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I like iMacs... but not enough to buy one

Well, here we are Apple. Not only Imacs are still under-powered for the price but now the Mac Mini also. Both of them are made to be non upgradable.

"It has been too long" that I have not been looking at the PC/Windows world.
 
Actually it depends, the initial reports are giving the iMac Retina high praise but if you already have a nice monitor then you are paying for something you don't need. As for the mac mini, it is disappointing but for whatever reason, they want to get closer to the entry level desktop pricing and decided to try to cut the costs. The cost of the mac mini is pretty comprable to similar windows based desktops but those desktops are meant for light use. And the regular iMacs weren't updated probably due to Broadwell being imminent and wanting to do an early 2015 update to the iMac specs.

But if you aren't totally invested in OSX, then looking elsewhere isn't a bad thing. You could look into building your own but there are also places online like OriginPc.com, CyberPowerPc.com and where I bought my husband's laptop, xoticpc.com
 
Wirbowsky said:
Well, here we are Apple. Not only Imacs are still under-powered for the price but now the Mac Mini also. Both of them are made to be non upgradable.

"It has been too long" that I have not been looking at the PC/Windows world.
Click to expand...

Ah! A boring troll thread.
 
fastlanephil said:
Ah! A boring troll thread.
Click to expand...

In what way am I trolling?

In the past years, I have bought two Ipod shuffles, two Ipod classics, a Macbook Pro and two ipads.

I am looking at buying a more powerful computer than my laptop and I am disappointed by current Apple power/price ratio offer.
 
It is threads like this that remind me why I have macs. I bought my first iMac in 2002 but it was mainly for validating appearance of websites I worked on. From 2002-2004 I had a number of Windows machines break, usually screen or hard drive. They would break just outside the warranty. In 2004 I could not afford another new computer so I started using the imac and I have not looked back since. Over the years I have bought other windows machines and they too did not last. My original iMac and all my Macs still run no matter their age or usage pattern. I have many of them but also provided them to family members after their useful life. One of these days I will line them up and boot them up for a picture. I still love the 2002 iMac design the best. I just wish I would have converted to a Mac person sooner even when I owned one. It would have saved me from buying multiple Windows machines that seemed a great price at the time.
 
I bought several machines to run Windows.

An Asus small form factor in 2002. It was still running but we discarded it tow years ago.
A cheapo Medion somewhere in 2004. It is a pentium 4 and is still running fine with Windows XP.
A dell laptop in 2010. It is still running fine with Windows 7 64 bit.

Then I bought my Macbook Pro mid 2010 13" which is also running fine and now running Yosemite.

When I bought the Macbook Pro it was in the same price range as similar laptop from Asus or Dell. So i thought why not try a Mac? But now when I do a comparison, I am thinking why not a Windows PC as they offer much better price/performance ratio for stand-alone.
 
We all make purchases based on our experiences and you should too. I am not sure if by posting here you are looking for validation or to be talked out of your decision. I think you should buy whatever you are comfortable with. For me I will probably buy the Retina iMac, but that is why I am in Macrumors today.
 
frankeliason said:
We all make purchases based on our experiences and you should too. I am not sure if by posting here you are looking for validation or to be talked out of your decision. I think you should buy whatever you are comfortable with. For me I will probably buy the Retina iMac, but that is why I am in Macrumors today.
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I am sure you will be happy with your purchase. I began this thread a bit before the October keynote. I was really hoping that imac would get a refresh beyond the 5k.

I would be very happy to have an Imac but today, I cannot justify its price when I look at the outdated components in it.

The 5k is surely a great machine but it costs more than what I am willing to pay for a non professional use.

I was hoping that imac would come with more recent GPU, CPU and more ram by default. May be they will do a silent refresh and they would be competitive again.
 
Wirbowsky said:
I am sure you will be happy with your purchase. I began this thread a bit before the October keynote. I was really hoping that imac would get a refresh beyond the 5k.

I would be very happy to have an Imac but today, I cannot justify its price when I look at the outdated components in it.

The 5k is surely a great machine but it costs more than what I am willing to pay for a non professional use.

