Used Intel Macs, usable on a budget or not?

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Made in Hurry

Made in Hurry

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  • #1
    I am migrating off Windows these days as i am just tired of the whole ecosystem. I am using Linux Mint on a dumpster computer to get a feel for it, and to see if this is something i can stick to long term.

    Likewise i am thinking to get a feel for Mac OS. Apple is expensive (About 30 percent more than in the US) over here in the frozen north, and i am not about to invest in a Mac Mini or something entry level just yet until i am sure i will feel comfortable using it as a daily driver since i am a poor bugger. If i will go that route, i also need to understand what kind of hardware i will need to future-proof it a bit.
    Having said that, if i went looking for a used Intel Mac, what would be the minimum amount of hardware that i can get away with, but still have a decent experience? if it runs for a year, it will be more than enough to understand, but i also do not want to splurge too much since i am not sure it's something i will stick with.

    My last experience with Mac OS was with an iBook G4 running 10, barely back in the day, so it's been a while to say the least.

    Some 2015 - 2017 options i can find for about $150, but there might be other choices as i haven't really spent much time looking. How's the memory requirements on Intel compared to M+ chips?
     
    Made in Hurry

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  • #3
    GaitherBill said:
    Not even worth it IMO.

    They’re not going to support any recent enough version of OS X to make it a worthwhile experience.

    Find the least expensive M1 Mac Mini you can.
    Click to expand...
    Thanks for a quick answer. I can find M1 Mini's for about $600 used, it's really the cheapest option. An M2 is about $700, refurbished. 8GB/256.
     
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    iljitsch

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  • #8
    I have three Intel Macs that I currently use and no ARM Macs. The 2013 and 2016 laptops don’t support the latest OS, but even the 2013 one is not too far behind and will give you a decent impression of MacOS life today. My 2018/2020 Mac Mini supports (but currently does not run) the latest: Sonoma. Even if the next OS isn’t supported, you’ll still get security updates for a few years.

    I’d say: look for something with a T2 chip in it, those will be the last Intel Macs standing. If that’s too expensive, pretty much anything from 2011 onwards with 8 GB+ RAM will give you what you need and you can always turn it into a Linux machine to get some more use out of it.

    Edit: the T2 came about in 2018 so these are probably a bit too expensive, and the T1 models like my 2016 MacBook Pro just fell out of the latest OS support. But a T1 model with 16 GB could be a very good choice. My 2016 and 2020 machines both have 16 GB and in normal use that has always been more than enough for me. And the 8 GB in the 2013 machine is not too problematic even today. When a browser goes on a tear then eventually any amount of RAM will be consumed...
     
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  • #9
    I think you posted your response to the Random Stories thread, but based upon that, the Intel Macs are still plenty fine for Linux and some gaming use. M1 is just such a huge generational leap, that if you're planning on using MacOS, stick to at least an M1.

    Action Retro on Youtube has been doing a few videos recently running Linux on much older Intel Macs then the one's you're looking at, and generally they are still decent enough. His videos are more "can this be done" or silly in nature, but the general point is, yeah they work fine for a lot of people.
     
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    iljitsch

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  • #10
    Strange how people insist on ARM Macs. Yes, I hear they're very fast and battery-friendly. But those are aspects that can easily be extrapolated from more limited hardware. Someone considering switching to MacOS will want/need to experience the more intangible aspects of the Mac. Intel Macs from the mid-2010s will still give you that no trouble.
     
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    Louis XVI

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  • #11
    iljitsch said:
    Strange how people insist on ARM Macs. Yes, I hear they're very fast and battery-friendly. But those are aspects that can easily be extrapolated from more limited hardware. Someone considering switching to MacOS will want/need to experience the more intangible aspects of the Mac. Intel Macs from the mid-2010s will still give you that no trouble.
    Click to expand...
    Having gone from an Intel 2018 MacBook Air to a 2021 M1 MacBook Air, I can say that the experiences are completely different. MacOS and applications are so much faster and smoother on M-series Macs that someone trying to decide if they like MacOS could easily come to a different conclusion if they used an Intel Mac instead of an M-series Mac.

    Like JimCambell, I'm still using my M1 Air as my main work computer, and am nowhere near thinking I may need to replace it soon. On the other hand, my Intel Mac was feeling frustratingly slow back in 2021.
     
