new/refurbished/used mac mini? trying to keep it $450 or below.

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nugarp

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if you guys have any clue about where to get a mac mini from 2009+ for $450 or below please let me know. used, new, refurb is all good. i want to get into iphone development and that's probably the cheapest mac i'd be able to get from all of the options..

thanks!
 
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Quite frankly, I wouldn't recommend it. I had a Mac Mini for about 3 years that I loved until the hard drive randomly died, and you can't replace that shit. So if you're buying one from 2009 you might be heading down that road. You can run OS X on any generic PC if it's got specific hardware. That way you've still got OS X but it's not going to be impossible to replace a busted component.
 
valid points. i tried to install snow leopard on my newly built desktop which i just dropped an extra $1300 on after re-using components and found out it won't play well with my gtx 570 or onboard audio. flash embeds in webpages would be 'see through' and you could access the desktop from them, and many things crashed. i didn't look at the requirements for osx before buying the parts, and i built it about a month before i got my iphone (i also wanted a microatx board).

are there any models that are easier to replace the hdd with? i don't mind tearing things open if necessary...
 
found a dude selling a sealed one on CL for $375

MC238LL/A (Late 2009)
2.26 Ghz Core 2 Duo / 2gb RAM / 160 HDD / SuperDrive / Wifi / bluetooth

I will probably bite. thoughts?

I don't anticipate justifying a new geforce 320M over the older 9400M if the computer is just for iphone/ipod/ipad dev.
 
If that's the main reason you'd use it for, I'd say that's a good price. The specs should be good enough to run OS X Lion on it, too, once it's released this month.

I still take an interest in getting a Mac Mini from time to time as a media center, myself, and I'd be satisfied for getting a model with those specs under $400.
 
the guy selling the mini seemed fairly shady so i decided to just go for a new mini.

i went to bestbuy and bought the $699.99 base model..they had it for $664.05, and when I asked for the student price (they will match apple's price) they reduced it to $649.99. They also included a $100 gift card (which is applicable for all mac purchases except the mac mini..lucked out with the CSR :)).

Since I forgot to ask for the 664->649 reduction when paying, I ended up getting $25 back due to how their system handles gift cards (it refunded me tax on the gift card that I never paid for originally) instead of the $15 difference.

...adding in my RZ 2% back-in-points, the end total was $588 after WA's 9.5% ridiculous sales tax.

it's higher than i wanted to spend but at least it has a warranty and the 320m i suppose.
 
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