iMac: Buy or wait?

[rkphoto]

I'm the one that started this thread and I ended up going ahead and getting the 20" iMac and I couldn't be happier with my decision. It's fast, stable (unlike my old iMac), and I love having the large screen size. The work and enjoyment I've gotten from it far outstrip the negligable gains I would have gotten by waiting (probably 4- 6 months) for an update. Good Luck!

rk

 

[The Black Rock]

I'm in this exact same situation. I'm not surprised others are here with me. While it's true that waiting may get you nowhere but to more waiting and disappointment, I think that MacRumors has that buyer's guide up for a reason.

Let's assume that the guide is correct, and that an update is expected by March 12th or so (calculations may vary by a day), if I buy it on that date I'll be at the height of the technology and update cycle. I won't be expecting an update for at least another 193 days or so. More than half a year is fine with me. Getting burned on a purchase because I didn't wait a few days/weeks is not.

Right now I'm looking at getting a 20" iMac G5, Bluetooth built in, Aiproprt built in, Airport extreme base station, a 1 gig RAM stick from Crucial, and Apple care. I see by the cycles that an update is coming. I don't know what may be updated, but I'd rather get the newest than take my chances.

What could be updated? well this was an okay list:

* A standard of 512 mb memory. You can buy it extra.
* A better graphicscard. Unlikely, Apple does not put super fast graphic cards in consumer macs
* Ilife 2005. You kan upgrade the 2004 version for 20 dollar.
* Faster processor. Oeh, 200 more mhz. Like it would make a difference.

I'd add 8x superdrive (so it can finally catch up with the ancient eMac), built in Bluetooth (and 2.0 at that), built in Airport, 1 firewire 800 port, larger HD at same price point.

I'd really, really like a better graphics card. Something with more than 64MB of video RAM, as I feel that's going to be the bare minimum for Core Image in Tiger (and I'll be doing a lot of Photoshop work on the iMac). If I could get standard 512MB RAM in there I'd be able to have 1.5 gigs when add my 1 G stick. 1.5 seems a little better than 1.25. iLife '05 and iWorks '05 would be amazing to get for free, I'm not too concerned with a faster processor so much as with a faster bus, and even that can be compensated for (somewhat) by a better GPU and more RAM.

I'm fine with buying Tiger seperately, in fact for expediency I'd prefer it.

Does anyone else out there speculate on what's going to be coming with the iMac update?

 

[sbb155]

imac is nice... great looking.. but why not get a DP PM? You will be happy with the performance.

Anyway, I think waiting for tiger is the key here... of course if you got the $$ waiting is irrelevant

 

[sjpetry]

😱 Patience is still a virtue no matter how old...

I meant old as in mindset and not age.

 

[HydroMan]

Why wait get it now it works like a dream have no prob's about not having firewire 800, get a power mac if you want fw800

 

[The Black Rock]

imac is nice... great looking.. but why not get a DP PM? You will be happy with the performance.

...get a power mac if you want fw800

I had actually considered getting a PowerMac, but they're too expensive when everything's added up. I'd have to pay for a monitor, and I'd want to get the 20" or 23" Apple Display costing between 1000 and 1800 (they actually costed more than that when I was thinking about them). And once I thought about it I realized I didn't have enough room for a tower and monitor in the room I was going to put it in.

iMac remains the best choice for my needs. Now if they go with any of the updates that I assume they're going to go for, that just makes the iMac that much more attractive, especially at the price point.

I will buy the PowerMac when the iMac pays for itself, and earns me enough to buy one. By that time it'll probably be dual 3.0 Ghz, OS X 10.4.4

 

[Macky-Mac]

whatever happened to the fan noise issue?? In the month or two just after the first of the new iMacs were delivered, it seemed like there were a number of threads posted by people who had problems with their new machines making a huge amount of noise.

It's been a while, are people still having noise problems with new iMacs? or is that something that Apple has fixed?

 

[0s and 1s]

you should have waited. 🙁

 

[jjh5]

same thing

I myself am facing the same issue as described above. From reading this thread I think I am just going to go buy a 20" imac. F-it, I remember they waited over a year during one of the G4 imac revisions. I wouldnt be surprised if they waited until the next mac world to update the imac.

The bad new is that they realistically will bump the imac g5 in the next couple of months.

The good news is that this form factor will be around for a long time...

Obligitory retared confused smiley: 😕

 

[Lancetx]

Maybe it's just a coincedence, but the iMac G5s have suddenly been pushed to 7-10 business days shipping on Apple's online store. When this happened with the PowerBooks recently, we saw an update within that time frame...

 

[aswitcher]

Maybe it's just a coincedence, but the iMac G5s have suddenly been pushed to 7-10 business days shipping on Apple's online store. When this happened with the PowerBooks recently, we saw an update within that time frame...

Well spotted!

Yep, time for an update and here we go...

Bring on thr 128Meg graphics card option, lower prices, bumped CPU speeds, BT 2.0 (standard in 20" please), bigger HDD options, faster DVD?, half gig single stick standard...

 

[The Black Rock]

Also adding that they could add an extra RAM spot on this one to max at 3 or 4 gigs of RAM. I'd love 4, so I can actually take advantage of any 64 bit stuff. Or does the 64 bit stuff work for smaller amounts of RAM now?