Hi everyone! Been following the website itself for about 6 years, and I used the priceless information on part of the buyers' guide to help me come up with a plan to purchase an iBook G4 back in 2004 right after Tiger launched. This was my first Mac and I enjoyed my switch. The primary purpose to get the iBook over another model was because I needed something that was more portable while I was at college, and paired with the iCurve laptop holder and an Apple Keyboard/Mighty Mouse, it surpassed all of my expectations.
I still use a PC for some more intensive tasks, like gaming. I admit I am a huge fan of World of Warcraft, though my interest in it has dropped (and probably will stay low - between 30 minutes to an hour a day, maybe) until a new expansion pack launches. The great news is that Warcraft is playable on both my Mac and PC with the same account, so it's really easy to bounce between the two if I need portability.
I have a big problem now trying to do some type of streaming task online. It bogs my Mac down to a crawl, serious lag. I'm guessing it's the fact that content, especially web content, is just that much more intensive than it was in 2004, especially with the advent of Facebook and the like.
For reference, if anyone else is on Facebook, I'm unable to play the game 'Bejeweled Blitz" because of the CPU lag, it literally takes me 5 seconds to click on one jewel, move the mouse to another, and have it "do it". So, it's unplayable.
Even Warcraft has been dreadfully slow since the previous Expansion launched (Wrath of the Lich King in Winter of 2008) and my iBook actually is below the minimum system requirements. It's alright as long as I stay out of towns or areas where there are a lot of people, but it does detract from the "heart" of the game (it is an MMO after all).
I also do a little bit of recording with GarageBand and I definitely need productivity software (using MS Office for Mac `04 Student Edition right now).
So, I know that the iMac is probably a better option for me than the Mac Mini because of my interest in games and music. And, I like the fact that they dual-boot into Windows if you have purchased a copy since my better half requires Windows for some of her applications that aren't compatible with OSX.
How upgradable is the iMac? Is it possible to upgrade the video card, hard disk, memory itself or is this hardwired into the machine? I imagine the CPU and motherboard can't be, but I'll admit, I've never done a CPU upgrade because by the time I'm actually looking to upgrade (every 5-6 years) the technology has evolved and the socket architecture is different.
The big thing for me would be to have the ability to not necessarily ADD an additional hard drive (because I could always pick up one or two 1TB external Western Digital or Seagate HDDs for mass storage and backup), but I definitely would want the ability to replace it if I had to. Are these slimline hard drives or are these the same exact 3.5" HDDs that would go in a PC? I have a lot of experience building PCs and probably have built over 15 in the last decade for friends and family and they are all still chugging along strong.
How about memory? What restrictions are we looking at here? I know when I built my iBook, I had to choose either between a 256MB DIMM or a 512MB DIMM which was soldered into the laptop. I later chose to upgrade myself by buying some memory from Crucial and cheaply added another 1GB stick, for a total of 1.5GB.
And lastly, the video card. I've upgraded this single component the most in my PCs out of any others. And if I could, I would upgrade the video card in my iBook in a second. These evolved so fast over the last 5 years or so. I would definitely need to have the ability to upgrade my video card.
Whew, this was longer than I anticipated. Thanks for taking the time to read it and I look forward to your answers. I will probably wait for the next line of iMacs to come out because it's in the middle of a product cycle and then jump in!
I still use a PC for some more intensive tasks, like gaming. I admit I am a huge fan of World of Warcraft, though my interest in it has dropped (and probably will stay low - between 30 minutes to an hour a day, maybe) until a new expansion pack launches. The great news is that Warcraft is playable on both my Mac and PC with the same account, so it's really easy to bounce between the two if I need portability.
I have a big problem now trying to do some type of streaming task online. It bogs my Mac down to a crawl, serious lag. I'm guessing it's the fact that content, especially web content, is just that much more intensive than it was in 2004, especially with the advent of Facebook and the like.
For reference, if anyone else is on Facebook, I'm unable to play the game 'Bejeweled Blitz" because of the CPU lag, it literally takes me 5 seconds to click on one jewel, move the mouse to another, and have it "do it". So, it's unplayable.
Even Warcraft has been dreadfully slow since the previous Expansion launched (Wrath of the Lich King in Winter of 2008) and my iBook actually is below the minimum system requirements. It's alright as long as I stay out of towns or areas where there are a lot of people, but it does detract from the "heart" of the game (it is an MMO after all).
I also do a little bit of recording with GarageBand and I definitely need productivity software (using MS Office for Mac `04 Student Edition right now).
So, I know that the iMac is probably a better option for me than the Mac Mini because of my interest in games and music. And, I like the fact that they dual-boot into Windows if you have purchased a copy since my better half requires Windows for some of her applications that aren't compatible with OSX.
How upgradable is the iMac? Is it possible to upgrade the video card, hard disk, memory itself or is this hardwired into the machine? I imagine the CPU and motherboard can't be, but I'll admit, I've never done a CPU upgrade because by the time I'm actually looking to upgrade (every 5-6 years) the technology has evolved and the socket architecture is different.
The big thing for me would be to have the ability to not necessarily ADD an additional hard drive (because I could always pick up one or two 1TB external Western Digital or Seagate HDDs for mass storage and backup), but I definitely would want the ability to replace it if I had to. Are these slimline hard drives or are these the same exact 3.5" HDDs that would go in a PC? I have a lot of experience building PCs and probably have built over 15 in the last decade for friends and family and they are all still chugging along strong.
How about memory? What restrictions are we looking at here? I know when I built my iBook, I had to choose either between a 256MB DIMM or a 512MB DIMM which was soldered into the laptop. I later chose to upgrade myself by buying some memory from Crucial and cheaply added another 1GB stick, for a total of 1.5GB.
And lastly, the video card. I've upgraded this single component the most in my PCs out of any others. And if I could, I would upgrade the video card in my iBook in a second. These evolved so fast over the last 5 years or so. I would definitely need to have the ability to upgrade my video card.
Whew, this was longer than I anticipated. Thanks for taking the time to read it and I look forward to your answers. I will probably wait for the next line of iMacs to come out because it's in the middle of a product cycle and then jump in!
