Cheap(Ish) mac?

[Liquid]

Hello all its come to my attention Ill have to join the dark side of computing in order to finish my application.

I'm not after the best of the best by any means. Just need something capable of running osx mountain lion and Xcode. Post 2008 by the looks of things.

Anyone know a good place to buy a cheap or 2nd hand mac?

I'm not really too interested in a laptop if I'm honest. Unless someone can convince me why they're better than the desktop versions haha.

The mac pros seem to be my best bet but I'm struggling to find any:(

Unfortunately my virtualisation days are over due to having a AMD pc I cannot run the latest osx needed for Xcode:(

[sheepdog]

Unless you're doing some serious rendering in video or some complex mathematical equations then cpu power isn't that important. Its mainly code you'll be dealing with - graphics are just incidental - and you'll find that unless Xcode needs to be the latest and greatest, you'll easily get by with an older system. I've done heavy stuff on my trusty old Pentium Mobile 1.7GHz system and its never been too stressed in doing coding. Disk speed is the biggest problem I have being a native IDE laptop.

Do I recall you saying you have your own business? Then you could legitimately buy one and class it as a business expense....though you'd be better off finding someone to do it rather than go through the hassle of configuring a system and all the associated bits they forget to tell you about i.e. someone who's already paid out for a system and has it all working! 

[Liquid]

Xcode specs are nothing "offcially supported" pre 2008 so its possible but might be more hassel than its worth.

My registered buisness is electrical id be hard pushed to claim a mac back(considering my pc was done only last year(tax)). Ill speak with my accountant see if it can be done.

Ive noticed from using eclipse (android sdk) that it eats ram like nobodies business so i presume xcode will be as bad if not worse. Appears mac only recently moved to ddr3 and majority of their systems place huge mark up on anything over 2Gb or ram :(.

Id seriously considering handing off the programming to a profesional but it just doesnt beat doing it yourself

I think ive found a version of mountain lion that will run happily on my amd (fingers crosed ey)

Thank you for all the advise

[Liquid]

Don't know if anyone actually cares

But i tricked my VMware (virtual box) into thinking it was running an intel pc

I'm back in business baby:D

Thanks for all the help though:)

[MI5]

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@Liquid wrote:
Don't know if anyone actually cares

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Yeah, great thanks. It was keeping me awake at night 

[Liquid]

Aww I'm sorry mi5 didn't realise you cared so much. Now you can get some sleep

[Anonymous]

Best 1k I ever spent !

MacBook Air is what I chose to replace my run out of steam windows machine. Took a little time to get used to it but well worth the effort !

[Liquid]

I have managed to source a 8core Mac Pro £650 unbelievably cheap! Way too much power bigger is better though right

[Anonymous]

You do realise the Mac pro costs about £3.5k for a mid range version?

I hope you meant Macbook Pro.

Anyways. Your best bet price wise would be ebay.

[Anonymous]

Whoops... I replied before i realised there was a second page.

[Liquid]

Haha:)

Yes they are expensive but when needs must:)

I can't stand laptops for day to day usage it has to be desktop.