So, I'm looking at picking up a new iMac, but I'm waiting until a product refresh. As always, buy what you need when you need it. In my case, I have two PowerPC computers, a Quick Silver that I've since upgrade to dual processors, dual-layer burner, and four hard drives. I've been using it as a media Mac, but since it's a QS it's load even in a cooled vented cabinet - but I have an AppleTV on the way so that's done. I'm planning on turning the QS into a file server, which it's perfect for. My other computer is a 15" Al PowerBook. As far as mobile computing is concern, for me, it's still a great machine. I've upgraded the hard drive to a 160GB and slipped in dual-layer burner, oh, and maxed out the ram. So these are still great machines, but there's more that I want to do like using some of the more system intensive iLife apps and could really benefit from the larger 20" display when working on my webpage.
So new iMac yes, but I can wait. Of course waiting is no fun. I was hopeful when I saw inventories were dwindling before MW, but that turned out to be a post holiday effect. The iMac (20") currently ships with a 2.4 core 2 duo. You can get a MacBook Pro with a 2.6 GHz processor and if you go up to the 24" iMac you can get a 2.8GHz processor. I have not bought an intel mac yet and don't really know about the processor life cycles. Anybody have a guess on when we might see a product refresh? I'm thinking that since switching to intel chips we would see periodic refreshes more often, does this make any sense? What are the current core 2 duo clock speeds? The other thing that's keeping me from just jumping in (which I almost did when I saw no refresh at MW) is I'm hoping the replace the graphics card, seems Apple has had a lot of issues with the current one. Again, if this has been completely resolved with all the firmware releases for this issue. Oh yes, the other thing about waiting, "if you keep waiting for the latest thing you be waiting forever", well, it's kinda funny b/c I was thinking about a new Machine a couple of months ago, then decided to wait until MW, and of course the longer you wait the closer you get to the inevitable upgrade/refresh, so the longer I wait the harder it is to pull the trigger. So I know I'm waiting, this post is just my impatience, trying to get a feel for how long I'm going to wait. I'm hopeful though as Apple seems to be releasing updates more often and not necessarily tied to a major Apple event like a MW.