macbooks, ipads and imac refreshes, little long

PeakOutput

so my 3 year old plastic macbook needs replacing before the new college year starts

im in the states right now and can get a fairly large discount if i buy before i head home but im looking for some pros and cons of what im thinking about buying

i have always had a laptop but i usually use it at home so im not sure i need another laptop

so im looking at the imac 27inch with maybe the upgraded processor and 8gb of ram. is this powerfull enough to edit full 1080p footage if i want to? any ideas what the render and burn times would be for say 10 mins of hd footage?

im guessing there is a refresh due but im thinking it would just be a light refresh as this model is still fairly new does anyone think different and think i should wait till after the refresh? when does that usualy happen(hard to tell i know)

so thats the imac, definitely not portable. so i was thinking that my macbook hasnt died yet so i could if i really needed a full laptop for college i could use it in an emergency but i was also thinking that with the discount i get over i could buy the cheapest ipad (i dont care about 3g) with the imac for the same price as buying just the imac in ireland. has anyone done any decent amount of typing on their ipad? id be using it in lectures to take down notes etc and also part of my thesis will be an ios app so it would be good for the development of that any downsides that jump out at people about using the ipad as my portable computer?


thanks in advance

edit; would i save much money by upgrading the ram myself? is that even possible?

brav

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

You should have a quick look here, I'd a minor update in about 2 months.

As for the other questions, don't think I'm in a good position to answer them

Sad Professor

If you are getting the i5 or i7 iMac then there's not as much reason to wait. But rumour is we could see an iMac update very soon and that they will include USB 3.0 and FireWire 1600. However there's probaly going to be price bump in eurozone countries, so buying now in the US might be a good idea.

Using a iPad for college - I'm kinda curious how well that would work as well. I only got mine today and tbh I think I'd find typing up notes on on it to be awkward. But it might be an acceptable trade off given how light and convinient the iPad is.

And yes get the RAM yourself.

PeakOutput

Sad Professor wrote: »

If you are getting the i5 or i7 iMac then there's not as much reason to wait. But rumour is we could see an iMac update very soon and that they will include USB 3.0 and FireWire 1600. However there's probaly going to be price bump in eurozone countries, so buying now in the US might be a good idea.

i was going to go for an i7 the new ports are nice but not sure if thats worth waiting for, i could wait for the refresh and get my mate to buy it and ship it to me if it was after i was home but thats pushing the favour a little far i think but we will see

i will keep an eye on the rumour mill over the next month to see what miht be coming in a refresh

does putting in ram yourself void all warranties?

Freddie59

I bought the 27" Quad core iMac in June. There is only one issue which came to light in the past few days. I'm running Windows 7 through Parallels 5.0 and the firewire port is not recognised (no problem in OSx). This appears to be a windows 7-related issue. No easy fiox by the loom of it. I needed it to work, as I use pinnacle Studio for video editing. FCE is a little but daunting, and not as user friendly, but I willl learn to use it.

Apart from that it pretty much takes everything you throw at it! Regarding USB3 and Firewire 1600, the video i capture is in real time, so not really an issue. Yeah USB3 would be nice, but not a deal breaker.:)

Sad Professor

PeakOutput wrote: »

i will keep an eye on the rumour mill over the next month to see what miht be coming in a refresh

Tbh there's unlikely to be anything else. Blu-ray is definitely out of the question. The i7 will probably only get a minor bump.

does putting in ram yourself void all warranties?

No, not at all. Apple have an online guide for how to do it. It's very simple. Also, the 27 iMac has 4 RAM slots, which makes maxing out the RAM a lot cheaper.

nesf

Honestly I can't see myself typing anything longer than a *short* email on my iPad. I couldn't recommend it for college work or essays. It's handy, and a useful gadget but definitely not a replacement for a desktop PC or laptop when it comes to typing work.

Basq

If you picked up a Keyboard dock for your iPad, it'd definitely be more feasible for longer passages of text / work.

nesf

basquille wrote: »

If you picked up a Keyboard dock for your iPad, it'd definitely be more feasible for longer passages of text / work.

No mouse/touchpad though which makes things a lot less intuitive. For longer pieces a full desktop or laptop would win for me anytime, that and you get greater flexibility and power with handling files with a full PC, with USB drive use etc all being an option. An iPad isn't really very convenient for getting files onto it, it's possible sure but nowhere close to as handy as it is with a PC.

Basq

nesf wrote: »

No mouse/touchpad though which makes things a lot less intuitive.

Oh I know that.. but for writing long passages of text, it'd do the job perfectly well. It is a bit pricey (at €69) but I'm sure there'll be third-party versions shortly.

nesf wrote: »

An iPad isn't really very convenient for getting files onto it, it's possible sure but nowhere close to as handy as it is with a PC.

DropBox?

I use this the whole time on my various PC's and Mac's and it's an absolute godsend!

nesf

basquille wrote: »

DropBox?

I use this the whole time on my various PC's and Mac's and it's an absolute godsend!

Use it constantly, no replacement for a fully fledged file system though.

PeakOutput

fairly good news today it seems no pce increase in america and better specs cant complain

trying to figure out if i should splash out and go for the magic trackpad aswell but not sure.