Hey,
I got the 27" and 21.5" iMacs last week right before the refresh (I got them both as refurbs, saving a total of $550 with tax between the two units).
I personally don't regret buying when I did. The 21.5 is mostly for my wife for general use (Office work, Internet) and her experimentation with GarageBand (very occasional and pure hobby, not pro use). I don't know if an extra $200 for the minor speed bump and graphics bump would be worth it.
For mine, I do mostly office work and internet as well, but I do occasionally encode a DVD or edit some videos (VERY occasionally). I also have to run VMware with various Windows editions to test websites and software from time to time. The Core i5 I have now is only marginally slower than the new ones (5% on paper, maybe slightly more due to tech differences, but all that's minor compared to the massive bump I got going from 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo on my 2007 Aluminum iMac to the i5).
I can encode a full DVD in about an hour and a half on my i5 iMac, so if the new one saved me an extra 10 or 15 minutes I don't think that's a big deal (considering that when I encode DVDs my computer is fully usable and does not lag at all due to the i5 and the 12GB of RAM in it, so it's not like I am sacrificing anything, unlike my old Core 2 Duo which took about 6 hours to do the same job and was practically unusable during the task).
The only other difference between the new and old is the graphics card I suppose, but I don't play any games regularly and when I do it is usually oldies from my gaming years (C&C Generals, for example), and even that has become something I do for maybe 10-15 hours every few months.
I would have had to pay $300 + tax more to get the new i5 versus the refurb I got.
All in all, I saved $550 worth of money ($500 + 10% sales tax here in Illinois), which is basically an iPad worth of savings. Or looking at it another way, I can use the savings to buy AppleCare for both machines for 3 years, and still have $200 or more left over.
And all I had to do was miss out on some minor speed bumps that wouldn't really matter in day to day use.
Anyone else not regret buying their machine recently?
Or I guess, is there anyone that really regrets springing for an iMac in the last month or two?
And lastly, for those who are now shopping, will anyone of you actually go for a refurb of the old i5 (or another model) versus buying the latest revision?
The refurb prices have not changed, and probably won't for a few months, and IMO if I had to do it again I'd probably still order a refurb of the last gen i5 versus buying a new one.
Edit: Oh yeah, the new macs also can do the SSD thing PLUS the internal HD, without sacrificing the optical drive. That is a pretty neat feature but at $600 or so it is definitely not something I'd get regardless, and I do not want to void my AppleCare so I wouldn't attempt to do it myself anyway. I'll definitely make sure to get in on that in about 3 years when it is standard or a cheap upgrade.
I got the 27" and 21.5" iMacs last week right before the refresh (I got them both as refurbs, saving a total of $550 with tax between the two units).
I personally don't regret buying when I did. The 21.5 is mostly for my wife for general use (Office work, Internet) and her experimentation with GarageBand (very occasional and pure hobby, not pro use). I don't know if an extra $200 for the minor speed bump and graphics bump would be worth it.
For mine, I do mostly office work and internet as well, but I do occasionally encode a DVD or edit some videos (VERY occasionally). I also have to run VMware with various Windows editions to test websites and software from time to time. The Core i5 I have now is only marginally slower than the new ones (5% on paper, maybe slightly more due to tech differences, but all that's minor compared to the massive bump I got going from 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo on my 2007 Aluminum iMac to the i5).
I can encode a full DVD in about an hour and a half on my i5 iMac, so if the new one saved me an extra 10 or 15 minutes I don't think that's a big deal (considering that when I encode DVDs my computer is fully usable and does not lag at all due to the i5 and the 12GB of RAM in it, so it's not like I am sacrificing anything, unlike my old Core 2 Duo which took about 6 hours to do the same job and was practically unusable during the task).
The only other difference between the new and old is the graphics card I suppose, but I don't play any games regularly and when I do it is usually oldies from my gaming years (C&C Generals, for example), and even that has become something I do for maybe 10-15 hours every few months.
I would have had to pay $300 + tax more to get the new i5 versus the refurb I got.
All in all, I saved $550 worth of money ($500 + 10% sales tax here in Illinois), which is basically an iPad worth of savings. Or looking at it another way, I can use the savings to buy AppleCare for both machines for 3 years, and still have $200 or more left over.
And all I had to do was miss out on some minor speed bumps that wouldn't really matter in day to day use.
Anyone else not regret buying their machine recently?
Or I guess, is there anyone that really regrets springing for an iMac in the last month or two?
And lastly, for those who are now shopping, will anyone of you actually go for a refurb of the old i5 (or another model) versus buying the latest revision?
The refurb prices have not changed, and probably won't for a few months, and IMO if I had to do it again I'd probably still order a refurb of the last gen i5 versus buying a new one.
Edit: Oh yeah, the new macs also can do the SSD thing PLUS the internal HD, without sacrificing the optical drive. That is a pretty neat feature but at $600 or so it is definitely not something I'd get regardless, and I do not want to void my AppleCare so I wouldn't attempt to do it myself anyway. I'll definitely make sure to get in on that in about 3 years when it is standard or a cheap upgrade.
x
