Is there any reason I shouldn't buy an iMac?

Zillah

I'm mostly a windows person but I need a platform to keep up my skills in some Mac applications. The new iMacs look really nice, and a Mac Pro is well out of my budget at the moment, and the mac books are a fraction as powerful, so it seems like a good choice. Biggest concern I would have is the 4GB of RAM, so I'll bump that to 8GB. Other than that my only concern is the graphics card, which as I understand it is one of the laptop-syle mobile variants. I can live with that as its not intended as a gaming platform and I'm sure it is more than powerful enough for Final Cut and the like.

It has thunderbolt, firewire and more USB ports than you can shake a stick at. The hard drive isn't huge but I can supplement that with externals. I'm having trouble finding any reason not to go with it, but I thought I'd check to see if anyone knew anything I didn't.

Thanks.

drunkmonkey

If it's for Video Editing you could run into a problem with the glossy screen. That's where the old apple displays and Macbook pro's with matte screen come in. That's the only thing I can think of, besides that there the bomb;)

JDxtra

It's more efficient with memory usage, so you can stick with 4Gb for now. Buying and installing extra RAM is much cheaper when you do it yourself.

Have been using one since they launched this latest model. Have always been a PC man before. I can't see myself going back.

Freddie59

Have had one since June 2010. Running OSx and W7 (via Parallels). i7+8GB RAM Some observations:

1. Never gave one ounce of trouble.

2. Have used it for video editing with no issues.

3. Final Cut Express, while it never locks up and just works, does not have the ease of use or user-friendly GUI such as Pinnacle Studio. One to watch for is that Parallels does not recognise the firewire port, so video editing on the windows side is out.

4. Windows side taking a bit longer to start and shut down at this stage. No problems with Mac side.

All told, a wonderful machine. No regrets. Go for it!

Odaise Gaelach

From my experience as a Windows user using an iMac, if you want to go down the route of Bootcamp (dual-booting between Windows and OS X) then the main thing that I'd advise is to get a decent two-or-more-buttoned mouse. It's manditory in Windows and quite useful in OS X.

I'd also maybe hold off on getting one for about a month, because OS X Lion (10.7) is supposed to be released sometime this month, and there might be a product line refresh. So you'll be getting the most up-do-date version of OS X and maybe a better iMac for your money...

(Could some of the more experienced Apple-users confirm or correct this for me?)

ashleey

I use a magic mouse with windows 7 on bootcamp with the '2 button' set up and it's fine. It takes a bit of a workaround in initial set up to set the bluetooth driver to the apple ones in windows and is easiest done with a plug in mouse but after that all is fine. Have you considered a mac mini if you already have a screen etc? Again, wait for a few weeks for osx lion and probably a few model improvements.

Sad Professor

Odaise Gaelach wrote: »

I'd also maybe hold off on getting one for about a month, because OS X Lion (10.7) is supposed to be released sometime this month, and there might be a product line refresh. So you'll be getting the most up-do-date version of OS X and maybe a better iMac for your money...

(Could some of the more experienced Apple-users confirm or correct this for me?)

The iMac was only refreshed 2 months ago. And new Mac users get Lion for free anyway. So there's no reason to hold off.

54kroc

Odaise Gaelach wrote: »

From my experience as a Windows user using an iMac, if you want to go down the route of Bootcamp (dual-booting between Windows and OS X) then the main thing that I'd advise is to get a decent two-or-more-buttoned mouse. It's manditory in Windows and quite useful in OS X.

The magic mouse does that fine for me.

Creamy Goodness

i love the magic mouse but when playing games it's unusable, you can't hit mouse1 & mouse 2 in quick succession. also hard to quickly use scroll wheel action. for this reason i just have a ms intellimouse hooked up.

on the mac itself i have one from august 2010, cannot fault it one bit. great bit of kit. got it with 4gig's of ram and now have 12gig's in it. it sings, can afford to have win7 in parallels with 4gigs of ram and no performance hit what so ever.

Zillah

Ok, thanks everyone, I'll take the dive today!

Sad Professor is right, I rang customer service the other day with a few questions and he confirmed that I'll get a free Lion upgrade once its available, the last thing they want to do is discourage people from buying the machine and maybe change their mind. And indeed the iMac range got an update quite recently, that's the main reason I picked it.

ozt9vdujny3srf

I've been using a new iMac with a magic trackpad for the last week. It's win.

bigneacy

Cos they are overpriced and pointless. You can get a far more powerful machine for less money if you don't be such a mac whore.

*RUNS FOR HIS LIFE OUT OF THE MAC FORUM!!* :pac:

MACHEAD

bigneacy wrote: »

Cos they are overpriced and pointless. You can get a far more powerful machine for less money if you don't be such a mac whore.

*RUNS FOR HIS LIFE OUT OF THE MAC FORUM!!* :pac:

Don't run northwards - cos I'll be watchin' out for ya'all!

Macs are certainaly more expensive than 'pee-cees', but then quality costs.
Yes you could buy a machine that on paper looks like it has a much higher spec for less cost, but what use is that extra spec when it freezes up, or sucks up every passing bite of malware that comes within the nearest galaxy. I work with Macs and pee-cees and there's no doubt in my mind which of the two platforms is vastly superior on every level.

Johnmb

MACHEAD wrote: »

Macs are certainaly more expensive than 'pee-cees',....

I still don't think that is correct. Admittedly it has been just over a year since I made the comparison, but when I bought a 27" i7 iMac for work last year it was about €200 cheaper than a similarly spec'd Dell. I was adding on a wireless keyboard and mouse to the Dell, which came free with the iMac, but that was like with like, and I don't think the Dell had a 27" display option (although if it did, I was adding that on too). And that took into account a Parallels and Windows 7 license for the Mac which I wouldn't have needed for the Dell, so if I didn't need Windows, the Mac would have been even cheaper again!

Zillah

bigneacy wrote: »

Cos they are overpriced and pointless. You can get a far more powerful machine for less money if you don't be such a mac whore.

This is a good idea. I'll just install Final Cut Pro on my PC and....wait a second...

The Mad Hatter

Zillah wrote: »

This is a good idea. I'll just install Final Cut Pro on my PC and....wait a second...

Final Cut Pro X has been getting quite a bit of flack, fwiw. It might be worth reading up on it. (Though, as I understand it, unless you're trying to import old FCP files into it, or do a couple of other things which will be added with updates, it's meant to be actually kind of amazing.)

silvine

iMacs are great looking machines but - apart from adding RAM - they are very hard to upgrade. In other words the machine you buy is the machine you're pretty much stuck with until you replace it. So if you are a gamer or like the fastest and latest hardware you'll find the iMac ultimately frustrating.

That aside I'm on my second one!

MACHEAD

Yes, I remember the good old days of the G3/G4 Powermacs with the drop down side panel. Upgrading was a doddle, even for those brave enough to tackle a processor upgrade! With the intoduction of the G5, user upgrades started to become more complex.

Apple's reasoning was that the average user wasn't all that interested in the innards of their Mac, they just wanted it to do what they wanted, when they wanted. So the Flat Panel Disp. iMacs, were speced as high as was practical at the time of manufacture.

The spec on a current FP iMac is likely to remain adequate for most users for the design life of the machine (5 - 7 years). After that your meant to replace the machine with a new one! All well and good in theory I suppose, but that doesn't allow for 'the bail-out blues'