Will I be happy with a iMac?

[dimme]

I currently have a DC G5 2.3 with 2.5 gigs of ram. I want to upgrade to a intel machine so I can also run windows for flight simulator X . On the mac side I run Abobe creative suite 3 mostly running Photoshop. I also have a MBP 2.4, which runs Photoshop and Flight Simulator very well, but after a few hours it gets very hot. I like having a Desktop along with a laptop. My question for 24” iMac owners will I be happy with the performance and are there any heat issues? Also is it easy to add ram or am I stuck with expensive Apple ram? Thanks

 

[netdog]

RAM is easy to add. I would have said you would feel great about CS3 on an iMac until I started using a friend's Mac Pro. Now another friend's 24" iMac seems almost sluggish in comparison.

 

[MrGeePee]

Ram is incredibly easy to install.

Just screw the lid off and slot the new RAM in. Takes a couple of minutes.

 

[Rustman]

RAM is easy to add. I would have said you would feel great about CS3 on an iMac until I started using a friend's Mac Pro. Now another friend's 24" iMac seems almost sluggish in comparison.

I'm interested to know what you consider sluggish in the CS3 suite. How much RAM does it have and what apps are running?

In my experience of the two, the launching is quicker (faster processor and hard drive), but unless you are doing some serious filter work in Photoshop, I've found CPU drainers like filters and Live Effects in Illustrator work a treat.

Bear in mind that the Mac Pro does cost around twice the price of an iMac, too.

 

[ivan1234]

i think the imac will meet all your needs just fine 😱

 

[Cave Man]

On the mac side I run Abobe creative suite 3 mostly running Photoshop.

How do you like glossy displays? For me, I'd never get an AliMac for this reason alone. Even though it has an S-IPS panel, the glossy is a deal-breaker for critical photo work for me, and only one calibrator (Spyder) works reasonably well with the glossys (unless Huey et al. have updated their colorimeters).

 

[Mac6272]

Please Do No Tmake This Mistake Buy A Macmini If You Really Want A Mac Its The Only One Worth Buying All New Imacs Are Built Horribly Beware Read My Post You Dont Want To Go What I Went Through

 

[Killyp]

You'll be happy with an iMac, believe me.

I've seen one inside, and they're beautifully built, much better built than the MacMini, more on par with a MacPro, just on a smaller scale.

 

[Mac6272]

You seriously should jsut wait for the mac pro update and buy one of those you will be way happier.

 

[chenley]

If you're happy with the MBP performance, I'm sure you'll be very happy with an iMac. It's the fastest and smoothest-operating computer I've ever had, much snappier than my dual-core Pentium 3.0GHz Vista PC in day-to-day use.

Adding RAM is cheap and easy. Just buy good name-brand Kingston or Crucial RAM for under $50/GB. Adding a single 1GB stick is enough for most tasks. Don't get the low-end 20" if you care about 3D performance at all, it's got an inferior Radeon 2400 graphics chip. The mid-range 20" and 24" have a nice mid-range 2600 PRO (actually a lower-clocked 2600XT). And the 24" screen is clearly superior. I have the 20" and the brightness is uneven from top to bottom, but I don't notice it most of the time (web surfing, using iTunes, playing games). The 20" screen is bright, clear, and sharp though, especially after calibration which is almost a necessity. If you do a fair bit of photo editing or graphics work, I'd get the 24".

And don't listen to Mac6272, he had all sorts of condensation problems with his iMacs. He's either extremely unlucky or lives in the middle of a swamp. Perhaps both.

 

[Mac6272]

If you're happy with the MBP performance, I'm sure you'll be very happy with an iMac. It's the fastest and smoothest-operating computer I've ever had, much snappier than my dual-core Pentium 3.0GHz Vista PC in day-to-day use.

Adding RAM is cheap and easy. Just buy good name-brand Kingston or Crucial RAM for under $50/GB. Adding a single 1GB stick is enough for most tasks. Don't get the low-end 20" if you care about 3D performance at all, it's got an inferior Radeon 2400 graphics chip. The mid-range 20" and 24" have a nice mid-range 2600 PRO (actually a lower-clocked 2600XT). And the 24" screen is clearly superior. I have the 20" and the brightness is uneven from top to bottom, but I don't notice it most of the time (web surfing, using iTunes, playing games). The 20" screen is bright, clear, and sharp though, especially after calibration which is almost a necessity. If you do a fair bit of photo editing or graphics work, I'd get the 24".

And don't listen to Mac6272, he had all sorts of condensation problems with his iMacs. He's either extremely unlucky or lives in the middle of a swamp. Perhaps both.

