Which iMac to get?

[rednano74]

I am getting an iMac probably this weekend. I need to a little help in deciding to get the latest and the greatest or maybe the previous model in the 21.5 inch screen.

The new 21.5 inch with 2.5 ghz quad core i5 for $1199 in store or $1132 at macmall.

or

Previous model with 3.2ghz core i3 for $1075 from macmall that comes with double the space yet weaker video card.

They say the newest mac is 24% faster. How so? I don't do video editing nor do I play video games. I mainly surf, email, play music, youtube, Netflix, personal financing program, and maybe iWorks. Do I really need the latest and the greatest?

Is it worth saving the few bucks and using that money to get Apple Care?

 

[Bearxor]

Honestly, I think you'd have a toss up.

If it were me, I'd buy the newer model. The newer chips are vastly improved, it's a quad as opposed to a dual an it has Thunderbolt. That would be worth the $57 at MacMall, TO ME.

But for your usage, you.ll likely not notice a significant difference. Best upgrade for you would probably be a SSD.

 

[mac-ho]

Get the model you can afford with the most potential. You never know, you might meet a Playmate of the Year, and she Loves to play Video Games!!

 

[zarathu]

I bought the current mid 2011 i5 2.5 ghz model. I've started using iMovie a lot. Where David Pogue in his Missing Manual book(published in April of this year) talks about how you have to wait for quite awhile to get things done, the upgraded GPU and CPU over last year's model makes the waiting very minimal. Also if you get into using Aperture, you will find that it works better.

Not all these apps are fully 4 core aware, but the new model also has a turbo feature built into the chip. This means that if only one core is being used it will boost the core speed to 3.4 ghz. If you are using all four cores like Handbrake does, then you get no boost, but if only two cores then it will speed boost both to about 3.1 ghz. This combined with the way way faster GPU unit makes for a much faster machine.

If you can afford it, I would get the base model of the new series.