I'm about to jump

[mariusl]

into det world of Apples

Hi.
I've been watching this forum for det last few months, and I've become very interested in buying my very first Apple product. I've been a "PC-geek" for as long as I can remember, so I really look forward to switch into something quite different.(talking about userinterface and design).
I'm not new to all-in-ones as my current computer also have certain all-in-one features. It's not only a miditower PC but also vacuumcleaner, noisegenerator and eyetrash. It's very much the opposite of an iMac

Well, enough of that. Back to the case.
I have two alternatives. The low-end 2011 21.5", or the high-end 21.5" (My wife won't let me have the 27", but I think I can live with that )
None of us do much gaming, but I'd love to be able to do a little gaming now and then . Main usage will be mostly Internet, photoediting and officeapplications.
Anyway, the geek in me say I should go for the high-end, but is it worth the extra money? I'm a little concerned about the upgrade possibilities of the low-end 21.5 as I'm not sure if it also can have 8 or 16Gb of RAM? What about the GPU? 6750 vs 6770? And the CPU? Will there be any noticable difference at all?

I hope I didn't bore you all with another one of "those" threads .

Best regards
Marius

 

[dh2005]

If you like to game, even occasionally, get the better graphics card. In my opinion.

 

[OptyCT]

Since you've decided on the 21.5" iMac, you pretty much have to decide if the $300 price increase is worth the upgrade (when comparing base models). For $300, you get a better CPU, better GPU, and 500 GB additional HDD space. Only you can decide if it's worth it.

One word of advice, don't buy RAM from Apple. OWC will sell you 16GB of RAM for the same price (~$200) that Apple wants you to pay for 8GB.

 

[mariusl]

The extra $300 seems to be of good value then...and I like good value

Actually I have another question. Is the Timeport backupdrive easy to use? I have an WD World Edition today which is an user-nightmare

Thanks for your inputs

Best regards
Marius

 

[shenfrey]

Don't jump! You have your whole life ahead of you!

 

[rkaufmann87]

The extra $300 seems to be of good value then...and I like good value

Actually I have another question. Is the Timeport backupdrive easy to use? I have an WD World Edition today which is an user-nightmare

Thanks for your inputs

Best regards
Marius

It's called Time Machine and it's so easy you only have to plug it in and forget about it. Here is a video tutorial....

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#timemachinebasics

 

[basesloaded190]

The extra $300 seems to be of good value then...and I like good value

Actually I have another question. Is the Timeport backupdrive easy to use? I have an WD World Edition today which is an user-nightmare

Thanks for your inputs

Best regards
Marius

I'm guessing you mean Time Machine. Yes, it's by far the easiest back up solution i have used. When you connect your external, your computer will recognize it, and from there, you can tell Time Machine to back up your info to that drive.

 

[OptyCT]

The extra $300 seems to be of good value then...and I like good value

Thanks for your inputs

Best regards
Marius

I agree that it's also a worth the upgrade.

 

[Jimmdean]

Consider this: for an extra $300.00 (25%), you get <10% increase in CPU, ~15% in GPU, and a bigger hard drive.

With what you are doing, would you even notice that difference? No.

So I recommend the cheapest model.


Furthermore, let's not really call it the "low-end" and the "high-end" - that implies a much larger difference than actually exists. The biggest difference is the
additional profit Apple makes on the more expensive one.

What gets me is what you have to fork over in total just to get an i7 - an additional $500.00 from the base model, for a chip likely not even $100.00 more for Apple...

 

[AppleFan360]

It's worth the upgrade. Quite frankly I'm still wondering why Apple didn't put a 1TB hard drive in the lower end model.

Time Machine is a wonderful thing and great for backing up and transferring to another Mac.

The upper end 21.5 is a good deal because you are getting most of the power of the 27" without the size. I personally don't have the space for the 27" iMac myself so the 21.5" is a good fit for me.

 

[rocketman1973]

Go for it!

As a long time Windows user myself (since Windows 3.1), I decided to make the jump into the "Mac" world about a month and a half ago. I absolutely love it! I was fortunate to buy the higher end 27" iMac and would never go back to Windows. It's fast, beautiful display, great pre-loaded programs and very user friendly. Never tried the Time Machine yet, but plan to soon. Over all I am very pleased with the iMac