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opinions...?

post #1 of 2
5/12/11 at 6:59am
Thread Starter 
a few quick questions re the new iMac that i was hoping people would weigh in - my apologies for the rather mundane questions...

i am considering moving to a desktop finally from my MBP after years without for the purposes of photo editing, possible graphics/design uses, etc... i will still keep on the MBP upgrade train in the future, so its not necessarily a substitution....

my intention is to get the uber-acessorized iMac 27"... totally around $2600+ i expect with tax (academic pricing). i was curious as to peoples' opinion as to whether to get an SSD drive - i was already planning on getting a 2TB HD. my assumption is that i will leave it on standby most of the time and its not worth the xtra $500 or so and thats really bringing the price to an uncomfortable level.

also - any opinions as to which keyboard to buy - is the wireless any less comfortable?

my plan is to boost the RAM to 16gigs from OWC since it is cheaper - any negatives there?

last - any reason to buy a third party 2 or 3 TB (i cant imagine needing 3!) over getting it stock from the applestore?

thanks

HW
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post #2 of 2
5/14/11 at 5:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by shapirob@ucla.edu View Post

a few quick questions re the new iMac that i was hoping people would weigh in - my apologies for the rather mundane questions...

i am considering moving to a desktop finally from my MBP after years without for the purposes of photo editing, possible graphics/design uses, etc... i will still keep on the MBP upgrade train in the future, so its not necessarily a substitution....

my intention is to get the uber-acessorized iMac 27"... totally around $2600+ i expect with tax (academic pricing). i was curious as to peoples' opinion as to whether to get an SSD drive - i was already planning on getting a 2TB HD. my assumption is that i will leave it on standby most of the time and its not worth the xtra $500 or so and thats really bringing the price to an uncomfortable level.

also - any opinions as to which keyboard to buy - is the wireless any less comfortable?

my plan is to boost the RAM to 16gigs from OWC since it is cheaper - any negatives there?

last - any reason to buy a third party 2 or 3 TB (i cant imagine needing 3!) over getting it stock from the applestore?

thanks

HW

Shapiro,

1 - The appeal of the BTO SSD is impacted by the fact that it takes much longer to ship, it's relatively expensive when compared to other options, and that it doesn't really profit from Intel's fast caching technology - besides, with two TB ports you'll have plenty of possibilities for fast SSD storage at a later stage;

2 - I use the wireless keyboard since I hate having cords around - but many people prefer the wired one with keypad, which also does not depend on any batteries (although Apple's batteries are really good; I replace mine once a month or even less);

3 - Most people say that 3rd-party RAM is as good as Apple's and MUCH cheaper - Kingston or OWC tend to get very good reviews anyway;

4 - Apple does NOT support 3rd-party replacements for the internal HD (which is now even locked out by proprietary firmware). As for external HDs, the main reason for buying them is to use Time Machine and have enough space for media and backups. You should just get the 1Tb or 2Tb internal HD with Apple, and then invest in an external HD of at least the same size or higher (why not wait for the TB ones coming later this summer?).

Hope this helps!

iMac Intel 27" Core i7 3.4, 16Gb RAM, 120GB SSD + 3TB HD, Nuforce Icon HDP, OS X 10.8.2; iPad 3 64GB; iPhone 5 32GB; iPod Classic; iPod Nano 4G; Apple TV.

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iMac Intel 27" Core i7 3.4, 16Gb RAM, 120GB SSD + 3TB HD, Nuforce Icon HDP, OS X 10.8.2; iPad 3 64GB; iPhone 5 32GB; iPod Classic; iPod Nano 4G; Apple TV.

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