iMac to Windows PC upgrade for my dad

[quentium]

Hello,

My dad has owed this iMac for the past 6-7 years now and it is beginning to really show its age. I have convinced him that instead of getting a new iMac, he should just get a new PC because the value for money is a lot higher. However, I'm not aware of any PCs we've (us and anyone we know) that has stood the test of time quite like the iMac.

So, without boring you much longer, I was looking for some recommendations of PCs that will compare to the current iMacs of today, and looking for some advice we have missed on in maintaining a PCs speed.

Thanks!

[b0redom]

I've actually been going the other way with this type of stuff. I find I get way less tech support calls for Apple stuff, and when I do they tend to be "How do I....." rather than "I've downloaded/clicked on.... and weird stuff is happening...."

If he's used to using a Mac, why are you pushing him towards Windows?

Sure the pure bang per buck will be better, but if he is currently using a 6+ year old iMac it's unlikely that playing Crysis 3 at native is a requirement anyway.

Unless you're prepared to walk him through Windows 8 and answer a raft of tech support questions, I'd suggest he just gets a new iMac. If you want to save a few quid, get a refurb. My 27" iMac is 3 generations old, and will still play Bioshock Infinite at native res.

[quentium]

I've actually been going the other way with this type of stuff. I find I get way less tech support calls for Apple stuff, and when I do they tend to be "How do I....." rather than "I've downloaded/clicked on.... and weird stuff is happening...."

If he's used to using a Mac, why are you pushing him towards Windows?

Sure the pure bang per buck will be better, but if he is currently using a 6+ year old iMac it's unlikely that playing Crysis 3 at native is a requirement anyway.

Unless you're prepared to walk him through Windows 8 and answer a raft of tech support questions, I'd suggest he just gets a new iMac. If you want to save a few quid, get a refurb. My 27" iMac is 3 generations old, and will still play Bioshock Infinite at native res.

Thanks for the reply. Well the main reason I've suggested he gets a Windows is because with Christmas coming up, I was looking at getting him one that could compare with an Mac, an Mac is a little bit out of mine and my brothers price range. Is maybe restoring the old Mac an option? I'm not very familiar with that process being a Windows user primarily.

[peterb]

As boredom says, ou could look at getting a refurbished iMac, which are offered at a discount. You have to be quick though as they tend to go quite quickly on the Apple Store.

You could also look at a Mac mini, but then you need to think about monitor, keyboard and mouse, although if he has a fairly up to date TV, he could use that as the monitor. Depends on how much he uses it.

[Unique]

Thanks for the reply. Well the main reason I've suggested he gets a Windows is because with Christmas coming up, I was looking at getting him one that could compare with an Mac, an Mac is a little bit out of mine and my brothers price range. Is maybe restoring the old Mac an option? I'm not very familiar with that process being a Windows user primarily.

two main things - what does he do with his mac or what does he want to do with his computer? is the first

secondly, what model/spec does he have?

I have a late 2007 MacBook (not pro), so perhaps about the same age if not older, and I upgraded the RAM to 4gb the max it would take, and replaced the HDD with an SSD and it gave it a new lease of life. I also have win7 32 bit installed as bootcap so the best of both worlds. lion is the most up to date osx it runs so it's now 3 versions or so out of date now Yosemite is out, but I mainly use it as a lighter alternative to my 17" 'desktop replacement' laptop which weighs a ton, and for internet use and playing music and videos so it copes easily with that

so depending on model it may be relatively simple to upgrade the ram and replace HDD with an SSD and give it a new lease of life which may be more than adequate for his needs. as with windows, a fresh installation may speed things up, or have a look at performance increasing utilities and techniques to delete temp files and crap. upgrading the ram won't cost much and likewise SSD's can be had from less than £50 these days, it just depends on how much data he holds. you can always stick the current HDD in a caddy if he needs more storage than you want to spend on a HDD but 500gb SSDs can be had for about £150 if I'm not mistaken. you don't want to spend to much upgrading an old machine, but considering the cost of the mac in the first place, I'd try upgrading the ram and SSD and see if that is sufficient, and if not then selling the mac with those upgrades making it more usable will of course make it more appealing in the second hand market to which apple tends to hold value reasonably well

if he's used to mac, I'd suggest sticking to mac for the same reasons others have mentioned. personally I prefer windows but after getting used to osx I can see why my friends who don't have much of a clue about computers prefer them, as the osx interface is a bit simpler and dumbed down for newbies and casual users than windows is. of course for tech freaks you can do a lot more, but most of the mac owners I know are clueless about computers and just use them to surf the web and use iTunes and import photos from cameras and they find the interface simpler

[quentium]

two main things - what does he do with his mac or what does he want to do with his computer? is the first

secondly, what model/spec does he have?

