How much is this worth? 2008 iMac

[Robert M]

Hi everyone,

Just want to point out to those of you still using one of these. Yours are upgraded. The one DavidS has is stock. No SSD. Just 2 gigs of RAM. It's not cost-effective to upgrade nor is it worthwhile to sell it. Not even for $50.00. It'd make a fine gift. If the new owner wants to put money into it, cool. Let him/her spend the money on it.

Robert

[jdc]

I think we all go that.

Its $18 for 4 GB of ram. $120 for a 500 GB SSD. Under $200 for a mac that several of us say is still use able.

A non upgraded 2011 21" goes for $300 around here...

[NewtonMP2100]

.....priceless......in your heart......

[Buzz]

BIL/SIL's 320GB OEM HD died awhile back in their C2D 24" Alu iMac after a misguided OS upgrade that also caused their external 1TB TM drive to explode. Got them a 525GB SSD and eventually a new 2TB NewerTech FW/USB TM drive from OWC. With 4GB RAM and SSD, it's a generally usable machine, though today's real world audio/video production may be a bit taxing for it. Look into what the kid really needs to do, and see if that vintage machine is capable. It's gonna need $150, or so, tossed at it for RAM and SSD, but its GPU horsepower is seriously lacking w/ no way of upgrading to anything current. They're nice machines for grandmas to drive to the grocery store a couple of time a week, but not so good for a millennial that wants to hot rod in it daily. There's still life in it for the right user.
==

[Sarcany]

DavidS wrote:
I have a 24" iMac, 2008 edition. Core 2 Duo, 2.8Ghz, 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD. Mac2Sell says that it's worth $610, but I cannot fathom asking/getting nearly that much for a 10 year old computer.

A neighbor is interested in buying it for her 19yo son to do some music and video production. I'm not sure if it is even up to the task after upgrading the RAM to 6GB (about $70 extra), but he wants to check it out.

Any thoughts/opinions on this?

I was recently offered 3 of them for an art project that would have involved stripping them for components. When I opted to go another way, they offered to pay me to take the old Macs away.

The boot drive is not likely to keep chugging for very long. The logic board and display are not long for the world. An SSD would cost more than it's worth. Installing the SSD would be more effort than it's worth.

The ports are slow. The WiFi is slow. The display is dim with age. It can't run a modern OS and even a fairly old OS will feel slow on that thing. Just booting it feels painful and creaky after booting a modern Mac.

Informed consent: Tell your neighbor that it's worthless and near death, but she's welcome to take it for her son so long as she promises not to give it back to you.

[Robert M]

Sarcany,

Exactly! Those were the thoughts behind my recommendation. I just didn't go into the details.

Robert