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Another help me decide thread...

J

jordanogrady

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Firstly, sorry, this must have been posted loads of times!

I'm going to bite the bullet and order an iMac today....

The choices are

Refurbished iMac 27-inch 3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 for £1529
Minus 3% from top cash back.....
This is from the apple store!

OR

Order from currys, i have a 10% code, and will also get £50 back when purchasing an iMac, PLUS 1.5% from top cash back... £1494 (£165 off)
The model would be....

APPLE iMac MC814 27" All-in-One
Intel® Core™ i5 processor
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Memory: 4GB
Hard drive: 1TB
Optical drive: DVD writer


So, would it be worth me getting the i7 from the apple shop (refurbished) Or going for the i5 from currys with money off, new, with £50 vouchers to spend, i'd probably get a track pad with this....

I'll be doing general internet use, youtube, I use aperture quite a lot, and iMovie.... I currently have an i7 macbooc pro.... just for the record!

Help deciding please 🙂

Jordan

PS i'm swaying more to currys at the moment!
 
jordanogrady said:
Firstly, sorry, this must have been posted loads of times!

I'm going to bite the bullet and order an iMac today....

The choices are

Refurbished iMac 27-inch 3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 for £1529
Minus 3% from top cash back.....
This is from the apple store!

OR

Order from currys, i have a 10% code, and will also get £50 back when purchasing an iMac, PLUS 1.5% from top cash back... £1494 (£165 off)
The model would be....

APPLE iMac MC814 27" All-in-One
Intel® Core™ i5 processor
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
Memory: 4GB
Hard drive: 1TB
Optical drive: DVD writer


So, would it be worth me getting the i7 from the apple shop (refurbished) Or going for the i5 from currys with money off, new, with £50 vouchers to spend, i'd probably get a track pad with this....

I'll be doing general internet use, youtube, I use aperture quite a lot, and iMovie.... I currently have an i7 macbooc pro.... just for the record!

Help deciding please 🙂

Jordan

PS i'm swaying more to currys at the moment!
Click to expand...

Hey,

I went ahead and researched the second option a bit and this is what I found:

----------
Intel® Core™ i5 processor
- 3.1 GHz
- 6 MB Smart Cache
- Quad Core
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
RAM - 4 GB installed DDR3 RAM (1333 MHz) - 16 GB maximum RAM capacity
Graphics card AMD Radeon HD 6970M graphics processor with 1GB of GDDR5 memory
2560 x 1440 pixels - Screen size 27"
Hard drive 1 TB SATA 7200 rpm
Optical disk drive Slot-loading 8x SuperDrive with 4x double-layer burning (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
----------
Honestly, since both are quad cores, you won't notice much of a difference in i5 and i7 for what you do. (Web browsing and some photography work)
Whether it be refurbished by apple or new...they both will work just as well. Apple is great at refurbishing as I know so price shouldn't be that much of an issue in quality of work.
Now when it comes down to the specs, price, and features- if you could give a little more info on the first option it would have helped i.e. model number etc. -
the first option seems like a better deal because it is only a difference of about $40(sorry didn't know the gbp pounds symbol 😎) )a little more advanced/powerful. 3.4 ghz i7 quad core would be a much better deal in your situation of price and need.

My final verdict - Go with the i7 refurbished first option because it is quite more advanced than the second option and the price is not an issue. Don't worry about the refurbished vs. new problem. Refurbished is as good as new if it is from apple (depending on the extra hardware that is included).

Update: If you could give a little more info on the first option it would help a lot and please ignore my dumb money calculations-it isn't $40 of a difference...I'm too lazy to calculate it as of now. 😛

Good luck!
Mark
 
I can't say what you should do. BUt If I bought a lovely iMac with just an i5 I would always have a small voice whispering "you got the slow CPU" in my ear. But thats just me.
 
doktordoris said:
bloody hell. I hope i didn't just make you spend more than you intended on an iMac. the i7 is only about 10% faster than the i5. but as far as I'm concerned 10% is worth having!
Click to expand...

Ah, it was only £40 more money! So I figured it was worth the extra!

Jordan

----------

Debating ordering a track pad now 🙂
 
jordanogrady said:
Yeah thats what I thought, I have the macbook now, so guessing the trackpad is similar to the mac pad.

Jordan
Click to expand...

yep, its just bigger. i have the pad and mouse near my right hand some things (like zooming in and out) are much easier with the trackpad, but sometimes the accuracy of a mouse is better. As I said I use them both all the time.
 
doktordoris said:
yep, its just bigger. i have the pad and mouse near my right hand some things (like zooming in and out) are much easier with the trackpad, but sometimes the accuracy of a mouse is better. As I said I use them both all the time.
Click to expand...

Yeah that was actually my thoughts, picture editing possibly better with a mouse, then general use, scrolling and internet browsing track pad! 🙂
 
Whats the best way of setting the mac up to get all the programs i already have on my macbook pro?
I have a time capsule, I was considering restoring from that? If it can be done?

Then using the time capsule to back up the laptop, and plug an external HD into the iMac to be used as a time capsule (if this can be done?)

Jordan
 
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