I upgraded from my trusty 1Ghz eMac (which I've used for 2 years) to the 20" iMac 2.1Ghz G5 a month ago. Needless to say, I'm just thrilled with this purchase! It's the best Mac I've owned yet.
I also got the bonus of upgrading from Panther to Tiger. Overall everything has been a tremendous improvement: a larger high resolution widescreen LCD, quieter fans (the eMac sounded like a blasted vacuum cleaner at times), 2-3 times speed boost, bigger hard drive, USB 2.0, and W I D G E T S ! ! !
I held off buying the iMac because it looked blocky and wobbly on it's stand. But with this latest iMac (and the Intel Duo Core) Apple slimmed it down and now the iMac looks sleek and elegant. Unfortunately the tradeoff is that it's no longer easy to open up the back for upgrades. Now instead of being able to easily upgrade my internal hard drive from 250GB to 500GB, I'll have to settle for an external drive. But that's no big deal.
I went to the Apple Store before purchasing and checked out the iMac Intel Duo Core. Not bad, but I was not impressed by the speed, especially after having just played with the impressive PowerMac Quad
I tried running Word and it was a dog on the Intel machine. Taking into consideration that it will be a while before the all the major apps I use are converted to Universal Binary and that it will cost big bucks to upgrade, I think this iMac G5 is the perfect purchase. Maybe this time next year I'll think about upgrading. I hope Apple decides to build an iMac Intel Quad machine - that would be smokin'.
I'm absolutely sold on Apple products. As long as they keep delivering their trademark style, quality and value I'll be coming back for more. By the way, I'm still waiting for my $150 rebate check from Amazon
