Refurb iMacs are awesome!
You'd be a goose to spend full price on one

BUT if you know a teacher or someone that can salary sacrifice (like I did!) then its awesome!

When we worked out the cost of my refurb 20" alu it worked out to be $900 or so!

Freaken awesome!!

Was it the current model 2.8Ghz or the previous version with the C2E processor. Certainly a sweet bargain you got there.

Inspired by this thread, last week I bought a 24" 2.4GHz refurb which arrived the next day. Great service and a beautiful machine complete with that new-machine smell

Trouble was, the screen illumination, tho' very bright, was also very uneven - bright and white on the left, murky and yellowish on the RHS. Tried recalibrating and various other tricks to no avail. I checked the iMac forum on Apple Discussions and discovered that it's a common problem with the alu 24, and no fix.

Recluctantly, I sent it back for a refund after reading that one guy on the forum had been through 20+ replacements and still didn't find a good one.

I won't be buying one unless I can see it running first, so Apple refurbs are out for me, dang it!

Hope others have better luck

Just says Dore 2 Duo 2.8....no E or extreme or anything like that.

Serial number appears to be missing too which would indicate this particular machine had a hardware problem sometime in it's life. I'm happy though that it has been physically fixed/repaired by a real human and will pass muster.

Damn thing is bloody quick though....leaves any other mac I have ever used for any length of time in the dust

edited to add:
I haven't checked out the screen other than to create a gradient in photoshop to confirm that it's a cheap panel (i.e. 6 bits per sub pixel). which it is. For general stuff, web, email etc it fits the bill perfectly. For the $800 saved on the same model new you could get a decent 8bit screen (fortunately I have a 23" ACD which will me my primary display once I get the DVI adapter).

Horses for courses.

good one batron.

anyway, i bought my 24" brand new by getting myer to price match beyond the box's special promotion of buy an imac and applecare together, get both at cost + myer one points

loving the imac, just need to get use to the keyboard.

I thought all 24" panels were 8-bit and not 6-bit. I don't have any gradient problems with my 24" Alu.

I just created a straight gradient from black to white and saw obvious banding. I was under the impression that the 24' were cheap panels just like the 20" iMac so I'm not so bothered about it.

Here is some info about the 24" panels. They are identified as 8-bit.
Apple - Support - Discussions - Technical info on iMAC 24" screen ...
Maybe there could be an issue with yours (but who cares for the price, and the fact you have a 23" ACD).

LOL another lucky bugger like me !! Did you end up with wireless mouse and keyboard like me?

I find that extremely hard to believe.

haha, just checked out the prices in 2003

A$ 4,774.00 Image
Image
17-inch widescreen LCD flat
1Ghz PowerPC G4
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX
64MB DDR video memory
1GB DDR 266 SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA hard drive
10/100 BASE-T Ethernet
56K V.92 internal modem
Apple Pro Speakers
AirPort Extreme Ready
Bluetooth Built-in
Image


A$ 3,795.00 Image
Image
17-inch widescreen LCD flat
1Ghz PowerPC G4
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX
64MB DDR video memory
256MB DDR 266 SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA hard drive
10/100 BASE-T Ethernet
56K V.92 internal modem
Apple Pro Speakers
AirPort Extreme Ready
Bluetooth Ready

A$ 2,695.00 Image
Image
15-inch LCD flat screen
800Mhz PowerPC G4
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX
32MB DDR video memory
256MB SDRAM
60GB Ultra ATA hard drive
10/100 BASE-T Ethernet
56K V.92 internal modem
Apple Pro Speakers
AirPort Ready
Bluetooth Optional



How much it reminds me how much better even a cheap computer is now

I've heard this a lot actually. I am seriously considering trying a refurb as my next Mac purchase

If you are going to buy a refurb, click the link in my sig

MacTalk gets a bonus for selling Macs before Sept 22nd! So buy it before then and we get some huge bonus or something.

Before Sep 22?

Interesting... product updates on the 23rd?