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    Made in Hurry

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  • #12
    I am not going to be using a dumpster computer for my daily computing in the future. My 12500H laptop was converted to Mint also today after about 10 months testing Mint on said dumpster (i5 2400 vanilla with 32GB of memory) , while my main 5700X desktop is without an OS at the moment. Hackintosh is just too much to futz around with on AMD.

    The idea was to get a feeling for the current Mac OS ecosystem on semi-recent hardware, but of course, i have no idea how big a difference it is between both the old Intel hardware vs M+ and perhaps older Mac OS versions and software vs bleeding edge.
     
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  • #13
    Made in Hurry said:
    I am not going to be using a dumpster computer for my daily computing in the future. My 12500H laptop was converted to Mint also today after about 10 months testing Mint on said dumpster (i5 2400 vanilla with 32GB of memory) , while my main 5700X desktop is without an OS at the moment. Hackintosh is just too much to futz around with on AMD.

    The idea was to get a feeling for the current Mac OS ecosystem on semi-recent hardware, but of course, i have no idea how big a difference it is between both the old Intel hardware vs M+ and perhaps older Mac OS versions and software vs bleeding edge.
    Click to expand...
    That makes sense, and I would say that to give MacOS a fair shake, you really need relatively modern hardware; the difference is that big.
     
    Made in Hurry

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  • #15
    I think i understand what i need to do then, meaning investing in a new computer, and worst-case, i can probably resell it very fast without losing much money.
    I will wait and see what updates the forthcoming Mini will get and make a decision then. Might be some M2 based ones that people will offload.

    Very appreciate of the well thought out answers. Much obliged!
     
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    iljitsch

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  • #16
    Louis XVI said:
    Having gone from an Intel 2018 MacBook Air to a 2021 M1 MacBook Air, I can say that the experiences are completely different. MacOS and applications are so much faster and smoother on M-series Macs
    Click to expand...
    So what? If it does the thing you don't like much faster, how is that relevant? If an older Mac does the thing you like but not super fast, that's a useful datapoint and you can then explore whether newer Macs do it fast enough for your needs.

    Personally, I've developed a severe dislike of Apple. They are opinionated in their choices but I don't like their opinions. Their stuff is very buggy with many bugs never fixed.

    Then again, I have 20+ years of muscle memory using Apple / connected to Apple computers keyboards and switching to Windows or Linux would be insanely painful.

    This is the stuff that you need to consider when choosing an OS. How fast the hardware is is completely irrelevant. Today you can buy a computer that would pretty much be a supercomputer in the previous century for just $50. You can always spend more money to get more speed. Apple currently reigns supreme when it comes to speed, but computers were fast enough for 95% of us a decade ago. It's meaningless.
     
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    cateye

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  • #17
    Were you asking this question a year or two ago, I don't know that I would personally had much issue recommending whatever inexpensive late-model Intel Mac you could find. There are clear and present advantages to Apple Silicon machines, but the functioning between AS and Intel has remained mostly the same. I think, however, this may be the year that starts to charge more dramatically, and you'll find more and more of what makes a Mac a useful computer and what makes up the "Apple" ecosystem will no longer be supported on Intel.

    If you go into that eyes wide-open, and your goal is merely to tinker and learn, then ok—there's certainly tons of Intel Macs out there for very reasonable prices. But if you end up liking what you see and want to move some of your practical, day-to-day computing needs over to the Mac, at this point you should do that on an Apple Silicon-based machine.

    Good luck, let us know how we can help once you do buy something, Intel or otherwise.
     
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    Louis XVI

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  • #20
    iljitsch said:
    So what? If it does the thing you don't like much faster, how is that relevant? If an older Mac does the thing you like but not super fast, that's a useful datapoint and you can then explore whether newer Macs do it fast enough for your needs.

    Personally, I've developed a severe dislike of Apple. They are opinionated in their choices but I don't like their opinions. Their stuff is very buggy with many bugs never fixed.

    Then again, I have 20+ years of muscle memory using Apple / connected to Apple computers keyboards and switching to Windows or Linux would be insanely painful.

