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"accordingly" as in profit margins should remain obscene or use old technology? got it.

You seem to be claiming you know what "proper" profit margins should be. Please feel free to discuss that based on your experience as to what Apple's gross and net profit margin is relative to other companies.
 
I'm excited the iMac has been upgraded earlier than expected, since I've been waiting a while to replace my older MBP hooked up to a 24" Dell monitor with a new iMac.

I was planning to get a 21.5 4K, but when I did the math, discovered that the 27" base model with 512 ssd only cost $180 more than the 21.5 with ssd and 16mb (the reasonable minimum unless I want to take it apart, which I don't). For a ram upgrade for the 27" I'd have to shell out, what, an extra $65 down the road? A 27" is a bit overkill for my needs, but for the price difference it's a better computer. Hmm.
 
Very well done Apple. Now give us a modular Mac mini / pro with optional tb3 gpu enclosure
 
Sounds like a good plan. Does anyone know if you can out user home directories on external drives? Early on with OS X it was a problem, but have not tried lately.

Yes you can, you need to create symbolic links to the said directories on the external.

If its only the home folder you'll only need to copy the folder in full and create a Symbolic link to the external drive and delete the old one - pretty easy.

You can do it through the terminal, however I used "Symlinker" to make life easy on myself ;)

In my case I wanted to be more selective and moved my Photos, Docs, Music and Movies and a ton of selected stuff from Library/Application Support (Logic Library, Spotify Cache etc..). to an external drive, whilst keeping the Desktop and Apps folder and most used Application Support files on my SSD.

Also happy to report that a recent re-install of OSX did NOT break the Symbolic links.
 
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"Sure enough, the good people at MR will find something to complain about this, too."

Well, there is one thing. 5400RPM? Still? Amazing.

That was an already known fact, nothing to do with the iFixit article.

(losing faith in humanity)
 
The price tag Macs come with this SHOULD be the bare minimum and if your mother doesn't need it so be it, but by your logic you might as well buy her a Mercedes and claim that she doesn't need the engine it comes with, 80HP is enough after all!

People Still buy the "cheap" models Mercedes as well, without the leather seats, 500BHP engine and other niceties of the high end models. Many folk buy them to save a few bucks, still have the same reliability factor, and of course the "premium" badge.

A 5400 RPM drive will run cooler and quieter and in most cases uses less power, thus more reliable. It also means less fan noise.

Even with a 5400 HDD - the mac is unlikely to feel slow after boot unless she's getting busy editing those wedding night videos in FCP.

To Someone who knows nothing about computers its gonna be a pain explaining that you need to "clean" or move stuff off a teeny weeny SSD every so often.
 
Does the 27 inch model have the small door on the back for upgrading RAM?

Who sells the most reliable RAM at a good price?

There are really only 3 major DRAM vendors left, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. Neither Samsung or Hynix will sell directly to you, they'll go through re-sellers, or sell DRAM to large module houses like Kingston et al. Micron however, have Crucial. My thoughts have always been - buy direct and avoid dodgy wafer lots that are sold off to brokers or third parties.
 
There are really only 3 major DRAM vendors left, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. Neither Samsung or Hynix will sell directly to you, they'll go through re-sellers, or sell DRAM to large module houses like Kingston et al. Micron however, have Crucial. My thoughts have always been - buy direct and avoid dodgy wafer lots that are sold off to brokers or third parties.

You can buy Samsung and Hynix via Amazon. Crucial or GSkill however is the only Ram I would use in a Mac, neither have ever ever failed me, I have 2 dead sticks of Hynix sitting in the junk drawer though.

Kingston is a complete no-no. Any time I've ever seen it tried by colleagues or that time I bought it myself (once!) the machine was plagued with Random Shutdowns & Kernel panics despite all the specs saying it should work a charm. The same memory DID work fine in a windows machine (I'd probably not notice the freezing or blue screens anyhow though).
 
Noise and power efficiency would be my guess. They make upgrade it to a 7200 RPM drive in the future, charging a bit more or less, or it allows them to convert more people to SSD. The leap between a 5400 RPM drive and PCIE SSD is huge. So is the price difference.

