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Should I wait to buy new iMac?

B

bobbyMAC

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I am new here. Sorry if this has been answered before.

I want the benefits of getting all the wireless Airport gadgets and I have an OLD 800 iMac that isn't compatible with Airport Extreme stuff.

I was told to wait until Feb 2005 when iMacs are cheaper and when Tiger is available. Will the new iMac get cheaper by then and when will Tiger be available.

Thanks.
 
I would guess that answers to your questions would be quite speculative...so here are mine:

1) I would doubt the iMac would drop in price. However, if a new revision comes out (with a bump in speed or something), you might be able to get the previous model refurb for a much cheaper price.

2) I think the official word on Tiger is "First Half of 2005"
 
Why wait?

bobbyMAC said:
I am new here. Sorry if this has been answered before.

I want the benefits of getting all the wireless Airport gadgets and I have an OLD 800 iMac that isn't compatible with Airport Extreme stuff.

I was told to wait until Feb 2005 when iMacs are cheaper and when Tiger is available. Will the new iMac get cheaper by then and when will Tiger be available.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

The iMac has just been updated, so it's most unlikely to see a major upgrade to it so soon after its introduction, or a significant price drop either.

But if I were you, I would wait until Jan 10th just on the off chance that there might be a minor upgrade to it. Hopefully by then we should also get a clearer picture of when Tiger will be introduced.
 
What it really boils down to is this -

1) Do you want a new machine now?

2) Do you need a new machine now?

3) Do the current offerings meet your needs?

4) Can you live with not being the Joneses?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then go ahead and buy.

Personally, I don't bother with always waiting for the next best thing to roll off the assembly line, or I'd still be on my pizzabox 6100 with 8 megs of RAM and a 250 megabyte hard drive.
 
bobbyMAC said:
I am new here. Sorry if this has been answered before.

I want the benefits of getting all the wireless Airport gadgets and I have an OLD 800 iMac that isn't compatible with Airport Extreme stuff.

I was told to wait until Feb 2005 when iMacs are cheaper and when Tiger is available. Will the new iMac get cheaper by then and when will Tiger be available.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

The iMac 800 IS compatible with airport express, but it won't use it at full speed. (you'll only notice when transferring things internal on your airport net, it won't slow down your internet connection, unless you have a 11+mbps connection...)

The iMac is introduced a few months ago, so it's possible that we'll have a update in January, but don't count on it.

As said, there will always be something new worth waiting for....

The new 20-inch 1.8GHz iMacG5 will surely blow away your 15-inch 800MHz iMacG4 ....
 
Unless its a gift for christmas wait and save up for the next version, which should be out April? time.

And remember to get the BT option for that ultra cool no-wires look. 😉
 
As stated, if you need it now, buy it now. There is no logical reason to wait right now. The iMac are in strong demand and Apple is selling them as fast as they can which means that they will have no incentive to upgrade the model until sales start to go down, and it could take a while.

I really doupt of an upgrade in February, its too close. April is more like it and even then, it might simply be a small speed bump. So the question is: are you willing to wait 4-5 months just to get a slightly faster computer? Doesnt worth it for me, when I need a computer, I need it right now!

So just make sure that you take the 20" with the BT modules. Buy the ram from a third party (will save you a lot of cash) and only upgrade the HD if you have cash to spare.

So make yourself a nice christmast present, get it now ;-)
 
When buying a computer, you want to do your best to protect your investment and delay the inveitable progress of it going out of date. For example, if you buy a G4 Powerbook within the next few months, your machine will soon look VERY outdated as the next update (and if not the next one, the one after) will have some huge updates for the line.

However, with the iMac line, Apple looks to keep them as single processor G5 machines. Its memory subsytem, graphics, and CPU could get an update sometime in the near future, but the whole system won't be changed for a while. The iMac is a good buy now. The price may drop after Feb... but it may now. They may have new ones out... but they may not. If they release newer ones, they are likely to be faster than the current ones, but performance will be similar. Once PBs go G5 / dual G4, they will eat the current models up performance-wise.

-Kevin
 
bobbyMAC said:
I am new here. Sorry if this has been answered before.

I want the benefits of getting all the wireless Airport gadgets and I have an OLD 800 iMac that isn't compatible with Airport Extreme stuff.

