saw a 2009 Core Duo iMac with 4 GB RAM and 250GB HD, or so they say. I am clueless when it comes to the Mac world.

Could this be a decent entry level machine to the Mac philosophy and iOS?
Can I upgrade the HD myself with a regular 1TB SATA drive?

I did not see a keyboard and mouse, are those Mac specific?

Selling price is US 300. Sold as is, no warranty whatsoever.
There is NO official Apple presence in my country. Servicing, if available will likely be silly expensive.

Opinions..?

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It's likely an iBrick at this point.

My parents are Mac people and their computers seems to have a fairly limited life to when they become non-upgradeable.

Apple's current operating system is macOS High Sierra. I doubt that computer could run it, and even if it did, it would not run the next version. I see where you are located, but 300 USD is also too much for a nine year old computer in my opinion.

My advice would be to buy something newer if you wanted to play with a Mac.

That's a decent enough machine, my Dad still has one and it is going strong...that said, my Dad has had it since new and knows history. Also, the price seems a little high for what it is

If you are a "light" user, Macs will serve you well until Apple no longer supports the hardware with its new OS'es. You don't need Apple-specific peripherals.

It is true that newer iMacs and MacBooks really aren't upgradeable, but I had an iMac for almost 9 years, and the only reason I got rid of it was because the RAM went bad. Replaced it with a MacBook Pro in 2015. That should last me another 9 years.

With an '09, you might not be able to load High Sierra, and if that's the case, I wouldn't buy it. 99% of the Mac experience is the OS. If you want to "get into" Macs, you need to use the latest OS.

Depends on what you’re going to do with it. As already said that’s an old machine. The hardware could be just fine, or not. I have a 2009 MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM (forgot the processor, but it is Intel) and while it will load and run the newest OS X, it is very, V-E-R-Y slow. I reverted back to Snow Leopard. Under it’s older versions, you’ll find somethings will not run there. Websites that use certain elements won’t load and there will be occasional issues. Drivers for things like printers and other peripherals will expect a newer OS as well as many applications.

This from a life-long (since 1984) Mac user:

You could probably get by with it, but I think if you were to judge your "intro to the Mac" experience based on it, you would find it disappointing.

Computer technology improves at breakneck speed.

I have in service currently three Macs:

2010 MacBook Pro. 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8GB RAM, 500GB HD
2012 MacBook Air. 2 GHz Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM, 500 GB SSD
2017 MacBook Pro. 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD

All are serviceable, but the older one is definitely slower, and as others have mentioned, not upgradeable to the current version of macOS. I use almost all three on a daily basis, but if I had to rely only on the first, I'd be unhappy, impatient, and think Macs were a bunch of crap (if I had no prior experience).

I find that six or so years is the sweet spot for Mac lifecycle. The machines will last past the point where the new OS works successfully with it.
I have a couple 2012 MacBook Pro Unibody machines, one of which just crashed but I think it was a bad SSD. My daughter's is still running.

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Originally posted by 0-0:
Can I upgrade the HD myself with a regular 1TB SATA drive?

Yes, but you will need install media for the OS install (CD). Newer Macs will install macOS over the network from Apple servers, but this machine is too old. If you can find an installer CD on Pirate Bay, it shouldn't be a problem (the hardware holds the OS license). I think this system is too old to have a "Fusion Drive" which is a SATA SSD drive coupled to a standard SATA drive. Replacing a Fusion with a standard drive will not improve performance.

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I did not see a keyboard and mouse, are those Mac specific?

Amy USB or Bluetooth will work. "Mac" keyboards has a few keys named differently than Windows keyboards, but they send the same keycodes, and you quickly get used to which is which.

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Selling price is US 300. Sold as is, no warranty whatsoever.
There is NO official Apple presence in my country. Servicing, if available will likely be silly expensive.

You could find this system for $100 or less in the US. Systems of this vintage are not unlike all-in-one Windows boxes, hardware-wise. In fact, this model runs Windows with ease either installed on the bare metal, or via a dual-partition/dual-boot option. Apple calls the latter "Bootcamp," and it has to be set up at install time. Lots of info online on working on these units.

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Opinions..?

0-0

Go for it!

My iMac is an '06 model. It still works for light applications, but I've been told next year's TurboTax won't run on it. I upgraded the RAM to 8GB. It was an easy upgrade and cost about 60 bucks. The chips are located on the bottom of the monitor, at least on mine.

Newer Macs are relatively inexpensive, especially from the refurb section of their site.

Good price on an outdated computer... but that is the key... outdated... what I usually buy is 'reconditioned' that is about 1 year behind and that gets me by for about 3 or 4 years.

Speaking of Macs ... (I've had one since 1987) I once bought a 'slightly' used mac for a back up computer for $400... it was about 4-6 years old ... when it was first introduced it was the most expensive personal computer ever offered (still is I think) when new it sold for $8,000!

The Core Duo is very outdated.
I have a 2007 I had to replace the video card in and while I had it apart I replaced the processor with the fastest one I could find.
It's not easy to get into the guts but it's not impossible.
Getting around removing the display is the most critical part.

Always wanted to explore the Mac World but it is too expensive for my shallow pockets.

Since the brand does not officially exists down here, anything related is silly expensive and hard to get. Close to priceless applies


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For $100 more you can get a current generation Mac Mini with a as new warranty by Apple. You'll need a display and keyboard/mouse but those can be gotten on the cheap. yes, kb for Mac is specific (it has the "Command" key which is like the Alt key on the PC kb), but you really can use any kb/mouse.

https://www.apple.com/shop/pro...l-core-Intel-Core-i5