    This is the stuff that you need to consider when choosing an OS. How fast the hardware is is completely irrelevant. Today you can buy a computer that would pretty much be a supercomputer in the previous century for just $50. You can always spend more money to get more speed. Apple currently reigns supreme when it comes to speed, but computers were fast enough for 95% of us a decade ago. It's meaningless.
    Click to expand...
    A significant part of deciding whether one likes an operating system is subjectively how it feels. Does it seem smooth, natural, and helpful, or does it feel like you have to wrestle with it to get it to do what you want? Do applications launch quickly and easily, letting you get right to it, or do you sit there for 20 seconds watching an icon bouncing up and down?

    The exact same function can feel great when it's rapid and smooth, and can feel terrible when slow and clunky. I really didn't enjoy banging my head against my Intel Mac, including MacOS, while trying to do my job, but the M1 is the most enjoyable computer I've ever used.
     
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  • #21
    I absolutely have no issues with my Intel Macs' speed in normal use. Not even the 2013 8 GB one I'm typing this on right now. (On 11 year old battery power!)

    Perhaps once I get an ARM Mac I can never go back to Intel... but as far as I'm concerned speed is not a relevant factor in general computing tasks today on any Mac less than a decade old.
     
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    Made in Hurry

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  • #22
    It depends on the work you're giving said machine. You can use a potato for browsing, on any platform, but you do not want your main machine to feel sluggish no matter what you do. I can browse Ars on my dumpster using Mint and it will be fine, but for bigger workloads, you want umph.

    One of the main reasons of me going away from Windows is how everything steals focus all the time. "ME, ME ME" while i feel the configuration part is a big clusterf... of different ideas. Nothing coherent.
    I do not want to fight with my operating system of choice on my main computer, i want it to get out of the way and let me focus on what i need to do. Windows has become far from that.
    Apple as i understand it, is far better on that part, while doing what it needs to do in the background, and that is something i am interested and curious about a lot.
     
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  • #23
    I'm still rocking a 2018 intel mac mini (on latest MacOS) and it is fine, but I will probably replace it within a couple of years. The problem with buying an intel mac now is that it probably won't have life beyond a year or two, so you may very well be throwing the money away. If you instead buy an M1 mac, it will have more residual value a year from now if you decide to ditch it, than an intel mac would. If you can find an intel mac for super cheap and acknowledge that it will be worth nothing a year or two from now, I think it would be a fine way to get your feet wet with MacOS. But my guess is you could find an M1 for just a little more than an intel.
     
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    JimCampbell

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  • #24
    iljitsch said:
    as far as I'm concerned speed is not a relevant factor in general computing tasks today on any Mac less than a decade old.
    Click to expand...
    Everything is faster — I wasn't particularly bothered about the speed or the battery claims for the first M1 MBPs, I was just desperate to replace the Intel one I had, mainly for reasons of excessive fan noise and particularly the strobing Touch Bar fault, which Apple would have charged me to fix (I won't rehash my position on the Touch Bar, other than to say I'd have cut off my own hand before I'd paid for another one.)

    But, once I had the M1, everything is faster. Even tiny lags you'd accommodated for so long you didn't even think about them disappeared. It was as though an entire layer of… something that got between you and whatever you wanted to do had suddenly vanished and the entire experience of using the machine felt more fluid and natural. It was genuinely startling.
     
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    japtor

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  • #25
    Louis XVI said:
    A significant part of deciding whether one likes an operating system is subjectively how it feels. Does it seem smooth, natural, and helpful, or does it feel like you have to wrestle with it to get it to do what you want? Do applications launch quickly and easily, letting you get right to it, or do you sit there for 20 seconds watching an icon bouncing up and down?

    The exact same function can feel great when it's rapid and smooth, and can feel terrible when slow and clunky. I really didn't enjoy banging my head against my Intel Mac, including MacOS, while trying to do my job, but the M1 is the most enjoyable computer I've ever used.
    Click to expand...
    Yeah I'm largely of the same mind here. If it were a lesser jump I'd probably side with iljitsch, but the difference can be significant enough at times to feel like a materially different experience.

    Since everyone loves car analogies :judge:, it'd be like saying some old ICE econobox Hyundai is a fine analog for one of their recent EVs. They're both Hyundai cars and will get you from point A to B and such, but saying the EV is just smoother, quieter, and faster is understating things quite a bit. Sure one could imagine all that stuff with your ICE car reference point, but it's still a far cry from experiencing the EV differences first hand.
     
