5 easy questions about an imac purchase

[MS bulldog]

pretty much sold on the 17" imac seeing how my 17" WS display is the only thing i really want to keep from my current setup and i can use the desktop extender option. couple of remaining questions:
1. what's the difference in the fw speeds (400vs800)? i noticed the imac has 400fw ports. is this speed sufficient if at some time i decide to use external storage to view/edit video?

2. concerning the bluetooth setup, say i get the imac with wireless mouse/keyboard, and one day decide to put a mini in for the kids within close proximity to my imac. will the two bluetooth devices conflict if both are setup with wireless keyboards/mice? to clarify, if i'm surfing on the imac will the mini be awoken from the bt activity 5' away...

3. on the 17" imac, will 1gb ram be sufficient to start out? i plan doing a bto with 1x1gb ram installed and possible adding another gig later. didn't want to get the 512mb stick only to replace it or mismatch with a gig stick.

4. iWork...how essential is this app?

5. any guess on leopard's release and once released will it immediately replace tiger in units shipped or does apple have to sell off all the imacs in inventory that already has a tiger disc in it?

 

[wordmunger]

1. don't know.

2. No problem. The bluetooth devices are locked into a particular computer.

3. I've got 1GB and everything runs great. I don't do a lot of video editing, though, so your mileage may vary. I went ahead and got the single 1GB chip factory installed, so I'll be ready to upgrade to 2GB if I ever need it.

4. I love it, pages especially. But if you've got MS office, it's fine, too, just a bit slower.

5. I think as soon as the new OS is out, if you buy a new computer afterwards you can upgrade for free/the price of shipping the DVDs. But if you buy even a few days before, you're out of luck.

 

[yellow]

1) FW400 has a theoretical limit of 400Megabits per second (that's 50MB/s to you and me), while FW800 has a theoretical limit of 800Megabits per second (that's 100MB/s to you and me). So.. FW800 > FW400. FW800 is faster, but never really caught on..

5) Not yet announced. Rumor has it at end of 2006, we'll see. I believe there's a 2 week grace period where you can get a free Upgrade disk to the new OS. You do not want this. You want the real McCoy when it comes to installers. So either wait until after 10.5 is released (the box will say what the Mac comes with), or buy one with Tiger and pony up the dough for Leopard when it comes out.

 

[Eraserhead]

On my iMac G5, I store all my music on a firewire drive, they are pretty fast, should be quick enough for video (i'd say you can copy about 1GB/minute to it.)

 

[TheMasin9]

fw800

i use a firewire 800 external enclosure with a 7200 rpm hard drive in it for all my photography work. It blows the socks off of my stock hard drive, and beats out firewire 400 by a good deal.

 

[balamw]

1. FW400 was designed for DV and vice-versa. So you'll have no problems with standard definition video. Dunno about HD

5. Right around the transition they sometimes just throw in an extra CD without installing the software on the box. I bought my BTO iBook shortly after the release of iLife '05 and the box came with iLife '04 installed and '05 on disc.

B

 

[MS bulldog]

buy one with Tiger and pony up the dough for Leopard when it comes out.

how much is the upgrade usually?

 

[yellow]

how much is the upgrade usually?

The "upgrade" (not a full installer, an upgrade from a previous version of OS X, IMO to be avoided), or the Real McCoy?

The Real McCoy is $129, I believe. Whatever Tiger costs you now, is probably what Leopard will cost.

I don't think you can buy an "upgrade" at retail.

 

[mkrishnan]

how much is the upgrade usually?

In the US, $129 retail list, $69 EDU list.

As mentioned above, though, they aren't crippled upgrade discs that force you to install it on top of an existing OS, and make a nuisance of themselves when you have drive issues or want to "clean install," which makes it a bit more palatable.

 

[MS bulldog]

thanks guys

 

[spencecb]

1) FW400 has a theoretical limit of 400Megabits per second (that's 50MB/s to you and me), while FW800 has a theoretical limit of 800Megabits per second (that's 100MB/s to you and me). So.. FW800 > FW400. FW800 is faster, but never really caught on...

It definitely caught on, not on the consumer level, but ask any serious video editor and they will surely be using FW800.

 

[yellow]

It definitely caught on, not on the consumer level, but ask any serious video editor and they will surely be using FW800.

ah.. by "caught on" I mean, was it commonly integrated into WinTelThons and consumer products (such as iPods and home-user DV cams).. As you said, on the consumer level, which IMO (I could be wrong) is the larger group betwixt consumers and prosumers, no?

 

[MS bulldog]

It definitely caught on, not on the consumer level, but ask any serious video editor and they will surely be using FW800.

why not? does the slow speeds cause problems with video editing in general or heavy duty film making? i'm just gonna be pulling stuff off my sony camcorder which uses hi8 tape if that tells you anything via the firewire cable. i'll edit some stuff here and there but don't forsee any hi def activity other than what is available on the net.

 

[MovieCutter]

It definitely caught on, not on the consumer level, but ask any serious video editor and they will surely be using FW800.

Partially true, we're using fiber and SATA RAID arrays . On my home rig though for regular stuff, I use FW800. You won't have a problem with FW400. I'm forced to use it on my MBP until my 17" and for SD and DV, it's more than adequate.

 

[MS bulldog]

one last question:

on the imac is it important to match up ram module sizes? will having a 1gig and a 512 stick in the memory slots pose a problem? it seems i read about this subject somewhere, but i can't remember if it was the imac or mini that recommended against the mismatching.

 

[MovieCutter]

one last question:

on the imac is it important to match up ram module sizes? will having a 1gig and a 512 stick in the memory slots pose a problem? it seems i read about this subject somewhere, but i can't remember if it was the imac or mini that recommended against the mismatching.

No, you won't see any noticeable difference.