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iMac 21.5" model - buy now or wait?

sashie

sashie

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 9, 2009
82
0
Hong Kong
Sorry i know you guys must hate seeing this kind of posts.. :(
but spare me!

I am a noob. I am an expertise when it comes to specs (I am a girl)

I have a PC desktop for all my life and a Macbook in which i purchased for college last year.
I have had enough of windows (finally) and am hoping to switch to Mac completely.
I am looking to buy the 21.5" because I can't afford a 27" (plus it would be too big for my room anyway)

My friends keep telling me to wait (mainly guy friends) for the update (i know its coming soon.. say in a few months or so) because they keep saying that Core2Duo would be phased out in an year or so... and the curreent imac models would be outdated or something...

I mainly use my desktop for basic stuff like school work, presentations, report writing, listening to music, surfing and what not

I do a lot of photo editing too.. i.e. lightroom photoshop and stuff.

and yes, i am entitled to the BTS promotion that is going on right now.


so here comes the question:
should i wait for the update/refresh? or would that make no difference to a user like me?

I dont mind not having the free itouch i dont really need it .. though it would be nice to be able to sell it off or something...

suggestions?
 
If the machine you are looking at has a Core 2 Duo with a Nvidia 9400m or 9600m as the graphics card -- WAIT.

Apple should be replacing the low end iMac with something that will look like a MacBook with a faster processor. Nvidia 320m graphics with about the same CPU 3Ghz speed.

Everything between the low end machine and the 27" machine with the i5/i7 will likely adopt the same chipset as that 27 machine. So the i5/i7 should be across the board.

As far as which graphics card, and what the CPUs will be ... don't know. Chipsets are as close as I can guess.

---

For the entry level iMac with Core 2 Duo getting the new 320m, the graphics will be twice as powerful. aka, worth waiting on

For all the machines switching away from the Core 2 Duo to the i5/i7 ... the CPU will be at least twice as powerful. aka, definitely worth waiting on

---

Reality is waiting on a 100% performance increase in the graphics card or CPU is a slam dunk, considering a lot of the people here shell out for an entire new machine just for 10-20% increases in performance.
 
I'd say wait to see what they offer in the fall if you can. The only thing is it's probably not going to be anything major this year so if you need one now you wont be too far behind. Like a previous poster said before me mostlikely there will be a graphics card bump and probably a processor bump as well.

I just bought the 21.5" with the upgraded graphics in February and it's amazing!

Good luck on your purchase
 
thank you all for the reassurance up there! :D
I have been SO TEMPTED to click 'PURCHASE' for the past few days :p

In that case I would wait til fall... though that might mean I would loose the free iTouch 8GB. But I suppose i can live with that. :)

Processor and graphics bump should be worth waiting for... hopefully.

Thanks regardless! xoxo
 
If you do want to buy earlier than the Fall...look into the refurb iMac. You can save hundreds of dollars.
 
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