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  • #26
    We will find out for sure next week, but I think it is reasonably likely that this year's macOS will drop support for the remaining Intel models (basically T2 Macs + the last few iMacs) that remain supported under Sonoma.

    The right Intel Mac is still perfectly usable, but the experience is qualitatively different. I offloaded my last Intel laptop (a 2019 16") last year. It was still quite fast in use but was hot and loud even in fairly nondemanding usage. I think "hot and loud" will be true of any Intel laptop running modern macOS versions. The Intel iMac Pro on my desk also feels fast in daily use, and remains quiet. But @JimCampbell is right - my M1 Max MBP just has a snap that the iMac Pro doesn't have, at least when not constrained by RAM, and it is cool and quiet unless the pedal is to the floor.
     
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  • #27
    dal20402 said:
    I think "hot and loud" will be true of any Intel laptop running modern macOS versions. The Intel iMac Pro on my desk also feels fast in daily use, and remains quiet. But @JimCampbell is right - my M1 Max MBP just has a snap that the iMac Pro doesn't have, at least when not constrained by RAM, and it is cool and quiet unless the pedal is to the floor.
    Click to expand...
    My 2016 MBP is pretty cool and almost always quiet. Same for my 2020 Intel Mac Mini. 2017+ MBPs are a different story I gather, though.
     
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  • #29
    My new company-issued M3 MBP feels like my self-built 12900K/64GB RAM/2TB NVMe in day-to-day use with half of the RAM.

    The only real difference is that my Windows machine has a better MS Outlook experience (more functionality and fewer bugs) while browsing on the Mac is better (Edge seems to run better on the Mac, with fewer memory leaks, and it runs circles around Chrome on both).

    In both cases, they outclass my old Thinkpad by a mile in terms of being quiet, battery life, and smoothness for day-to-day use. Having almost 24 hours of battery life is life-changing on trips or attending a day full of meetings. The lack of performance friction is also crazy good, even when I have dozens of windows and over a hundred browser tabs open.
     
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    armwt

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  • #30
    If you find a good deal on an Intel Mac, nothing wrong with it. Honestly. People act like anything over 3 years old is garbage.

    FWIW, about 40% of our fleet at work are still Intel-based. We run a 3-4 year refresh cycle. My own primary work machine is a 2017 iMac Pro. Thing is a beast. Sure, a Mac mini will beat it in quite a few benchmarks now, but I'll be sad when I have to give it up.

    For the needs you describe.... just find yourself a good deal. I've seen M1 Mac minis for as low as 350 used recently, but if you're just wanting to "try out" MacOS, nothing wrong with spending $200 on an older MacBook Pro and then flipping it if you decide you want something newer.
     
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  • #31
    My advice would be to seek out a desktop before a laptop if you are going for an Intel Mac. There was that long period of terribly gimped keyboards (and the now deprecated touch bar - ugh), any batteries will be well-aged to the point of near useless, the mobile intel processors (and integrated graphics) tended to lag what was available on the desktop, and finally they will have much more wear-and-tear than a desktop just by their nature.

    Look for a 2018 Mac Mini or a 2019 iMac 21.5" if you absolutely must get an Intel Mac. Otherwise I would echo what many others here have said about jumping on an M1 mac (any of them really). I went from a fully loaded 2017 iMac 5K with 32GB of RAM and top-of-the-line discrete graphics to the base M2 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM. The performance improvement was astounding.
     
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  • #32
    OP, depends, really. What's your primary use case, and how long do you expect to be able to use an Intel Mac? OCLP can breathe new life into older Macs. I got a 2015 Retina MBP sometime back, upgraded the SSD, and using OCLP I'm running 14.5. One has to undo enough of SIP to install graphics acceleration; fair point. That said, one also is able to patch for emergent vulnerabilities. It's good enough for light duty home use--browsing, composition.
     
    jaberg

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  • #33
    My 2016 MBP was perfectly usable…keyboard, TouchBar and all…when I elected to replace it with an M2 Air (and an Streamdeck) earlier this year. OCLP worked great, until it didn’t. I decided to retire the machine the second time I was facing a nuke-and-pave rebuild after an update. (Both occurred with a deadline looming. This is the way.)

