I Love my Imac

thepominlaw · 13 Jul 2010 at 13:28

As a newcomer to the Apple way of life I wish I had done one thing differently. Bought the best of the range.

Last year i made the leap from PC's (8086 up to C2D-yes i am getting old) to Apple, initially it was to try the system so i decided on a Mac Mini. Apple messed my order up and luckily it didnt arrive so i decided the base mac imac was the way to go.

Now i have had this great machine for 3 months i feel i am outgrowing it already. I have added 4TB of FW800 external hard drives. The full size keyboard, EYE TV, Aperture, Final Cut, iWork, MS Office and more. But every day I think I wish i had bought the i5 27". Most of my work on the Mac is video, on my pc i never even touched video, now i'm addicted.

Question is do i sell my 3 month old iMAC and buy the 27" i5 or wait until later in the year to see what the refresh to the range brings.

Slogan · 13 Jul 2010 at 13:41

There's a refresh coming up for the iMac pretty soon (supposedly) so I would definitely wait. If you feel the bigger numbers would benefit your editing in a way that is worth the extra expense, then I would say to go for it.

csm · 13 Jul 2010 at 13:42

wait.

Conrad11 · 13 Jul 2010 at 14:47

When is the rumoured update as I am looking at getting an iMac?

AtticusFinch · 13 Jul 2010 at 14:53

I always wait for the second refresh (at least) from the time I purchase as the price points remainin relatively static but will jump better in the year or so it takes for two refreshes.

eatcustard · 13 Jul 2010 at 15:03

Can you afford a Macpro?

Better upgradability

Slogan · 13 Jul 2010 at 16:44

Conrad11 said:
When is the rumoured update as I am looking at getting an iMac?

No one can say for sure but it seems like it's going to be pretty soon. Hopefully anyway, I'm also waiting to see what happens regarding the iMac and Mac Pro lines.

Fr0dders · 13 Jul 2010 at 16:48

I bought mine last month - couldnt be bothered waiting. Loving my 27" imac !

Quadcore i5 model with 4850 512mb graphics. Plays Team Fortress in 2560 native res beautifully.

Conrad11 · 13 Jul 2010 at 17:18

Is it possible/easy to change the hard drive as I would be wanting to install a SSD?

Are we talking months for the refresh or less? I would be looking to buy mid-August probably.

AtticusFinch · 13 Jul 2010 at 17:21

Dude

MrLOL said:
I bought mine last month - couldnt be bothered waiting. Loving my 27" imac !

Quadcore i5 model with 4850 512mb graphics. Plays Team Fortress in 2560 native res beautifully.

Apple much?

Seriously though - are you close enough to that screen?

Fr0dders · 14 Jul 2010 at 00:13

yup

its great

Conrad11 said:
Is it possible/easy to change the hard drive as I would be wanting to install a SSD?

Are we talking months for the refresh or less? I would be looking to buy mid-August probably.

would you ? have you lived with a imac to say categorically that it isnt fast enough for you ?

Or are you still trapped in your PC mindset that you need the latest and greatest of everything just to make a PC fast ? This is one thing that you will realise when you've had an mac for a while - that the PC hardware race is all a con. having a walled garden where you dont have to make every part compatible with another improves performance.

I just leave my imac in sleep mode all the time. It wakes up from sleep almost instantly, and being quadcore, slashes its way through imovie 09 HD movie rendering and apperture batch processing. Try it without and SSD and see how you get on

DarkStarr · 14 Jul 2010 at 10:28

Conrad11 said:
Is it possible/easy to change the hard drive as I would be wanting to install a SSD?

Are we talking months for the refresh or less? I would be looking to buy mid-August probably.

SSD is possible but not that easy check out http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=808178

Refresh could be anytime, if your worried buy the i7 model as it probably wont be changed much (maybe a new GPU)

LordSplodge · 14 Jul 2010 at 10:57

I love my iMac. So much power, so much ease of use and it runs Final Cut Studio very very well.

That and it uses so little electricity.

Spit · 14 Jul 2010 at 11:28

I made the switch and totally agree. They are amazing machines. I had a 4GHz core i7, 5870 with SSD on Windows 7 PC and I dont miss it at all.

Spaces is the ultimate work tool though, my typical layout:

Open at the same time and each with their own desktop.

Safari
Entourage
World of Warcraft
Pages
Aperture 3
Photoshop Elements 8
Imovie 09
Windows 7 Ultimate
Trading Software

Conrad11 · 14 Jul 2010 at 12:27

Well I have a SSD already....maybe I don't need it if its *THAT* fast already but I would have that that the hard-drive would be the bottleneck in these machines, I like my applications to open fast.....

Well I am probably going to get a 27" i5 model and I don't want to be left behind if they update it to something faster, would the GPU be updated big-time?

How much RAM do you have Spit? Notice any slowdown at all?

thepominlaw · 14 Jul 2010 at 12:43

it took me ages to get permission from err indoors for a mac mini, had to sell my soul to get the base imac instead. It helped being my 40th though

must admit though i have a gaming pc that my son uses and i have not once wanted to go back to it, its bulky, noisy, hot and crashes from time to time. The mac is just class.......

Now wife has started using it to talk to her parents in oz via skype even she is impressed with it. So i think a bigger and better mac wouldnt need much of a sell.

Going to wait and see what the next refresh brings, just wish we could change the hard drive ourselves via an slot. Thats the biggest problem with my 21.5" base model the 500gb hard drive.

Spit · 14 Jul 2010 at 13:13

Conrad11 said:
Well I have a SSD already....maybe I don't need it if its *THAT* fast already but I would have that that the hard-drive would be the bottleneck in these machines, I like my applications to open fast.....

Well I am probably going to get a 27" i5 model and I don't want to be left behind if they update it to something faster, would the GPU be updated big-time?

How much RAM do you have Spit? Notice any slowdown at all?

I have 8Gb. It runs smooth 95% of the time, the other 5% it stutters slightly when moving between desktops, but nothing to worry about. Thats just me being honest and with all that its doing it im amazed it doesnt do it more.

theheyes · 14 Jul 2010 at 17:59

Conrad11 said:
Well I have a SSD already....maybe I don't need it if its *THAT* fast already but I would have that that the hard-drive would be the bottleneck in these machines, I like my applications to open fast.....

Mac or PC... an SSD will blow away a mechanical disk regardless (even if you take into account OSX lacking TRIM support) and you would certainly see a performance boost.

It's whether you would want to actually do the upgrade, which seems a bit of a pain.

Spit · 14 Jul 2010 at 21:21

I've always built my own pcs in the past until now. I did my own ram upgrade on the Mac and if they had a simple hdd upgrade mechanism then I would have upgraded to an ssd.

I am capable of doing the upgrade but the thought of taking my beautiful Mac to bits just doesn't wash. Also the performance is great as it is so that was the nail in the hdd upgrade coffin.