Looking for a suggestion for a good used 27" iMac 2012-2015, based on reliability.

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Looking for a suggestion for a good used 27" iMac 2012-2015, based on reliability.

I know the 2008-2011 tended to overheat especially the GPU. It's my impression that the later 2012 to current models are better. Looking for a budget used 27" for lightweight stuff, just want a reliable one, so no flakey soldering jobs, no iffy power supplies, no overheating CPUs or GPUs. Doesn't have to be 5K Retina either. So, I'm thinking 2012 to 2015 should be cheap enough. Where there a lot of problems with some models to avoid? I'm sure somebody has a gripe in this time period, so I'm looking for trends, recommendations. Thanks one and all in advance.

Posted on May 28, 2018 11:37 AM

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Answer 1

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woodmeister50

Level 6

19,651 points

May 29, 2018 3:51 AM in response to Bradley Dichter

My late 2013 27" iMac has been a reliable workhorse from day one.

To protect yourself, you can buy from a reseller that has a return policy and

a warranty. OWC sells all flavors of refurbished used iMacs. They thoroughly

test each one, have a 14 day no questions asked return policy, and a 90 day

parts and labor warranty:

Used & Refurbished iMac Desktops I Warranty-Backed!

Also, I would suggest leaning towards something as recent as possible if

it has a HDD installed. Being a mechanical device, it's not a matter of if a HDD

will fail but when. The longer an HDD is in service, the more likely it will fail.

Replacing an HDD in an iMac is no simple task so that should be a consideration.

If buying through a private seller, only buy something if you can get hands on

testing and run Apple's hardware testing on it (Apple Diagnostics or Apple Hardware Test

depending on the model).

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Answer 2

May 29, 2018 3:56 AM in response to woodmeister50

I agree totally. It isn’t easy to open this generation iMac like the older ones, so replacing a hard drive would be a problem. Hopefully I can find one that logged only a modest number of hours and was plugged into a power strip. Kind of like a used car with low mileage that was garaged and not exposed to too much sun and not in the snow belt where they use salt to melt the ice.

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Looking for a suggestion for a good used 27" iMac 2012-2015, based on reliability.

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