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The price of waiting .

N

nyprospect

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 3, 2004
451
0
Hi guys.I am close to making the switch to apple for life.I do have a question about leopard.It looks sharper and than vista and if i wanted vista i could have had it.I have not had a mac thus have not been able to utilize tiger.Should i wait until leopard is "unleashed"? or do i go a head and purchase the imac or mini with leopard.Any one have a mac mini and is actually proud of it :D.thanks again
 
Yeah, I've got a G4 Mac Mini that I think is great. I don't use it day to day, but I've set it up as a server so I periodically go in via VNC and muck with it. Great form factor. The one limitation is the graphics, which will only bite you if you're a gamer.

As far as wait or buy, it's mostly a question of how badly you need it and how much and extra $130 matters to you. Basically, waiting until October will give you Leopard installed, buying now will give you Tiger (a fine OS, mind you) and you'll have to shell out the $130 if you want to move to Leopard.

I don't expect any new hardware announcements between now and Leopard, but that's just a guess on my part. If you value stability above all else, then getting Tiger now might be better for you. If you've got your heart set on Leopard and want to save the money, wait for October.

Unlike Windows, I've never had a problem updating the OS. I've gone through at least 2, probably 3 major releases without doing a clean install. I've even changed machines once, and after a couple hours of data transfer over FireWire the new desktop looked just like the old. So your decision should be based on the other concerns I mention above, not on the pain involved in updating the OS.
 
ok for me... i would buy the mac RIGHT NOW!!! i wouldnt bother waiting.

i would then wait until leopard 10.5.1 is released, there will be a TON of updates and fixes, i wont be running 10.5.0 (at least as my main syste,) because simply it might not be stable enough and optimised enough.

i will also be waiting and buying it at about 10.5.1 because so i can then install it on my other macs (4 in total).
so yea, im waiting
 
Pretty much like what everyone else would tell you around here, if you need one right now, then go and get it. If you can wait, wait. Basically if you do go out and get a new mac right now, when leopard comes out you'll not only have to shell out $129 for Leopard itself but $99 for iLife 08 as well. iLife comes with the machines, not the OS so there's something to think about.
 
If you are going to get a Mini, wait for Santa Rosa. The place where SR makes anything like a significant difference at this point is in terms of graphics. The difference between the x3100 and the current GM950 is over-rated, but still the 950 will limit the Mini's useful life-span to some degree. If you want to get an iMac, I'd go ahead and get it now. Great machine despite my reservations about the glass reflections.
 
darkcurse said:
Basically if you do go out and get a new mac right now, when leopard comes out you'll not only have to shell out $129 for Leopard itself but $99 for iLife 08 as well. iLife comes with the machines, not the OS so there's something to think about.
Click to expand...

iLife 08 is already out, so that will come with the machine whether e buys it now or later.
 
yeah, all that and tiger really sucks, compared to??? buy and enjoy, you'll thank me in the morning. leopard is a cute little dangly-sparkly thing hanging at the end of a lot of these threads. personally, i'm gonna wait out the hype and not run ass-over teakettle to adopt. i have a pre-santa rosa laptop, for once i think i was smart....
 
nyprospect said:
Any one have a mac mini and is actually proud of it
Click to expand...

Yes. I bought the Mac Mini when it was first introduced. It was (and is) a fantastic machine. It ws also my first Mac. On the back of my experiences with the Mini I switched over to using Macs exclusively at home (my day job I still use Windows, but I have a choice at home). I pushed the Mini to the limit and ended up getting a Mac Pro, but the Mini was still an excelent first step. A number of friends and family were very impressed and have bough into the Mini too.

I had the chance to use the latest Mini at the new Glasgow Apple store. The move to an Intel processor and a base configuration of 1GB of memory make it far better than my old G4 1.42 GHs model. No surprise that it matches my MacBook - given the two share many of the same components.

As for waiting... If the Mini and iMac had not just been upgraded I would had said wait for sure. But as it has, I doubt we will see another hardware update this year. If you can wait 12 weeks I would say wait. If you want to taste some of that Apple goodness now (with the knowledge that Tiger is now a mature OS with most of the kinks worked out) then go for it.

If it were me - I'd wait.

But then I have all these lovely Apple products to play with in the mean-time :D
 
MacsAttack said:
Yes. I bought the Mac Mini when it was first introduced. It was (and is) a fantastic machine. It ws also my first Mac. On the back of my experiences with the Mini I switched over to using Macs exclusively at home (my day job I still use Windows, but I have a choice at home). I pushed the Mini to the limit and ended up getting a Mac Pro, but the Mini was still an excelent first step. A number of friends and family were very impressed and have bough into the Mini too.

I had the chance to use the latest Mini at the new Glasgow Apple store. The move to an Intel processor and a base configuration of 1GB of memory make it far better than my old G4 1.42 GHs model. No surprise that it matches my MacBook - given the two share many of the same components.

