Finally getting my dream setup!

[joshh989]

My first mac was the G4 Cube, still ran better than any PC ive ever owned!

Wife and I are planning on buying an iMac towards the end of this month, right now I think the base model with a upgraded 1 TB fusion drive will work just fine for us. I just purchased a 2nd monitor on Amazon along with a Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter for the second monitor.

I see that there is a possible iMac refresh coming soon, should I wait? risk a possible price hike?

Also looking for some desk, printer & external hard drive suggestions. Thanks everybody.

 

[keysofanxiety]

If you don't need it urgently, I'd wait for the refresh and see what's coming. Historically they tend to drop pricing on earlier models when new ones are released - granted they didn't on this occasion with the MacBook Pros (even a little more expensive depending on how kind your exchange rate was), it's unlikely that the older prices will be raised or the older models discontinued. So worst case scenario, you'll be paying the same amount.

Otherwise if you absolutely need it now, I would definitely recommend paying a little extra to upgrade to the 3TB Fusion Drive. The reason is that the 1TB FD only comes with a 24GB SSD, whilst the 3TB one comes with a 128GB SSD. You'd definitely see long-term performance benefit with the larger Flash.

 

[svendobbelaere]

Do you have a working computer at the moment? I'm assuming you do?

My personal thoughts:

1.a if you can wait a bit, wait. Worst case scenario the new iMac is not to your liking, so you'll have to get a current model at a discount. I like discounts, who doesn't like discounts? . There might be a price hike on the current models, but I'm sure any third-party resellers will have discounts. And alternatively there's always a refurb from Apple.

1.b the possibility exists that the new iMac will have Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) and not Thunderbolt 2. The connector is different. So if you wait, you might end up with a useless thunderbolt 2 to HDMI adapter. If you're not buying the iMac now, I'd send the adapter back.

2. With regards to peripherals like hard drives and such, I would wait to see which iMac you end up getting (thunderbolt 2 (DisplayPort) or thunderbolt 3 (USB-C)). Don't buy anything without having the iMac on order and the port situation clear, or you might end up spending on adapters to actually use the peripherals you just bought.

3. The 1 TB Fusion drive only has a 24 GB SSD part, whereas the 2 TB Fusion drive has a 128 Gb SSD part. This might impact performance. Personally I got the 2 TB Fusion drive model, and honestly I think it's a crime that Apple doesn't ship a big fast SSD for the price. But what can you do?

4. Printer, my basic suggestions are always: a. Laser; b. networked c. duplex. But it depends on what you want to do.

 

[joshh989]

Thank you! I may consider the upgrade. I didn't realize the SSD portion of the drive varied in sizes.

My current computer is.....not the best. The wife and I basically use our phones (google pixel & iphone 6) for all computing at the moment.
[doublepost=1486391847][/doublepost]Luckily I got an amazon basics hdmi>thunderbolt. so it was rather inexpensive, just in case. I'll wait on the rest of the peripherals, but got a good deal on the monitor and didn't want to pass it up.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Wife and I are planning on buying an iMac towards the end of this month, right now I think the base model with a upgraded 1 TB fusion drive will work just fine for us."

Be forewarned that the 1tb fusion drive model uses a 24gb SSD portion and a 1tb HDD portion for its drives.
24gb is too small to be of much use, it will quickly get overloaded.

I would strongly suggest that you instead get the 2tb fusion drive model. That one comes with a 128gb SSD portion and a 2tb HDD portion (7200rpm). Much better.

Right now, the only solid "prediction" regarding iMacs is that new ones will come out sometime this year.
Perhaps as early as March or April. Perhaps later.
Unknown at this point.

 

[Sebski]

My first mac was the G4 Cube, still ran better than any PC ive ever owned!

Wife and I are planning on buying an iMac towards the end of this month, right now I think the base model with a upgraded 1 TB fusion drive will work just fine for us. I just purchased a 2nd monitor on Amazon along with a Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter for the second monitor.

I see that there is a possible iMac refresh coming soon, should I wait? risk a possible price hike?

Also looking for some desk, printer & external hard drive suggestions. Thanks everybody.

Please please do not go for Fusion Drive. Go straight for SSD only upgrade. I purchased my 21.5" iMac in beginning of 2013. There was only option standard HDD or Fusion Drive. About 2-3 months after I bought it they introduced option for SDD only upgrade. I remember swearing a lot because I knew that SSD option would be better for future use. I eventually got used to small 1280GB only portion of SSD and slow HDD. But couple months ago I decided I will keep my iMac for another 1.5-2 years and therefore I upgraded to SSD. I went for Crucial MX300 750GB and I couldn't be more happy. It's like giving new life to my beloved computer.
So, SSD only option I only recommend.

And, as other users already mentioned, would be worth to wait to see if new iMac are out after winter. Then you could even get previous models cheaper if you want to save some money.

 

[ggibson913]

I would echo previous poster's comments and suggest that you wait it out a little to see if there is an update. Another option to save money is to go through the refurb store. The recommended setup for the Skylake 27" 5K iMac 2TB Fusion is $350 off retail and will be just as gorgeous and reliable. I have one and you are gonna love it. Since in that particular model you can self upgrade the RAM, if you buy new, make sure you get the minimum RAM as Apple charges a ridiculous amount as compared to Crucial or Macsales and the RAM upgrade is really easy.