[kenna]

Hi all! this will hopefully be my first post of many in this forum! I've just recently found it today and I must say its good to find a knowldegable forum because I have never owned or even used an iMac and I need help!

Im just about to finish my Bsc in Internet Computing and after watching my lecturers with there little mac books and there cool OS X I must say I really really want an iMac 20" with at least 2GB Random Access Memory! But there are a number of things that I have found answers to on this board and yet leave me wanting to know more:

For starters, I will not be pursuing a career in programming, therefore I want my iMac for surfing the web, digital photos, camcorder/video, watching dvds and possibly for its .Mac service.

However I want my iMac to last a good three years at least! Therefore I want a model that does not feel old after 6 months of use in terms of design and in terms of performance.

Now that you know my requirements It would be great if you could tell me the answers to my following questions:

1. Will 2 GB Random Access Memory serve me fine for the next 3-5 years?

2. Will there be a redesign of the iMac that will be available in stores before December?

3. Will there be that great of a difference between Tiger and Leopard?

4. .......removed......

5. And will updating my iMac to Leopard affect its performance?

6. Is the .Mac service worth its price each year? Can I use HTML and JavaScript etc with it? And buy my own domain name?

7. Is it worth taking out the 3 year insurance?

8. Is the iMac the best computer around for a £1000-£1200? ($2000?)

9. Whats your final overall opinion of the iMac?

Thanks to all who post and if you would like to know more about my preferences I will answer as fast as I can!

[P]

1. For what you're describing... probably. If you exclude the video editing, then yes, but you may want to encode HD video within 5 years, and 2 GB might be on the small side in that case. You can upgrade the RAM later, though.
2. Yes - possibly two. Expect one with the Santa Rosa chipset upgrade quite soon and possibly a speedbump next fall.
3. Eh... There will be a difference. Exactly how big remains to be seen - all we've seen of it so far is the developer preview. It is probably the smallest paid upgrade since 10.0 though - evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

4. I don't understand the question.
5. Probably. Exactly how is hard to foretell. Historically, every version of OS X has been faster but more memory hungry than the last. It won't be anything as big as Vista to XP, but rather a minor thing.
6. Frankly, no. You can use whatever web technologies you want with it, but it's not worth the money at this point. The only thing that may be worth it is for syncing. Not sure about the domain name.

7. For a desktop? USUALLY not - and you have a year to decide anyway. I usually hold off until the first year is almost up and take stock of reports around the 'net. If the model I have is one that people have had problems with - my current iMac G5 is one of those - I buy AppleCare. If it has worked fine, I skip it.
8. Wow, that's a wide question. We like to think so. It's a gorgeous machine with the best OS around, but the answer is very much up to your personal preferences.
9. Current model is very good, even though it's getting old now. It's somewhat limited in the GPU department and the max RAM is only 3 gigs, but everyone I know that has one loves it. Historically, it's one of the best incarnations. If I were in the market for a computer right now, I'd buy the 24"er with the 7600GT GPU upgrade.

[kenna]

Thanks a lot!

Question 4 means pretty much question 5 i'll remove it from the questions list!

To the other answers, thanks very much! You have validated everything I needed to know.

1 HD video may interest me, yes, so I would say that your definitely right with what you said, im glad to know i should be fine until then though and upgrading the memory is easy yes?

2 Whats a speedbumb? Will prices drop on this iMac by August do you think?

3 Thanks a lot, I think I will probably purchase an iMac when Leopard is released, not just for the operating system but as you say for the "evolution". I dont want something prehistoric within a month of purchase.

4 ...

5 This validates the reason i will most likely wait for the leopard.

6 Okay, that scraps the idea of purchasing a year subscription...

7 Thats good i'll scrap the idea of a 3 year plan until the following year this will highly reduce the price, however do you get a full years help? Or just a few months? And if its just a few months then will I suffer without the 3 year plan?

8 Im glad you like to think so

9 Could you explain to me the significance of a GPU? What its purpose is etc?

Thanks a lot for your reply P! Extremely helpful!

[JKT]

Speedbump = increased performance from e.g. a faster processor (CPU), frontside bus, faster graphics card (GPU), etc. In more simplistic terms, the internals of the iMac get updated to the latest and greatest (for that price range) so it is faster than the current models.

IMO. if you can wait, definitely hang on for Leopard (which isn't due until October) as the iLife applications will probably be updated as well (i.e. iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, etc.) and these are bundled with new Macs along with the OS.

Applecare - the support lasts for a year, but the free telephone support only lasts the first 90 days (IIRC). You are probably better off asking about any problems at a forum such as this first, anyway.

GPU = Graphics processing unit. It determines how well your computer will be able to display 3D graphics in e.g. games. The better the GPU, the faster the frame rate (speed of display) of the games you play. iMacs don't exactly have the best GPUs around, but they are more than adequate if you are only an infrequent game player.

.Mac, definitely not worth the money at present, but one hopes it is improved this year at some point, when it might be. However, if nothing has changed before Leopard is released, don't bother.

[P]

Upgrading RAM is very easy. On the current design, there is a small lid on the back of the iMac. Open it and you can remove whatever chips are in there by opening two clips (like on any PC). Insert the new chip and close the clips again.

Speedbump is a colloquial for term for a minor upgrade of a model - slightly faster CPU, slightly more RAM, slightly bigger HD etc. It happened for the Macbook yesterday, where the base model went from 1.83 GHz CPU and 512 MB RAM to 2.0 GHZ CPU and 1 GB RAM. These are usually quite silent, as opposed to bigger upgrades that are presented at some sort of media event.

GPUs are mainly used for gaming - examples are ATi's Radeon models and nVidia's Geforce models - but are increasingly being used by regular apps and the operating system as well. The one in the iMac 20", a Radeon X1600, is slightly on the weak side compared to the rest of the machine. It's still a quite good chip, but it's not exactly perfect.

[kenna]

Thanks a lot JKT and P

Yeah, I definitely would like to wait until October before I purchase the iMac, im just a bit in doing so, its my 21st in August and i'd love nothing more than to have a pristine iMac sitting on my desk for it, but I suppose the responsible thing to do is wait, I suppose I can make my decision after next months announcement and see what kinds of differences there will be! But I suppose i will have all the money I want by October if I save up, I could get an exceptional iMac. Just have to wait and see, thanks for all the help though

[analogika]

Well, if past OS upgrades are any indication, buying a Mac in something like the last six weeks before an update qualifies you for a $20-shipping-and-handling upgrade price.

I expect we'll get a definite release date announcement at the MacWorld Expo in Paris in early September, and all machines bought from then on will qualify.

So you might not have to wait so terribly long.