2019 Apple iMac with Retina 4K/3.6 GHz Intel Core i3 Quad-Core (21.5-Inch, 8GB RAM, 1TB) - Silver (Renewed)

I've been using an identical Mac for nearly 4 years, and like it a lot. When I noticed that I could get an otherwise identical refurbished Mac for about 1/3 the cost, I thought that it would be worth the cost even if it was terrible. As it happens it works as if it was brand new.There are a few issues, which I will enumerate below, but don't let that get you down: this product is worth every penny that you pay --- which happens to be much less than what a new unit would cost.(*) the mouse and keyboard are not Apple devices. In particular, the keyboard is intended for Windows. It works for a Mac, but there are things such as the audio volume which work differently.(*) the installed OS is out of date. It took several days to bring it up to speed. This is not a problem, but it's just a reminder that you're going to have to do some work to breath life into this.(*) In addition to the OS, there is other software that you're going to have to install. As it happens, I do software development, so Xcode and a variety of Python things had to be installed ... and of course the installers for that software had to be installed, too.Okay, after griping a little bit, here's the important question: "Would I buy the same refurbished iMac again, for the same price?" Absolutely I would, and I probably will.And if you're new to Macs and want a perfectly good first iMac desktop *and* are willing to do a little work to bring it up to current OS and other software installs, you would be hard pressed to do better than this.

As far as the physical condition, the iMac was very good. It was rated "excellent" but there are marks and dents (mostly on the rear and not visible) that, in my mind, do not merit an "excellent" rating.As far as performance, however - while I did not expect a 5-year old computer with an 8th generation i3 intel chip to be a speed demon, I did expect that I could surf the internet and check email. This machine is so slow, that I can only assume it's defective. My 2017 MacBook - which is 2 years older, has a broken screen, a ridiculously small HD, and a dead battery - runs circles around this thing.After a 10-minute boot time, I find that I cannot even load a webpage. Simply trying to open Safari is an act of utter aggravation. And you can forget about doing anything beyond that. You thought you were going to load an app? Forget about it. Microsoft Office? Ha! Load a PDF? You must be joking. For fun, or because I'm a masochist, I thought I'd try to upgrade it to Sonoma. If a computer can simply die of a broken spirit, then that's what this machine did.Do yourself a favor and save your $400 for a better system.

This was a good purchase. It arrived with Mac OS 12, which seemed to run a bit sluggish. I got on some online Mac groups, and read that this particular 2019 model, with a hard drive, had come with OS 10.13, and would run OS 12 or 13 slowly. I was tempted to downgrade the OS back to 10.13, but then a friend recommended I ditch the HD and have it replaced with a solid state drive. I did, for the price of $220 at a local shop, and it was money well spent. It runs like a racecar now, and I'm really happy with it.It arrived in excellent condition, and seemed like a new computer. Other than the OS issue, I'm very pleased. There's a reason the price of these 2019 models is hundreds cheaper than the later 2021 models, and it's the difference between a hard drive and a solid state drive. Had I known more, I think I would have spent a several hundred more for a 2021 solid state drive iMac, but live and learn. In any case, I have about $630 invested in this now, and it runs like a dream, with very fast load and run times. If speed is important, go with the 2021 models, or spend a little extra and convert one of these 2019 models into a speed demon with a fairly inexpensive upgrade.

The computer itself was delivered well packaged and is in very good to excellent condition. I have no issues with the machine. The mouse and keyboard included were throw in the lake generic but worked adequately. I have my own Apple keyboard and mouse as I was upgrading to a more modern computer. However, the offering is advertised as shipping with Mojave. It did not - it had been “upgraded” to Catalina. Most comments here are from those who were eager to move to the latest OS. I however require Mojave to run “legacy” 32 bit apps, most notably iTunes and iBooks Author. Mojave is the last OS to be able to run these - Catalina and later will only run 64 bit apps leaving behind a large population of older apps that users such as myself find useful. Fortunately, this machine was indeed the advertised model, which was shipped with Mojave and is also the last Mac capable of running Mojave. Basically, all newer machines shipped with Catalina or later cannot be “downgraded” to run Mojave. So, I was able to rather simply but with major time expenditures restore the machine to its Mojave “factory” settings. Unfortunately, for those migrating from older system to Mojave, the base applications installed with the Mojave OS did not include major applications available at the time but are no longer available in the App Store at all or in versions that will run on Mojave - including Pages, GarageBand and iMovie. iTunes Producer is also no longer available. The versions of Pages and iMovie from my old system still ran, but upgrades to these and to useable versions of GarageBand, iTunes Producer and others I had to acquire from various third party sources on the internet. To summarize, I did this because my iTunes and iBooks Author apps would no longer update to the network, my old Mac being obsoleted and unable to be upgraded. Mojave is the last OS and this machine the last computer that will give these and other legacy apps continued life. As for the speed of this unit, any operations that are file system intensive are slow. Other than that, it’s capably fast and outperforms my old machine significantly.

Delivery was prompt, however the iMac received was very slow and would not update to the most current OS. Vendor was great about accepting the return.