How to buy a Mac

Before you read any further - the following opinions are opinions and only that. Don't buy anything based on my advice alone. And now, duly warned, read on...


In my opinion, there are four ways to buy a Mac. Broadly speaking, these are as follows.

• Buy a new Mac. 
• Buy a recent, used Mac or one that is being sold off due to a new model. 
• But a used Mac that that's a few years old. 
• Buy an old Mac. 

Some thoughts on each method.

Buying a new Mac

Make sure the Mac has been replaced recently. There's nothing as annoying as seeing the model you bought last week replaced by a faster model.
Some Macs can be upgraded by the user; others can't. If you can't personally upgrade the memory on the Mac you're buying (MacBook Air, iMac 21.5"), max it out when you buy it.

A Recent/Replaced Mac

This has its advantages, especially if it's a refurb from the Apple Store. However, Macs do not depreciate quickly and the price of a two year old Mac might prompt you to consider buying a new one. Not least because you get a one year guarantee (or sometimes two years if you buy from John Lewis in the UK). Usually a recent Mac will be able to run the latest OS X operating system and a couple of more in the future. This can also be a good way to get features that are not otherwise available - MacBooks that can be upgraded, for example.

A Used Mac

This might be a Mac that is 4-7 years old. In 2013, that includes early Intel Macs, like the Pro, the MacBook and others. These all run Snow Leopard and some will run Lion. Few will run Mountain Lion and at this point, nobody knows much about OS X 10.9. Note that many early Intel Macs don't support more than 2-3GB of ram, so don't plan on running dozens of apps on one. Having said that, Snow Leopard runs like a rocket on many of these machines, especially if you do a clean install, as I did.

An Old Mac

Here, we're talking about any Mac from 1984 onwards. There are too many to consider, but I would make some suggestions.

If you want a Mac that will play well with any other machines (including current ones), printers and a wifi network, look for a Power PC Mac that will run OS X 10.4 and has Firewire and Airport - which will be most of them. Many of these machines - iBooks, original iMac G3s and others - only have USB 1.1, so Firewire's useful for backups and moving large files around. And Airport's useful for wifi.  Dropbox will also run on older PowerPC Macs, so long as they are running Tiger. Some apps, like Evernote, need Leopard. It's worth auditing your needs before buying a PowerPC Mac. Getting one that can run 10.5 Leopard (fast G4s and all G5s) could make a difference.

If you want to try something older, try a Mac Classic. These were a budget option in their day and Apple sold lots of them. They're not especially popular with buyers - they don't have Ethernet as standard for one thing - but they're cheap and, in my experience, reliable.

There are lots of other options. Spend some time on Ebay to see what's for sale.