I will continue saving
Personally, I don't know where my purchase decision really stands. Initially I was psyched, but when I look into it, there are a few things that bother me:
- $100 price increase. I actually have the $1,700 saved up to purchase it next summer. Now they add $100 pushing it to $1,800. Annoying, in addition to the fact that, I will be buying after market RAM to push it to 24 GBs. That is where I would have preferred to spend the $100.
- GPU options as some have mentioned, slower than the 2011 model, I think they could have bumped it to 1 GB of vRAM in the base model of the 27 inch. My HP xw workstation has 512 MBs of vRAM and that is a 5 year old system. Its a Quadro by the way.
- This is REV 1. I am not into experimenting, I will let those who are more excited than me test it first. I will wait for Rev 2 with the Haswell processors and hopeful for a better GPU. A price drop would be good (not counting on it).
- If I don't see any such revisions, I will stick with the Windows PC. This was gonna be my first Mac, but parting with this kinda money is not easy, especially on my budget. I want the best bang for my buck, but to be spending so much and then I still have to be spending more after is ridiculous. When you take into account, I will be travelling to the US to make the purchase, airfare, accomodation, food.
My reason for choosing a Mac, I just want a different computing experience at home. I use and manage Windows everday at work. No problems with Windows at home or work, but its like seeing the same person every waking minute.
If Apple does continue to make the iMac out of my reach, I honestly will just settle for a budge UltraBook from Acer. The Mac purchase is purely aesthetics, to really be investing 1800 these days on a computer which I know will ultimately be mostly for Internet use, listenng music, photo management, editing the occasional video, is in some way overkill. It probably would be best to buy an unlocked iPhone 5, iPad 4 and a decent Windows 8 Ultrabook next summer.
I remember travelling to NY a few years ago and saw the 24 inch white iMac at best buy and was so amazed at the screen size its been on my mind ever since. I travelled to Seattle last year and saw the 27 inch iMac and was even more impressed. That probably sealed the deal to save towards one.
The new iMac is a combination of mixed feelings, maybe seeing one in person will change my feelings. Ultimately, its all about the display for me, but I want the investment to be worth it. After all, I expect to keep this computer for 5 to 10 years. (I use them till they die, my DELL Dimension 8300 died in June '12, had it since March '04).
Another issue is the reports of display issues especially on rev 1. Macs. My plan is to set it up where ever I am staying and do some intense testing, keeping it running non-stop throughout my stay in the US. If it goes bad once during my stay, I will immediately take it back to the Apple store and ask for a refund. We don't have any Apple stores here where I live and the Apple Authorized testers charge an arm and a leg to fix these things.
Apple really should have kept the 2011 iMac 27 form factor alive and updated it with the new processors and I/O ports (USB 3). I think it would be a good option for those who still want live in the past as Phill put it.