I have a late 2007 MacBook (not pro), so perhaps about the same age if not older, and I upgraded the RAM to 4gb the max it would take, and replaced the HDD with an SSD and it gave it a new lease of life. I also have win7 32 bit installed as bootcap so the best of both worlds. lion is the most up to date osx it runs so it's now 3 versions or so out of date now Yosemite is out, but I mainly use it as a lighter alternative to my 17" 'desktop replacement' laptop which weighs a ton, and for internet use and playing music and videos so it copes easily with that

so depending on model it may be relatively simple to upgrade the ram and replace HDD with an SSD and give it a new lease of life which may be more than adequate for his needs. as with windows, a fresh installation may speed things up, or have a look at performance increasing utilities and techniques to delete temp files and crap. upgrading the ram won't cost much and likewise SSD's can be had from less than £50 these days, it just depends on how much data he holds. you can always stick the current HDD in a caddy if he needs more storage than you want to spend on a HDD but 500gb SSDs can be had for about £150 if I'm not mistaken. you don't want to spend to much upgrading an old machine, but considering the cost of the mac in the first place, I'd try upgrading the ram and SSD and see if that is sufficient, and if not then selling the mac with those upgrades making it more usable will of course make it more appealing in the second hand market to which apple tends to hold value reasonably well

if he's used to mac, I'd suggest sticking to mac for the same reasons others have mentioned. personally I prefer windows but after getting used to osx I can see why my friends who don't have much of a clue about computers prefer them, as the osx interface is a bit simpler and dumbed down for newbies and casual users than windows is. of course for tech freaks you can do a lot more, but most of the mac owners I know are clueless about computers and just use them to surf the web and use iTunes and import photos from cameras and they find the interface simpler

Thanks for your reply, given me a lot to think about!

Firstly, he mainly uses the computer for casual internet usage, with word processing for his work and very occasional photo editing (he's an amateur photographer).

Secondly, I believe it is the early 2008 model of the iMac, the one that started around April 2008.

I'm not so sure about upgrading the ram, it had 2 slots with DDR2 compatibility, so the max ram would also be 4GB, but it currently has 3GB anyway, not sure what difference 1GB would make. I'm not so sure he would be interested in anything like dual booting windows, he's definitely not what you would call tech savvy

Upgrading the SSD is actually a pretty good idea, I guess the main problem with that is that like I said he is an amateur photographer, so he stores a lot of photos, and is near the 250GB cap currently of the harddrive it came with. I'm not sure of anyway to fit a SSD and HDD like to can with PCs, one for the OS and one for all the photos would probably be perfect. I don't know if an external hard drive for the photos is a good idea?

Yeah you are probably right, I know mum loves her iPhone so she will probably appreciate having a better Mac instead of a better PC Windows is probably a bad idea. I can see the appeal of iOS but I have been on windows for all my life so I think I was being a bit short sighted!

As boredom says, ou could look at getting a refurbished iMac, which are offered at a discount. You have to be quick though as they tend to go quite quickly on the Apple Store.

You could also look at a Mac mini, but then you need to think about monitor, keyboard and mouse, although if he has a fairly up to date TV, he could use that as the monitor. Depends on how much he uses it.

Thanks for the input! That sounds like it could be a solution, before I start looking into it, what kind of refurbished iMacs run well now? Is there a certain spec that makes for good value for money?

Could get a mac mini, that would only leave a monitor to get, as we already have a keyboard and new-ish mouse for the iMac atm, will look into that!

[peterb]

No refurbished iMacs at the moment, but look here

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

As for specs, depends what he is doing with it. An i5 processor will be ok for most things, and keeps the cost down, but often you have to go with what's available.

[b0redom]

What's your budget?

Here is the official refurb store, but stock changes rapidly:

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

2nd user macs hold their value REALLY well so you're not likely to get any super deals on eBay etc.

I would not really recommend a new MacMini as they have the RAM soldered onto the motherboard (which is a REALLY dumb idea IMO). If you can find the previous model that's been discounted that would be a much better detail. This latest rev only came out in October 2014, so there's likely to be old stock left over (rev 6,1 or 6,2 is what you're looking for). That being said, you can get the bottom of the range one with 8GB for £479.

Apple often have corporate discounts for employees of big companies, so that might be worth asking about.

[quentium]

No refurbished iMacs at the moment, but look here

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

As for specs, depends what he is doing with it. An i5 processor will be ok for most things, and keeps the cost down, but often you have to go with what's available.

That looks a little out of price range, definitely something to think about for the future though.

Do you have any experience in upgrading iMacs, like was suggested by Unique earlier in the thread, or is there a better board to start a thread about that?

[abaxas]

Upgrade ram and add in an SSD. You'll be surprised how fast it actually becomes.