I was hoping that imac would come with more recent GPU, CPU and more ram by default. May be they will do a silent refresh and they would be competitive again.
Click to expand...
I think they usually do a component refresh in the iMac twice/year? I could be wrong but with broadwell imminent, that is probably the reason it hasn't been updated yet. I'm also not sure what that means for the 5k iMacs as to whether they will then be kept up with the same refresh or not. Broadwell isn't a compelling reason not to get the 5k iMac (and really won't offer a lot to the regular iMac). An updated GPU for the regular iMac would be nice though. And if you are hoping for more RAM by default, nope. 8gb is more than enough for _most_ people and if you are looking at the 27", then you will be able to upgrade it yourself.
 
A rough count in my head and I have bought in total 22 Macintosh since 1990. I have bought just 3 new, the other 19 were used including all I currently have.

Mac Pro 3,1 2008, MBP 2011 17, Mini G4, Mini 1st Intel and my girls 2006 iMac. My replacement Mac Pro 5,1 2010 I am hunting for will also be used.

Last Mac I bought new was the unibody 15 inch early 2009 with the Nvidia 9600-9400 CPU. Sold for a lightly used 2010 with AppleCare barely a year later.

Even my 5s is bought used - last one I have bought new at launch was the 4s. The rest of the iPhones and iPod's were are all used bar my classic 160Gb

My personal iPad is the only exception to my rule - I have bought every one new and a 128Gb Air 2 will replace my Air. Barring the mini the other iPad 2's are used.

Moral of the story is - don't have any qualms about buying used Apple products because if they work fine at purchase they will mostly keep on working. Buying used with AppleCare left is an easy and safe way of getting Apple stuff on the cheap and it's always worked for me. Just make sure the seller removes it from their support profile so you can register it to yours.

EDIT - make that 26 Mac not 22, I forgot 4 and may possibly remember more. 1 was new so 4/26 lol
 
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leenak said:
I think they usually do a component refresh in the iMac twice/year? I could be wrong but with broadwell imminent, that is probably the reason it hasn't been updated yet. I'm also not sure what that means for the 5k iMacs as to whether they will then be kept up with the same refresh or not. Broadwell isn't a compelling reason not to get the 5k iMac (and really won't offer a lot to the regular iMac). An updated GPU for the regular iMac would be nice though. And if you are hoping for more RAM by default, nope. 8gb is more than enough for _most_ people and if you are looking at the 27", then you will be able to upgrade it yourself.
Click to expand...

It would make sense that the absence of update is due to the absence of Broadwell. We can hope that the GPU from the 5K will also be used in the next refresh of imacs. For the Ram, upgrading myself is not an issue :)

May be simply I am looking at imacs at a wrong time, at the end of a cycle.
 
Wirbowsky said:
Well, here we are Apple. Not only Imacs are still under-powered for the price but now the Mac Mini also. Both of them are made to be non upgradable.

"It has been too long" that I have not been looking at the PC/Windows world.
Click to expand...

Dude just buy a Mac Pro. It only starts at $3k :apple:
 
Wirbowsky said:
I would be very happy to have an Imac but today, I cannot justify its price when I look at the outdated components in it.

The 5k is surely a great machine but it costs more than what I am willing to pay for a non professional use.

I was hoping that imac would come with more recent GPU, CPU and more ram by default. May be they will do a silent refresh and they would be competitive again.
Click to expand...

I find this an interesting comment. The i7-4790K is one of the fastest processors out there (4GHz!) and was released Q2 '14. The Tonga R9 M295X isn't even out yet anywhere. Plus Apple designed their own timing chip for the display. Not to mention the obvious 5K monitor which is also only 1 of 2 in existence for consumers AFAIK. How exactly are these "outdated" components?

Anyway I should be getting my new iMac some time this week, will post impressions using it in Bootcamp.
 
rittchard said:
I find this an interesting comment. The i7-4790K is one of the fastest processors out there (4GHz!) and was released Q2 '14. The Tonga R9 M295X isn't even out yet anywhere. Plus Apple designed their own timing chip for the display. Not to mention the obvious 5K monitor which is also only 1 of 2 in existence for consumers AFAIK. How exactly are these "outdated" components?

Anyway I should be getting my new iMac some time this week, will post impressions using it in Bootcamp.
Click to expand...

