Looks good. I do professional work on an old iMac G5 and a unibody MacBook, so this new iMac should kick ass. I am going to upgrade myself when the next iMac revision comes. I want the rumored 28/30" iMac!
I would just make sure your work is constantly backed up on one of your external drives. That way if you iMac ever does need to go in for service, you can still use someone else's computer to continue doing your work.
Also, if you get an external hard drive, make sure it has multiple ports on it. So in other words, don't get just a USB 2.0 drive. I would get one that has USB 2, FW400, and FW800. That way you're not stuck only using one output. For example if you get a USB or FW only drive and you have to use a computer that doesn't have USB or FW on it or all of the ports are used and not able to be disconnected, well you're screwed! It just gives you more flexibility.
One last note...I wouldn't hesitate to get AppleCare for it. Some people will say you don't need it. As a college student you also don't need the logicboard or some other expensive part to die 2yrs from now and have to fork out $900-$1200 to get it fixed. If you have AppleCare, it covers everything that came with the iMac for a total of 3yrs (including the 1yr that comes with it). You have until the initial warranty runs out to get AppleCare. However, you MUST buy it BEFORE the original 1yr warranty expires. If you wait any longer, you're SOL for getting it enrolled on your iMac.
I just bought that very same setup on Saturday. This is my first mac, but I'm already in love with it. I do web-development / photography / video-editing so the mac just made sense to me.
Comments
Thank you all for your responses.
I ended up going with...
24" iMac
2.93 GHz
4GB Ram
640GB Hard Drive
NVidia GeForce 120
Wired Mighty mouse and numaric keyboard
It should be coming hopefully sometime next week.
Looks good. I do professional work on an old iMac G5 and a unibody MacBook, so this new iMac should kick ass. I am going to upgrade myself when the next iMac revision comes. I want the rumored 28/30" iMac!
Also, if you get an external hard drive, make sure it has multiple ports on it. So in other words, don't get just a USB 2.0 drive. I would get one that has USB 2, FW400, and FW800. That way you're not stuck only using one output. For example if you get a USB or FW only drive and you have to use a computer that doesn't have USB or FW on it or all of the ports are used and not able to be disconnected, well you're screwed! It just gives you more flexibility.
One last note...I wouldn't hesitate to get AppleCare for it. Some people will say you don't need it. As a college student you also don't need the logicboard or some other expensive part to die 2yrs from now and have to fork out $900-$1200 to get it fixed. If you have AppleCare, it covers everything that came with the iMac for a total of 3yrs (including the 1yr that comes with it). You have until the initial warranty runs out to get AppleCare. However, you MUST buy it BEFORE the original 1yr warranty expires. If you wait any longer, you're SOL for getting it enrolled on your iMac.
You'll be happy with your decision!!