As for waiting... If the Mini and iMac had not just been upgraded I would had said wait for sure. But as it has, I doubt we will see another hardware update this year. If you can wait 12 weeks I would say wait. If you want to taste some of that Apple goodness now (with the knowledge that Tiger is now a mature OS with most of the kinks worked out) then go for it.

If it were me - I'd wait.

But then I have all these lovely Apple products to play with in the mean-time :D
Click to expand...
Wow great post.Thanks for the advice guys.One reason i would purchase a mac right now is because i never had the chance to try tiger.Other than that i may wait.thanks again
 
I would wait for leopard man... Leopard will pretty much have everything Tiger has and then some new features.

If you want to try Tiger I would go to an Apple Store or ask a friend.


One thing I don't get is people saying it is better to wait for a later version of leopard. Might be a bad idea if this computer was being used in a professional environment, but if this is a personal computer who cares if there are a few minor bugs?

Apple would not release an OS that is falling apart and unstable...

Just my opinion.
 
I ordered my iMac yesterday with this question in my mind... well, I decided that tiger will let me get used to the OS before jumping into the deep end with Leopard and all it's new features. Of course, I'm not implying that Leopard will be hard to get used to, but an understanding of Tiger will help, I'm sure!

Anyway, I'll be buying Leopard at christmas. That way, all the early bugs will have been ruled out (If they haven't been before release!) and I'll be able to see user feedback on it. I've heard it's great, though!

Still, I recommend doing what I'm doing. It just seems easier than waiting with some dodgy PC for 2 months while you wait for a new operating system which might not work that well (Not that I doubt Leopard!)
 
BlakTornado said:
I ordered my iMac yesterday with this question in my mind... well, I decided that tiger will let me get used to the OS before jumping into the deep end with Leopard and all it's new features. Of course, I'm not implying that Leopard will be hard to get used to, but an understanding of Tiger will help, I'm sure!

Anyway, I'll be buying Leopard at christmas. That way, all the early bugs will have been ruled out (If they haven't been before release!) and I'll be able to see user feedback on it. I've heard it's great, though!

Still, I recommend doing what I'm doing. It just seems easier than waiting with some dodgy PC for 2 months while you wait for a new operating system which might not work that well (Not that I doubt Leopard!)
Click to expand...

i completely second that Blaky. that way alot of the bugs would have been smoothed out. i shall be doing this (probably when 10.5.1 is released)
 
netdog said:
If you are going to get a Mini, wait for Santa Rosa. The place where SR makes anything like a significant difference at this point is in terms of graphics. The difference between the x3100 and the current GM950 is over-rated, but still the 950 will limit the Mini's useful life-span to some degree. If you want to get an iMac, I'd go ahead and get it now. Great machine despite my reservations about the glass reflections.
Click to expand...

It has been a while since i logged on to this great forum.Please inform me about Santa rosa chips and the mini.Will apple actually attempt to keep the mini afloat?Also i have an acer lcd and its glossy.As far as looking at my ugly mug in a reflection its fine to me:p.Thanks again for the advice.
 
nyprospect said:
It has been a while since i logged on to this great forum.Please inform me about Santa rosa chips and the mini.Will apple actually attempt to keep the mini afloat?Also i have an acer lcd and its glossy.As far as looking at my ugly mug in a reflection its fine to me:p.Thanks again for the advice.
Click to expand...

to tell you the truth there really arent alot of rumors on this. people have been saying they will discontinue the mini. i dont think they will, but im not aware of any rumors of updates... it was updated just a while go afterall.(same time as the imacs)
 
yep

yeah, i have a mac mini, and i am proud of it, but its a bit embarresing showing it off to people, because its a pretty slow machine :) im upgrading soon... so maybe im not proud of my mini, i dont know, at the very least i love it :eek:
 
big.birdd said:
yeah, i have a mac mini, and i am proud of it, but its a bit embarresing showing it off to people, because its a pretty slow machine :) im upgrading soon... so maybe im not proud of my mini, i dont know, at the very least i love it :eek:
Click to expand...

Lol.Man the mini is cool right? Hmm im leaning on the imac.Be proud of that mini lol
 
big.birdd said:
yeah, i have a mac mini, and i am proud of it, but its a bit embarresing showing it off to people, because its a pretty slow machine :) im upgrading soon... so maybe im not proud of my mini, i dont know, at the very least i love it :eek:
Click to expand...

Don't diss the Mini! I got 18 months of productive work out of mine - running the CS2 suite and doing freelance work. In the end I has 2Tb of storage hanging off the firewire port and a DTV receiver feeding me TV. At which point I decided the time had come to move up the a Mac Pro.

From what I've seen, the current Mini is a big improvment over the one I had - and it turned out to be the most productive machine I had ever owned (well - i'm startig to push the Pro a bit now).
 
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