I meant that while there is a new imac 5K the other iMac are using outdate components. The 5k is surely a great machine but I do not see how I could justify buying one for non profesionnal reasons. And for the other iMacs, I find it hard to justify the price for outdated components.
 
Wirbowsky said:
I meant that while there is a new imac 5K the other iMac are using outdate components. The 5k is surely a great machine but I do not see how I could justify buying one for non profesionnal reasons. And for the other iMacs, I find it hard to justify the price for outdated components.
Click to expand...

Apple not updating the existing range is probably down to them wanting the ever increasing margins on that dating tech to offset somewhat the fact they are offering a 5k screen iMac at a very good price (even though it still sits in a price range too high for most non professionals to consider).

Broadwell will likely see a complete tech update throughout the range next spring/summer, along with perhaps a small reduction in that 5k iMac as it's tech costs fall.
 
So I revive my old thread as I have take my decision and purchased the parts for my PC.
I paid 2.600€ for a Skylake i5 (3,5ghz), 16G Ram, A 980Ti GPU, 500 GB SSD, a 4k 28 inches screen, mechanical keyboard and nice gaming mouse.

The closest Imac would be the 5K with a much less powerfull GPU. That would cost me 3.529€

I have almost migrated all my data to my PC now and I am happy with it.

I know some of you will say that I will have plenty of issue with Windows. That's not my experience. I can't say that my experience with my Macbook Pro is true to the "it just works".
Some will say that I cannot resell my PC as well as an Imac. Not an issue, I almost never resell anything.

And some other will say, that I will enjoy my purchase. And that I do :)
 
Wirbowsky said:
So I revive my old thread as I have take my decision and purchased the parts for my PC.
I paid 2.600€ for a Skylake i5 (3,5ghz), 16G Ram, A 980Ti GPU, 500 GB SSD, a 4k 28 inches screen, mechanical keyboard and nice gaming mouse.

The closest Imac would be the 5K with a much less powerfull GPU. That would cost me 3.529€

I have almost migrated all my data to my PC now and I am happy with it.

I know some of you will say that I will have plenty of issue with Windows. That's not my experience. I can't say that my experience with my Macbook Pro is true to the "it just works".
Some will say that I cannot resell my PC as well as an Imac. Not an issue, I almost never resell anything.

And some other will say, that I will enjoy my purchase. And that I do :)
Click to expand...

...and it only took you 1-year to get there.

As long as you can justify your actions to yourself that's all that matters........most others don't really care.
 
To say that an iMac isn't good enough to game it a total ludicrous statement because of it's broad nature.

I have a 5k iMac and play all sorts of games on the mac without any issue. I may not be playing every game that was ever conceived, but I don't need to. Recently I have been playing Trine & Trine2. Have had a great time.

I could say with lots of proof to back myself up, that all computers are a waste of money for playing games. I can buy a PS4 for $400, and it will play circles around any PC that is sold for the same price after you have finished paying for an equivalent games controller for it. It was not long back when Microsoft was clearing out the Xbox360 and you could have one of them for $150. Try and find a PC to play even any graphical game for $150.

I'm not a Mac fanboy and I bought my iMac as it just had a gorgeous screen. It does most things pretty well, and looks pretty. I don't need a large clunking tower stuck under the desk and a rats nest of wires hooking it up. I am more than willing to give up the latest and best games to have style and dust free.
 
A dell 5K 27" monitor is over 1700 on its own. When the retina iMac was released last year, I don't even know if they were available or what the price was. Also. I've rarely used a keyboard that is as good as the one you get with a Mac and the 4.0Ghz Haswell in the high end is hard to beat. You truly do get what you pay for and yes you can get more raw power for the dollar from certain set ups (which may make sense in many cases) but it is difficult to equal the build quality and design of the Apple products. That said, get what works for the programs you run and your budget. I'm waiting to see what the iMac refresh brings before deciding between that (most likely) or a custom windows box and a 4K monitor.
 
Wirbowsky said:
So I revive my old thread as I have take my decision and purchased the parts for my PC.
I paid 2.600€ for a Skylake i5 (3,5ghz), 16G Ram, A 980Ti GPU, 500 GB SSD, a 4k 28 inches screen, mechanical keyboard and nice gaming mouse.