Wife is still using her 4gb 1.4 dual core original air. Plenty fast for almost all computing tasks.

[b0redom]

http://www.ballicom.co.uk/md387ba-ap...e.p856712.html

Looks like the last rev model.

Upgrading an iMac is not for the faint hearted. RAM is easily possible. Check out the crucial site and they'll tell you the maximum supported RAM. Swapping out the HDD will require lots of patience, and tools. See this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FItRqCL-iSg

[quentium]

Upgrade ram and add in an SSD. You'll be surprised how fast it actually becomes.

Wife is still using her 4gb 1.4 dual core original air. Plenty fast for almost all computing tasks.

Yeah that looks to be the best option at the moment, probably gonna do it that way after research on how to do it

http://www.ballicom.co.uk/md387ba-ap...e.p856712.html

Looks like the last rev model.

Upgrading an iMac is not for the faint hearted. RAM is easily possible. Check out the crucial site and they'll tell you the maximum supported RAM. Swapping out the HDD will require lots of patience, and tools. See this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FItRqCL-iSg

That's a pretty good deal on that mac mini, will show my brother see what he thinks.

That video does look really scary, completely foreign to me! Will have to do a lot more research into it before I go ahead and try it.

[b0redom]

Yeah, I wouldn't do it personally. Might be worth calling up a local Apple reseller and asking what they'd charge?

[quentium]

Yeah, I wouldn't do it personally. Might be worth calling up a local Apple reseller and asking what they'd charge?

That's a good idea, I will call them later

Yeah, I wouldn't do it personally. Might be worth calling up a local Apple reseller and asking what they'd charge?

Well, I called them up and according to an automated message, I need to spend £25 to talk to a tech adviser.

[Unique]

Thanks for your reply, given me a lot to think about!

Firstly, he mainly uses the computer for casual internet usage, with word processing for his work and very occasional photo editing (he's an amateur photographer).

Secondly, I believe it is the early 2008 model of the iMac, the one that started around April 2008.

I'm not so sure about upgrading the ram, it had 2 slots with DDR2 compatibility, so the max ram would also be 4GB, but it currently has 3GB anyway, not sure what difference 1GB would make. I'm not so sure he would be interested in anything like dual booting windows, he's definitely not what you would call tech savvy

Upgrading the SSD is actually a pretty good idea, I guess the main problem with that is that like I said he is an amateur photographer, so he stores a lot of photos, and is near the 250GB cap currently of the harddrive it came with. I'm not sure of anyway to fit a SSD and HDD like to can with PCs, one for the OS and one for all the photos would probably be perfect. I don't know if an external hard drive for the photos is a good idea?

Yeah you are probably right, I know mum loves her iPhone so she will probably appreciate having a better Mac instead of a better PC Windows is probably a bad idea. I can see the appeal of iOS but I have been on windows for all my life so I think I was being a bit short sighted!

I'm not sure how easy it is to upgrade those components but a google would tell you. an extra 1gb RAM might not sound like much, but it's 33% more than he has, and RAM can be obtained cheaply. you just remove the 1gb stick and put in a 2gb stick

if the current HDD is 250gb you could replace with a 480gb to 512gb model for about £150. I'm not much of a fan of using external drives personally but you could stick the existing HDD in a caddy and use it for backups. is he even backing up his current drive as if not he could lose everything. you can also consider a 256gb drive which puts him back where he is with the current one, and use an external drive. if the drive is getting really full then that's another thing that can usually slow a machine down, so having a clearout of unnecessary files may help a little bit in the short term, or copy his files to an external drive (and back up to another) and delete from the the internal drive and that may help, but the ram upgrade and SSD could make it acceptable for his current use as what you describe isn't very taxing for a computer so a new one is expensive overkill

replacing HDD/SDD is pretty much the same with mac and pc, of course you need to clone your drive first (you can find guides online), and open the mac and pull out old and replace with new, but sometimes with some mac stuff it's fiddly to say the least to open then so look for guides for the specific model and have a look for youtube videos and prepare youself first, or find someone used to macs who knows how to do it. my MacBook was relatively simply apart from need weird screwdrivers and stuff when I got the drive out, and the ram was a doddle but I know that some newer macs are built to avoid users being able to change most things, from security screws to glue and solder preventing you from physically moving bits. however I think it's later machines than you have that make this really akward

oh yeah, upgrade the OS to the most recent version it can use once you've swapped the SSD if you do this, make sure everything is up to date software wise

[b0redom]

Unique: have you looked at how hard it is to get inside an iMac? Macbook Pros etc are very very easy in comparison, you don't, for example, need to pull out the screen.

Surprised you need to pay £25 to speak to someone to get a quote. I certainly never have had to before!