I have been eying the Apple refurb store for the past year! Finally made a move when the late 2012 iMac 27 inch went up for sale in the refurb store last week. I have the "base" model 27 inch, but have in the mail another 8 gig of ram (purchased via third party supplier), which will bring me to 16 gig. Good for my photography and multitasking needs. I also grabbed a LeCie 3TB Porsche Design (P'9233) external HD on sale for $150, which I might add, looks pretty slick on my desk next to the iMac!
I am on a bit of a limited budget, but after having the system arrive (and loving it), I am having a bit of regret. I am thinking I should have shelled out the extra cash for a Fusion drive, and possibly a video card upgrade (there were a few more powerful versions of my system in the refurb store when I got this one). I got so excited about seeing the new 27 inch, I just jumped on it without thinking it through. I find if you think too much about a refurb, it will usually disappear.I have always built my own Windows based systems from scratch, and not having the ability to open this thing up is already bothering me! I really wish I could pop in an upgraded video card to enhance gaming, and the Fusion drive would have been a sweet addition. I will likely wait a year or so, and try to pick up a 1 TB SSD, and hook it up via Thunderbolt....or once the warranty has expired, I may attempt to crack this thing open myself, and add an internal SSD. I thought about returning and exchanging for an upgrade, but I don't want to go through the hassle of doing so now (unless they would allow me to return to local Apple store), so I'll likely keep it as is. Not that this is a bad thing, it's a sweet sweet machine....I just have Fusion / Video envy, and hankering to take a look at the guts of this system. My inner computer nerd is....well, no longer in hiding.
I had a high end 27, now have a base 27 refurb... For what I use it for, the base will suffice for me. I go back and forth what's really worth it as far as the hard drive, video card etc...So just using this base 27, so far it's proved to be just fine for what I would use it for. Web surf, email, look through photos/vids, light gaming. Would a 675mx be much better than the 660m, I don't really know. I understand about the CUDA cores, video ram and all that, but my experience with the computer is 95% looking at web pages. For $1529, you can't get a mini and thunderbolt display for that, and you get a video card.
I still have time to return it...Still thinking about waiting for Haswell Macbook Pro, but I have an Air from work and my own iPad and Touch for other uses. Do like the retina screen, but having this 27" screen is pretty cool. Still thinking about it...
BTW...returning is easy. They'll just have a USPS label for you to put on the box and just bring it to the post office if you want to return it.
Oh, and I'm thinking about external SSD or open it up and install a 512 ssd. I would like to tackle opening it up and installing the drive. Was tough not building my own this round...
