Considering an iMac. Suggestions???

[rjacobs]

I got my mom a 20" Imac last year, wish I coulda gotten her the 24", but it wouldnt fit where it needed to go. No problems with it at all. That brings the total to 4 macs in my family, 3 macbooks and the one imac. Never had a hicup with any of them and they are all left on and run for weeks on end.

If you really have to run windows just run it under boot camp. I think windows runs better on the mac's than almost any PC I have ever seen windows under, not sure why though.

[Littlelebowski]

Don't get the iMac. 3 years later and you'll have a slow machine tied to a display you wish you could utilize with a faster machine.

Get the Mac Mini with a nice LCD. That way when the Mini is deprecated, you can reuse the LCD. Not to mention that this saves you money as well.

[Littlelebowski]

Also, you might want to run the Mini as a media server powering your TV.

[nickdrak]

Don't get the iMac. 3 years later and you'll have a slow machine tied to a display you wish you could utilize with a faster machine.

Get the Mac Mini with a nice LCD. That way when the Mini is deprecated, you can reuse the LCD. Not to mention that this saves you money as well.

What slows the iMac down? Memory? Are the iMacs memory expandable?

[Rated21R]

Made the switch to Mac about 2 years ago and haven't looked back since. We use ours for the standard: internet, movies, music, photos and it is great. A few things to learn in the switch but nothing to worry about. I don't regret picking up a 27 inch iMac. I love it. Check out Mac Guides and My First Mac websites for info on common questions.

[montanadave]

I have a few buddies of mine who swear they would never consider another pc since they got their Mac.

Put me in this camp. Since the mid-80s, I've owned a Compaq, IBM, HP and Dell PC. I'm not a computer guy, not a power user, used them primarily for word-processing, e-mail, internet, etc. (home computer crap). Every one of them was a PITA. Hardware, software, who cares. I just want the damn thing to run when I turn it on and every one of these eventually crashed and burned.

I bought an iMac a little over 4 years ago, it ran right out of the box and (knock on wood) has never so much as hiccuped. As far as I'm concerned, if I never touch another PC or look at Windows again that's just fine by me.

[nickdrak]

One of the pc's I'm looking at is the HP TouchSmart with the touch screen that runs Windows 7. Any feedback on this set-up?

[urbanamish]

What slows the iMac down? Memory? Are the iMacs memory expandable?

The newer iMacs do have expandable RAM. I think what he was saying is that in 3 years any computer will be 'obsolete' to a certain degree, and if you get the Mac Mini, you can upgrade to a new computer without buying a new display.

[subzero]

Don't get the iMac. 3 years later and you'll have a slow machine tied to a display you wish you could utilize with a faster machine.

What slows the iMac down? Memory? Are the iMacs memory expandable?

It's not that the machine slows down, it's that new processors are faster. When you want to upgrade to newer hardware, you can't just plug in your old monitor as it's part of the old hardware.

The Mini is made for people who don't want the all-in-one solution, but they don't have the horsepower that the iMacs do. I like the Mini, I have two of them. But they're very limited compared to the iMac in terms of processor speed, RAM and HD space.

iMacs can be upgraded to 8 or 16GB of RAM depending on model, and the hard drive is replaceable as well.

[nickdrak]

The newer iMacs do have expandable RAM. I think what he was saying is that in 3 years any computer will be 'obsolete' to a certain degree, and if you get the Mac Mini, you can upgrade to a new computer without buying a new display.

gotcha. That's what I figured.