This is why this community is a joke sometimes like how far did apple shove that stick up your ass for you to love them this much?? They must of hit a softspot with you 😀 Dont buy a crappy iMac read the reviews dont listen to these guys here they'll defend apple till the death or until the same **** happens to them beleive me i was one of you fanboys just until a couple days ago 😉

Save the hassle and buy a macmini or a pc. This quad core HP i bought blows the imac out of the water.

 

[heatmiser]

And don't listen to Mac6272, he had all sorts of condensation problems with his iMacs. He's either extremely unlucky or lives in the middle of a swamp. Perhaps both.

This is part of that pathological denial I was referring to in the "condensation" thread. To the OP, I would *strongly* advise researching your purchase before going ahead with it. For the amount of money you're about to spend, you could buy a top of the line PC with a reliable manufacturer and a solid warranty. Don't buy an iMac before thinking about it, and taking the defects into consideration. You aren't going to find much support here if things go wrong, and the situation won't be any better with Apple.

 

[jsw]

Thank you, Mac6272, for your insightful and well-written replies to the OP.

Anyway, I have a 24" 2.8GHz iMac with trial versions of CS3 installed (we've ordered the full set, but they've yet to arrive).

Performance is quite good, and I expect the jump from 2GB to 4GB to really open things up. The glossy screen isn't an issue, but that depends enormously on what your lighting situation is. A Mac Pro, especially one which will likely be announced in a few weeks, will trounce the iMac under heavy loads, I suppose, but I've not seen any problems. Admittedly, I'm still learning how to use it and am not a power user. But... I think you'll find it's an excellent system for the price, and it's a lot less of a presence in the room than the MP.

 

[Mac6272]

This is part of that pathological denial I was referring to in the "condensation" thread. To the OP, I would *strongly* advise researching your purchase before going ahead with it. For the amount of money you're about to spend, you could buy a top of the line PC with a reliable manufacturer and a solid warranty. Don't buy an iMac before thinking about it, and taking the defects into consideration. You aren't going to find much support here if things go wrong, and the situation won't be any better with Apple.

BUMP , SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY KNOWS APPLE AND THEIR COMMUNITY!

ITS SILLY TO READ IMAC REVIEWS HERE ALL THESE FANBOY ARE GONNA TALK ABOUT HOW NICE IT IS AND HOW UGLY THE DELL XPS IS THIS COMMUNITY IS A JOKE IF YOUR LOOKING FOR HONEST REVIEWS, READ AROUND GOOGLE TYPE "IMAC SCREEN ISSUES" AND SEE FOR YOURSELF THE HORROR, ALSO WHATS FUNNY IS APPLE KEEP DELETING MY POST ABOUT THIS, FUNNY SEEM LIKE THEY DONT WANT THERE CUSTOMERS TO KNOW HOW BAD THEY'RE REALLY GETTING.

 

[jsw]

Again, thank you, Mac6272. I think leaving in your posts will likely do more to convince people that the opposite is true than deleting them. But, by all means, please continue to post in all-caps and use homonyms instead of the correct words.

 

[chenley]

This is why this community is a joke sometimes like how far did apple shove that stick up your ass for you to love them this much?? They must of hit a softspot with you 😀 Dont buy a crappy iMac read the reviews dont listen to these guys here they'll defend apple till the death or until the same **** happens to them beleive me i was one of you fanboys just until a couple days ago 😉

Save the hassle and buy a macmini or a pc. This quad core HP i bought blows the imac out of the water.

Seriously, if you care about the user experience, Macs are generally nicer than PCs, and worth a small price premium. If you want something cheap and fast and don't mind a clunky operating system, get a Windows PC.

My iMac is fast, quiet, reliable, affordable, takes up very little space, and looks awesome. There are some bad iMacs out there, but it's a small minority. Plenty of people are very happy with their iMacs, and I'm pretty sure it's not due to any sticks up their bums 😉

 

[Rustman]

How to troll

1) Join a community and immediately berate their main interest.
2) Have extreme polarized opinions that are opined as fact despite any obvious ignorance.
3) Ensure your factual opinions are communicated with as little clarity as possible by inventing your own sentence and paragraph structures.
4) Rinse, repeat.

 

[Squonk]

You seriously should jsut wait for the mac pro update and buy one of those you will be way happier.

Or, wait for the MacPro's to be updated and then pick up a previous generation refurb for even cheaper...

I'd think an iMac would do you just fine. I'd imagine that Apple designed the iMac to be able to handle the heat generated by running the CPU at full power.