    That being said, I wouldn’t buy a non-Apple Silicon machine today. There is plenty of utility remaining in the older decks. However, I’m not interested in running legacy systems myself. I want to move forward with OS — even when it occasionally forces me to take a step back.
     
    Made in Hurry

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  • #34
    Having looked around a little on the used market, the M versions seems like a smarter choice. People are asking just way too much for older Macs, and with new releases looming, i am not going to pull the trigger just yet.

    My use case would be quite general purpose for the most part, but i am also looking for an audio solution as i am playing guitar and compose music for fun and my plan is to invest in some new gear for it in the near future as well.
     
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  • #36
    @Made in Hurry, did I read correctly above that your target budget is $150 and you need this machine to last for one year?

    On my local Craigslist I see a 2012 Mac Mini for $75 – i5, 8GB RAM, 500GB SSD. For $200 I see the i7 version of this same vintage – quad-core with 16GB RAM and twin drives, one SSD one spinning rust.

    If your timeframe is short and budget tight, Intel is the better answer for now. Concerned it won’t run the latest OS? Open Core Legacy Patcher is your new friend.
     
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    Made in Hurry

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  • #37
    I have been thinking about it, but prices here are higher for used gear than in the US. I live in Norway.

    You have people asking $300 for their 2015 mini, or $600 for the 2018 version, and i just saw $1200 for an 2017 27" iMac. but i know from experience that if i browse late at night, it's possible to snag something that someone posts late at night before sleeping.

    The cool part is that you just app them the money, and on our Craigslist equivalent it includes both shipping and insurance and a two week window where you are able to inspect the goods before finalizing the sale. That costs a a few dollars, but always worth it.

    If new hardware is launched now in June, there are going to be more M+ machines available and i will have a look and browse then unless i find a refurbished one through one of the Apple resellers. Sometimes the employees there have no idea what they are doing, which is how i scored a 12500H laptop for $430 half a year ago.
    But if i find a $100 something just to tinker and experiment with, i might do that as well, but that would probably be an iMac.
     
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  • #38
    The day to day advantages of Apple Silicon are not strictly about performance so much as "niceness" — the cumulative effect of less tangible things like responsiveness/smoothness, battery life, lack of fan noise and excess heat.

    Apple detractors never understand this "niceness" until they spend some time with the products, and I'd argue that basing your impressions on using an Intel Mac today means foregoing much of the "niceness" that makes Apple stuff worthwhile. I know that I personally can't wait for my company to replace my 2020 16" MacBook Pro (last of the Intel Macbooks) with a current Apple Silicon laptop.
     
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  • #39
    sleepcountry said:
    The day to day advantages of Apple Silicon are not strictly about performance so much as "niceness" — the cumulative effect of less tangible things like responsiveness/smoothness, battery life, lack of fan noise and excess heat.

    Apple detractors never understand this "niceness" until they spend some time with the products, and I'd argue that basing your impressions on using an Intel Mac today means foregoing much of the "niceness" that makes Apple stuff worthwhile. I know that I personally can't wait for my company to replace my 2020 16" MacBook Pro (last of the Intel Macbooks) with a current Apple Silicon laptop.
    Click to expand...

    Don't disagree, but these niceness factors apply mostly for laptop users. For desktops, it's really only the snappiness, and I've found sufficient RAM goes a long way toward delivering a responsive experience on Intel.
     
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    japtor

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  • #40
    Made in Hurry said:
    I have been thinking about it, but prices here are higher for used gear than in the US. I live in Norway.

    You have people asking $300 for their 2015 mini, or $600 for the 2018 version, and i just saw $1200 for an 2017 27" iMac. but i know from experience that if i browse late at night, it's possible to snag something that someone posts late at night before sleeping.
    Click to expand...
    This was a factor in me recommending an ARM Mac. The later and/or stronger Intel Macs might be ok enough to use, but I figured those weren't under consideration budget wise. Like there's a wide range of usability between an older low spec Mac mini and an iMac Pro. Compare that to the ARM Macs where the baseline experience is good to great in comparison to any Intel Mac.
    Bonusround said:
    Don't disagree, but these niceness factors apply mostly for laptop users. For desktops, it's really only the snappiness, and I've found sufficient RAM goes a long way toward delivering a responsive experience on Intel.
    Click to expand...
    I'd say the fan noise was noticeably bad in my 2011 and 2018 minis.
     
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