This is a desktop machine, power efficiency shouldn't be as a concern as a laptop. Additional heat - that may be an issue considering the form of the machine - but that would be marginal 5400 vs 7200rpm.
 
Sounds like a good plan. Does anyone know if you can out user home directories on external drives? Early on with OS X it was a problem, but have not tried lately.

Yes you can, you need to create symbolic links to the said directories on the external.

If its only the home folder you'll only need to copy the folder in full and create a Symbolic link to the external drive and delete the old one - pretty easy.

You can do it through the terminal, however I used "Symlinker" to make life easy on myself ;)

In my case I wanted to be more selective and moved my Photos, Docs, Music and Movies and a ton of selected stuff from Library/Application Support (Logic Library, Spotify Cache etc..). to an external drive, whilst keeping the Desktop and Apps folder and most used Application Support files on my SSD.

Also happy to report that a recent re-install of OSX did NOT break the Symbolic links.

Open System Preferences, next Users and Groups, click the padlock and input password, right click or option click on your user account, a popup shows up with advanced options, one of them is :change your Home Directory.
 
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The only two things that are replaceable on the mainboard are the CPU and RAM. CPU's practically never fail. RAM, more so, but even RAM is very reliable nowadays. There are so many other components (fan, hard disk or SSD, GPU, power supply) that are more prone to failure.

I don't understand all the hoopla about this being upgradeable. All the work to get into it, the chances of damaging something during the process...it's not really upgradeable. No one will want to void their warranty the first 1-3 years, so no upgrades during that time...I just don't see this as "upgradeable" except for the brave few that don't care about warranties or those with the skills to do it.

the point is that you probably will not be needing to upgrade in the first year-3rd year.

think about buying a 16gb, i7 Right now, and by the time 3-5 years comes around its really starting to slow down, do you really want to spend another 2-3k on a new computer when you can swap in some new RAM and a New CPU and buy yourself another 2-3 years?
the longest warranty with apple(if you buy applecare) is only 3 years, so when you hit year 3, your computers slowing down and you actually know what you are doing, whats to stop you from replacing what parts you can?

its like a car. if my car has a 10 year warranty, and its now year 11 and my Engine/clutch/radiator/ETC are failing, and i know how to and have the tools to replace them, why would I Not do it? id rather spend 1-2k to replace them and get another 50-100k miles then spend another 20-30k on a new car.
Spending several thousand < spending a few hundred.
 
You seem to be claiming you know what "proper" profit margins should be. Please feel free to discuss that based on your experience as to what Apple's gross and net profit margin is relative to other companies.

You seem to be claiming that I claimed something I didn't claim. I feel free in fact, hence my comment. I'm sure for stockholders, mechanic drives in 2017 & 480px cam on macbooks must be "proper" profit, maybe they don't video-conference that much anyways.
 
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i don't understand splitting hairs over hdd vs ssd

if you want to run this from a ssd don't open it up.

instead use a ssd with the capacity of your choice in an external USB 3.0 enclosure.

use the internal hdd for data if more space is needed (or as backup)
 
“[...], an upgradeable iMac is a big shift in direction from Apple. The last 21.5-inch iMac with expandable memory was the 2013 model, while the last to include a modular CPU came in 2012. iFixit speculates that the change to a socketed processor may be because Intel's desktop class Kaby Lake line-up currently lacks any permanently mountable chips, but it's conceivable Apple could have requested one if it so chose.”

Don’t know... Any chance this may indicate that Coffee Lake may come to the iMac (perhaps alongside the iMac Pro, in December)?
 
5400rpm although surprising is not all bad news. The slower rotation rate could prolong life of the Drive. For example a Western Digital Caviar Green although recommended for storage performs more than adequately as a system drive whilst cool and almost silent. One would assume Apple have opted to stick with 5400rpm for this reason. Although Fusion Drive is an option the technology is yet to be proven longevity wise. 7200rpm would be desirable but once an application is open and running the difference between the speeds is not as noticeable. This will be also be improved by the Kaby Lake Processor along with the stock 8gb RAM. Would like to have seen have seen a RAM access hatch as is on the 27" model.
This however is the first 21.5" iMac that I have found remotely interesting since the Low Profile design was initiated in 2012 and would run superbly off an external Thunderbolt 3 SSD.

Time to get saving.
 
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