 

[ryannel2003]

BUMP , SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY KNOWS APPLE AND THEIR COMMUNITY!

ITS SILLY TO READ IMAC REVIEWS HERE ALL THESE FANBOY ARE GONNA TALK ABOUT HOW NICE IT IS AND HOW UGLY THE DELL XPS IS THIS COMMUNITY IS A JOKE IF YOUR LOOKING FOR HONEST REVIEWS, READ AROUND GOOGLE TYPE "IMAC SCREEN ISSUES" AND SEE FOR YOURSELF THE HORROR, ALSO WHATS FUNNY IS APPLE KEEP DELETING MY POST ABOUT THIS, FUNNY SEEM LIKE THEY DONT WANT THERE CUSTOMERS TO KNOW HOW BAD THEY'RE REALLY GETTING.

Haha, this guy is a real joke. The funny part, he went on the Apple Discussions website and posted the same thing he posted right here at MR. That post was deleted so quick I didn't even have time to reply. So yeah, go the hell away.

Btw, I have a previous gen 17" iMac and it's been fabulous. So, as i'm pretty sure you have already figured out, the iMac is a great machine.

 

[Mac6272]

Seriously, if you care about the user experience, Macs are generally nicer than PCs, and worth a small price premium. If you want something cheap and fast and don't mind a clunky operating system, get a Windows PC.

My iMac is fast, quiet, reliable, affordable, takes up very little space, and looks awesome. There are some bad iMacs out there, but it's a small minority. Plenty of people are very happy with their iMacs, and I'm pretty sure it's not due to any sticks up their bums 😉

I honestly thought vista sucked too till actually used unlike my imac that froze 20 times within the first week of buying it this bastard hasnt froze once, the only reason windows sucks is because all viruses are writen for them since no on e uses Macs due to their share ammount of problems and gaming deficiency's 😛

Think about it 10% marketshare or 90% marketshare i think vista is actually more secure too, since apple has a habbit of releasing updates that crash their computers, woot another point for apple going down the *******!

You guys talk all this **** but please understand i know jsut as much about apple and computers as you people too. Apple isnt god Microsoft is and they will always be, doesnt it suck to hear that guys???

MICROSOFT OWNS APPLE , THE FACT IS APPLE WILL NEVER GATHER ENOUGH MONEY FROM THEIR OVER PRICED POS COMPUTERS TO TAKE OVER MICROSOFT SORRY FELLAS.

BILL GATES WINS AGAIN 😛 WHILE STEVE CRYS AT HIS OFFICE DESK!

 

[Mac6272]

Its so funny how many people i piss of in here by saying apple sucks its like you guys would blow steve jobs if you could.

 

[ryannel2003]

I honestly thought vista sucked too till actually used unlike my imac that froze 20 times within the first week of buying it this bastard hasnt froze once, the only reason windows sucks is because all viruses are writen for them since no on e uses Macs due to their share ammount of problems and gaming deficiency's 😛

Think about it 10% marketshare or 90% marketshare i think vista is actually more secure too, since apple has a habbit of releasing updates that crash their computers, woot another point for apple going down the *******!

You guys talk all this **** but please understand i know jsut as much about apple and computers as you people too. Apple isnt god Microsoft is and they will always be, doesnt it suck to hear that guys???

MICROSOFT OWNS APPLE , THE FACT IS APPLE WILL NEVER GATHER ENOUGH MONEY FROM THEIR OVER PRICED POS COMPUTERS TO TAKE OVER MICROSOFT SORRY FELLAS.

BILL GATES WINS AGAIN 😛 WHILE STEVE CRYS AT HIS OFFICE DESK!

Wait, so MICROSOFT IS GOD? Oh man, I really need to figure out who I'm following now...

 

[chenley]

Its so funny how many people i piss of in here by saying apple sucks its like you guys would blow steve jobs if you could.

Well you're not pissing me off. Your posts are mildly amusing and entertaining, but also filled with bias and over-generalization that I don't like to see going unchallenged.

We get it - there are some bad Macs out there (just like there are bad PCs), but according to every customer satisfaction study I've seen recently, as well as anecdotal reports from friends and forums, Apple makes some of the best computers in the world, and no amount of incoherent rambling is going to change that.

Enjoy your new PC (seriously, I have a PC too and it kicks butt for gaming), I hope it eventually makes you less grumpy than your iMac did 😀

 

[mini/mac]

I use Photoshop CS3 Extended and it works like a charm. Ram would of course speed it up, and it's worth it. 😀

 

[wazgilbert]

Its so funny how many people i piss of in here by saying apple sucks its like you guys would blow steve jobs if you could.