@FatBoy, a resounding THANK YOU for your really helpful post.
I have been in "research mode" for several months now as my 5 year old Windows desktop died and I am relying on a 6 year old Windows laptop, and my beloved iPad 3.
There is one thing certain ... I will never have another Windows computer for precisely the reasons you stated!
I will be getting the 21.5 iMac because of space issues. I play EQ2, SW:TOR and WoW ... Photo editing, Internet, personal business and email. I have been struggling with how to equip it and would appreciate your and everybody elses advice.
I use my iMac for email, internet, video editing, photo editing. And I went on the entry level 27 inch iMac with Fusion Drive. Has you might know the 21.5 inch does not have user replaceable ram. The max ram that can be purchased with the 21.5 inch is 16 GB and this is the amount I would recommend you getting.
If your budget will allow, I would recommend going with the Fusion Drive. This gives you the speed of an SSD drive, but you still have the traditional hard drive for added storage.
Essentially the Fusion Drive learns what applications you use most often, and places them on the Fusion Drive so they load up extremely quickly. Applications that get used less often will be on the traditional hard drive. Fusion Drive constantly monitors your application usage and places or removes applications from itself accordingly. The thing I really like about Fusion Drive (apart from the speed) is that there is no user input needed, it just automatically places, adds applications by itself.
Has I mention earlier, I went for the entry level 27 inch with Fusion Drive. I did not choose to have additional ram at the time of purchase, has Apple were expensive for ram, and I knew that I could purchase the ram from elsewhere cheaper and add it myself, has the 27 inch models have a little access door on the rear to allow for installing of ram.
Although I don't use my iMac for game playing, I would recommend you go with the 2.9 ghz 21.5 inch iMac, which has the 650M graphics card, which is higher in performance than the entry level 640M.
So in short here's the setup I would recommend:
2.9 ghz model (which comes with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics card)
16GB ram
Storage (if your budget will allow) 1TB Fusion Drive. Even if 1TB might seem a bit small for you, you can always purchase external hard drives relatively cheaply, if the need arose.
You would also have to consider if you would need a CD/DVD drive, as current iMac's do not have an internal CD/DVD drive. I purchased the Apple USB Superdrive when I purchased my iMac. But you can purchase pretty much any type of external CD/DVD drive and it should work fine. I went with the USB Superdrive as I prefer the slot loading drives, it was a perfect match for the iMac, and also, the USB Superdrive fits perfectly on the foot of the iMac's stand.
The next option is whether to go with a mouse, trackpad, or both. Now I do a bit of photo, video editing and I prefer to use the Apple Magic Mouse for these. The Apple Magic Trackpad is excellent for other uses, but I just find it not as good as the mouse for photo, video editing where a bit of fine control is needed. Obviously if you can stretch to it go with the option for both the Apple Magic Mouse and Apple Magic Trackpad (which is what I did).
Or and lastly. I would recommend getting the Apple Care Protection Plan.
This can be purchased at the same time you purchase the iMac (but it doesn't have to be). It can be purchased anytime within the 12 months of purchasing your iMac. This plan will provide you with repairs for 3 years from the purchase date of your iMac. You also get 3 years of telephone support from Apple too with the plan.
Hope this helps you