The closest Imac would be the 5K with a much less powerfull GPU. That would cost me 3.529€

I have almost migrated all my data to my PC now and I am happy with it.

I know some of you will say that I will have plenty of issue with Windows. That's not my experience. I can't say that my experience with my Macbook Pro is true to the "it just works".
Some will say that I cannot resell my PC as well as an Imac. Not an issue, I almost never resell anything.

And some other will say, that I will enjoy my purchase. And that I do :)
Click to expand...

Congrats on your purchase.

Just remember that you are comparing an All-in-one with a screen that would cost $1700-$1800 by-itself from dell to a standard desktop tower PC. Plus, the iMac will easily keep up with or surpass your PC in every category except for the GPU.

Again, I'm happy you found the PC you wanted(plus, it's your money, there's no need to justify to anyone), but I also think when making hardware comparisons and price, I think it isn't so clear cut as one being cheaper over the other.
 
Wirbowsky said:
So I revive my old thread as I have take my decision and purchased the parts for my PC.
I paid 2.600€ for a Skylake i5 (3,5ghz), 16G Ram, A 980Ti GPU, 500 GB SSD, a 4k 28 inches screen, mechanical keyboard and nice gaming mouse.

The closest Imac would be the 5K with a much less powerfull GPU. That would cost me 3.529€

I have almost migrated all my data to my PC now and I am happy with it.

I know some of you will say that I will have plenty of issue with Windows. That's not my experience. I can't say that my experience with my Macbook Pro is true to the "it just works".
Some will say that I cannot resell my PC as well as an Imac. Not an issue, I almost never resell anything.

And some other will say, that I will enjoy my purchase. And that I do :)
Click to expand...


For me, today's computers are about more than just specs. They are about experience. I switched to Mac a few years ago and I'm not looking back. I prefer the look and feel of my iMac and the comfort of OS X to a GeForce 980 PC I could've got for the money. For gaming, I have a PS4 which I prefer to PC gaming (I only play Blizzard Games and Wildstar on my Mac) and it too is weaker in specs than a gaming PC. But that's a perfect example - what good are specs whan I can't play Last of Us, Uncharted or Destiny on a PC? In the same way, what good is an expensive GPU when I can't run El Capitan on it.

If these things don't matter to you, you really have no reason to get a Mac. But I don't understand the obsession with specs. Specs do not equal value, they are just part of the equasion. You have a faster GPU but you cannot run Mac apps. Fantastical, Vox, Pages, Notability - you can't use them. Your Evernote does not support hidpi screens, your Photoshop does not have the option to switch off Aplication Frame, your files do not have tags, you don't have spotlight and Alfred (and no, Cortana search can't compare).

I'm NOT saying these things should be important to you. But, as I said, don't confuse specs for value. For me, these apps, plus all the beauty of the Mac and OS X are of greater value than fps in a game.

Also, I run a beast of a PC at work and it constantly lags behind in productivity tasks to my iMac 5K, Photoshop actually runs slower with my Wacom (it has brush lag), so efectively, it is a slower machine for my needs, even if it has a desktop-class gpu. It is also loud as a truck while I never hear my iMac.

For me, it's a better machine, worth its price. For you and your needs, the PC is better. But its not objectively better - or worse. It all depends on the user.
 
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Wirbowsky said:
So I revive my old thread as I have take my decision and purchased the parts for my PC.
I paid 2.600€ for a Skylake i5 (3,5ghz), 16G Ram, A 980Ti GPU, 500 GB SSD, a 4k 28 inches screen, mechanical keyboard and nice gaming mouse.

The closest Imac would be the 5K with a much less powerfull GPU. That would cost me 3.529€

I have almost migrated all my data to my PC now and I am happy with it.

I know some of you will say that I will have plenty of issue with Windows. That's not my experience. I can't say that my experience with my Macbook Pro is true to the "it just works".
Some will say that I cannot resell my PC as well as an Imac. Not an issue, I almost never resell anything.

And some other will say, that I will enjoy my purchase. And that I do :)
Click to expand...


Now add a 5K screen to that, and it's 4600 euro......
 
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