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Buying an iMac on April 2nd, should I wait or no?
- Thread starter UltimaLink
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I'm waiting, personally. Btw April 2nd is my birthday - fancy sending me that macbook? Cheers!
Hm. April 3rd is my birthday actually. In fact that's why I'm getting the iMac on April 2nd, my parents agreed to give me birthday money early and such and it just so happens I have around 1,600 saved up already.
Anyways, for those wondering what I'm going to use it for, I'll be using all of these, in order of greatest to least.
Photoshop CS5 Extended
Illustrator CS5
Parallels (Running XP, if that matters, though, how does XP perform on the new iMacs? Are drivers and such compatible?)
Flash CS5
GarageBand
iMovie, After Effects, and Premier Pro
iWeb
With Flash, iMovie, and all that other stuff, I won't be making anything longer than 15 minutes (Unless it's a rare occasion)
So, anyone know what I should do? Will I really get that much of a performance increase over the sandy bridge ones?
Also I don't think I'll care much about thunderbolt. Doubt I'll use it at all.
Definitely. You sound like somewhat of a power user if you use all that..
I would wait out if I were you.
Seriously, wait at this point. Apple updated the MBP recently with Sandy Bridge CPUs. It stands to reason that the iMac should also receive an upgrade to SB soon as well. The rumormill is starting to get going with iMac news. There is a very good chance that the iMac will be upgraded sometime in April. If not, very early May at the latest. Also if you check MacRumors' buyer's guide, it advises iMac purchasers to wait.
Will you get that much more performance with Sandy Bridge? In short, yes. Do a Google search for SB performance in the recently updated MBP's and you should get much more detailed reviews regarding SB. Oh and since you'll be using Adobe CS[5], yes you will greatly benefit from the added horse power of SB.
As for Thunderbolt, there may not be anything that supports the I/O now however, in the near future there is the expectation of quick adoption to the new standard. I don't know what your workflow is like but I hope you're not storing your work in your computer's internal hard drive. Sure you can get FW800 external drives but since Thunderbolt is promising over 10x performance in speed over FW800, you'll probably benefit from it in the long term.
But hey, you don't have to listen to me. You can decide to not have the patience and buy the current iMac when an upgrade is just around the corner. I'm just a guy that has experience in photography and working with Adobe CS and also waiting for an iMac update. But what do I know?
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I'm going to try to hold out until Lion is released for a few reasons:
* I like to keep my money, I'm patient and my old Mac is still functional, so I usually can resist the status-symbol lure of buying as soon as a machine is released if it'll save a few bucks (and time) by not having to then upgrade the OS shortly thereafter.
* I buy with the Apple education discount, and IIRC, Apple usually includes back-to-school iPod incentives (discounts/free iPod minis and discounted Adobe software bundles) during summer months for at least those buying through the Apple Education Store.
* Since I have a lot of pricey summer projects lined up, I'm gonna finance this, so I'd rather have the clock start ticking as late as possible on the 12-months-no-interest front.
* Plus, by waiting a couple of months, I'm giving enough time for reports of significant flaws to emerge. Of course, since I'll be placing the order shortly after Lion is released, I'm talking flaws with the physical machine, not software.
* It gives more time for Thunderbolt peripherals to hit the market. This isn't a major concern, but it would make me feel less sad when looking to add to my system.
Of course, these logical points all could be moot if my wife says she wants her iPad immediately. I've been able to talk her into waiting until the new iMacs come out; I haven't had the heart/balls yet to tell her I'd like to push it back a couple more months.
I have also thought about waiting for Lion to purchase the next updated iMac mainly because of the reason that you stated and I highlighted in bold. I'm also on a budget with what I have planned and I would love to save $129 if I can (assuming that Apple sells Lion as a full upgrade to OS X). However, "summer 2011" can easily mean something as early as June 21st and as late as September 20th. Assuming that Apple releases the iMac update in April or early May, it will be a long wait in the worst case scenario to make the purchase. At that point, you might as well wait for the iMac update after this one.
Personally, I think that I can wait until WWDC. However, if Apple decides to release Lion in September, I'll go nuts. I have actually been waiting since this past December to buy the iMac. At this point, I don't know what I'm going to do if I have to wait until September. I figure if I wait that long, I might as well wait just a little longer for the next update.
Which in turn will only delay what I have planned. Though, I must state that I am not the kind of person that waits for the latest and greatest in technology. I know that if a person just waits that they will never own anything. I'm just more concerned about saving money where I can especially in the current economic climate.By the way, it's not the iPod mini any more, it was replaced by the nano years ago.
I have also thought about waiting for Lion to purchase the next updated iMac mainly because of the reason that you stated and I highlighted in bold. I'm also on a budget with what I have planned and I would love to save $129 if I can (assuming that Apple sells Lion as a full upgrade to OS X). However, "summer 2011" can easily mean something as early as June 21st and as late as September 20th. Assuming that Apple releases the iMac update in April or early May, it will be a long wait in the worst case scenario to make the purchase. At that point, you might as well wait for the iMac update after this one.
Personally, I think that I can wait until WWDC. However, if Apple decides to release Lion in September, I'll go nuts. I have actually been waiting since this past December to buy the iMac. At this point, I don't know what I'm going to do if I have to wait until September. I figure if I wait that long, I might as well wait just a little longer for the next update.
By the way, it's not the iPod mini any more, it was replaced by the nano years ago.
That tells you how much I pay attention to the small end of the iPod line.
More power is always better, at this point I will wait. People make it seem like the new imacs are going to be here next month. Apple will probably announce it in june at the earliest which is 2 months away.
If you need one now then buy it but if you want the latest then wait. I have the i5 quad core imac 27inch and I love it.
Dont believe people that make it seem like the i5 cant handle photoshop or whatever you are doing. You will need more ram to be honest, just throw in 16gb of ram and see it fly away, they will cost you less then 200 if you buy it aftermarket. All intel i5 and i7 quads are fast, same architecture but one uses hyperthreading.
Will the sandy bridge encode your video faster, yea probably, thats why I said wait but if you want one now you wont be disappointed with the performance you get. These machines are fast. Look in to refurb models they are usually new, I was gonna buy a refurb but my local micorcenter ended up giving me a discount and I had a coupon from them, so the brand new one cost me 1700. I added 16gb of ram with it.