I was told to wait until Feb 2005 when iMacs are cheaper and when Tiger is available. Will the new iMac get cheaper by then and when will Tiger be available.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Only you can answer your question of whether or not to buy now. I upgraded from an iMac G3 DV 400 to the iMac G5 1.6. Regrets? None. It is the perfect home desktop computer.
But don't put off your decision because you have heard there may be something new around the corner. In our consumer society there is ALWAYS something new coming soon.
 
spaceballl said:
When buying a computer, you want to do your best to protect your investment and delay the inveitable progress of it going out of date. For example, if you buy a G4 Powerbook within the next few months, your machine will soon look VERY outdated as the next update (and if not the next one, the one after) will have some huge updates for the line.
Click to expand...

Sorry Kevin but thinking like that isnt pratical. When you buy a computer, you dont want to protect your investment, you want your investment (the computer) to be the most profitable possible. This is a common misconception and the reason why many people end up with dual 2.0Ghz while an eMac would have done the trick...

First of all, you have to evaluate your needs, the real ones, not the things you plan to do but never will... So look at the software you need and see what are the recommended specs. Forget about expendability 95% of people dont change anything on their computer other than RAM and HD since selling the system and getting a new one gives a better yield. Once all of this is done, you can ask yourself how long you can wait without this system and how much each day of waiting cost you in term of productivity.

Finaly knowing all of this, you can deciede if you want to buy now or wait for a mystical next revision... Right now, iMac and iBook are a good buy they dont cost much and allow you to run any of the popular apps.

If I was in the market for a new computer right now, I wouldnt wait and get the 20" iMac. The price tag might seem high but once you take into account the price of the screen, its a very inexpensive computer for its power.
 
Mantat said:
Sorry Kevin but thinking like that isnt pratical. When you buy a computer, you dont want to protect your investment, you want your investment (the computer) to be the most profitable possible. This is a common misconception and the reason why many people end up with dual 2.0Ghz while an eMac would have done the trick...

First of all, you have to evaluate your needs, the real ones, not the things you plan to do but never will... So look at the software you need and see what are the recommended specs. Forget about expendability 95% of people dont change anything on their computer other than RAM and HD since selling the system and getting a new one gives a better yield. Once all of this is done, you can ask yourself how long you can wait without this system and how much each day of waiting cost you in term of productivity.

Finaly knowing all of this, you can deciede if you want to buy now or wait for a mystical next revision... Right now, iMac and iBook are a good buy they dont cost much and allow you to run any of the popular apps.

If I was in the market for a new computer right now, I wouldnt wait and get the 20" iMac. The price tag might seem high but once you take into account the price of the screen, its a very inexpensive computer for its power.
Click to expand...

mantat is absolutely right. i bought a G4 PB 6 month ago. if i had waited for the elusive G5 PB or a major revision i would still be on a PC. In my experience the speedbumbs and price cuts are in the 10% range. that is negligible for day to day use. i will go for a new imac 20" next summer because until then i don´t have the money nor the time to use (means play around 😀 ) with it. i certainly will not wait for a possible update or price cut that might or might not come.
if you join the "next revision game" then you need a lot of time. waiting for the next revision announcement (3 month), waiting for the actual release (1 month), waiting for the first reviews in this forum (1 month), ordering the machine, waiting for its delivery (2 weeks or so) and the next release is already close........


andi
 
andiwm2003 said:
if you join the "next revision game" then you need a lot of time. waiting for the next revision announcement (3 month), waiting for the actual release (1 month), waiting for the first reviews in this forum (1 month), ordering the machine, waiting for its delivery (2 weeks or so) and the next release is already close.....
Click to expand...

I agree... in part. But I would place a marker against the various Mac Expos and Developer conferences on the diary and not order immediately before that if I could avoid it (ie unless old computer had just gone BOOM!) At the moment, I wouldn't advise anyone to buy a PB until after MWSF. If they don't announce anything there, then if the current one will do what you need you might as well buy it.

If you need a computer now and the iMac is what you want, then you might as well buy it now. If you don't really need it now and would prefer to wait for a rev B, then fine.
 
Thank you very much for all your replies.

I have decided that I am going to wait after Mac World in San Francisco this month. I'll make some kind of decision after.

Happy New Year.
 
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