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Really considering getting one on finance, looking at the 27" one.... Just wonderin if you find them nice n fast or if it's worth upgrading the RAM or processor?

I purchased a 27" about 8 months ago and have nothing but good things to say about it. I have the standard build with 4gb memory 1tb hard disk and the 3.06ghz dual core processer.

Just to give you an example of what we use it for it's my music library which is constantly playing pretty much, two Poker Clients, adium which is universal instant messenger, a browser and some random windows poker utilities running under Wine which allows the execution of Windows exe's on Mac OS, We'll also use it to stream films to the TV at the same time I'm listening to music through the headphones and it's really quick no lag on anything.. I've also had VMWare fusion running with the same apps and additional poker databases written in mysql and it runs so much quicker than my similarly specced Windows box it's untrue.

That said if you do anything particularly resource intensive upgrade upfront upgrading yourself will invalidate your apple care support and it's more expensive taking it into the shop to be upgraded.

They were last updated in July, so I wouldn't expect a refresh for a while.

Go for the i5/i7, while the core 2 systems are perfectly decent the processors are quite old and the quad will have a better resale value and greater longevity. I got a core 2 in jan this year but do wish i spent extra on the cpu. They come with 4gb ram as standard and I can run complex logic projects without lag or slow down, whilst running safari itunes etc at the same time. I personally need more ram due to running windows in a virtual machine but looking at crucial its a cheap upgrade for another 4gb of ram.

The new ones can be specced with a ssd + normal hd, but the actual ssd drives are very over priced and not the best available. My next machine will have an ssd boot drive as the performance is amazing. Maybe worth looking into at a later date since ssd's are still expensive.

some top words there, ta muchly. might go for the i5/i7 then. thing is apple wont let me pay a fucking deposit, id much prefer to pay a big deposit and pay it off for less time. the bastards

Make sure you get the student discount. And applecare is only an extra £50 in the HE store

I'm not a student though. Wonder if I could get a student to get it for me?

I'm sure you must know one?

When I got mine they simply asked me to email them a picture of my student id. Other wise they charge the full amount.

DRTY wrote:some top words there, ta muchly. might go for the i5/i7 then. thing is apple wont let me pay a fucking deposit, id much prefer to pay a big deposit and pay it off for less time. the bastards

what you shoud be able to do is put the deposit to one side and after making a number of payments then use the deposit to clear the balance including the unaccrued interest. Where this may be a problem is if they front load the interest meaning that the first few payments are effectively interest only so your settlement figure isn't reduced until all the interest is paid off. It's a bit of a c*nts trick to be honest but a lot of finance companies do it. Personally I'd suggest getting a loan from a bank for the amount of the iMac - deposit you have available if that's an option. It'll probably be cheaper and if you get the apple care you'll have the same level of protection pretty much.

Why are you opting for the 27"? 27" Is massive, even for gaming. Keep in mind that bigger resolution + same specs = worse performance.

I think it depends what he needs it for, I went with the 27" because I play poker and more screensize = more tables = more losses

That said even with the standard 4gb and the older dual core processor the performance is excellent running the stuff mentioned above

If your not a student* but once were jus pop in the library of your old uni and order from there. I was never asked for any ID. +1 on the SSD the best thing you can buy for any pc.. also unless your doing serious lifting you probably won't see much of a diff between the i5/i7. They are both very capable processors but stay away from the c2d, waste of money. The profit margin on those must be huge!

* also you don't have to be a student it works for uni staff too..so you wouldn't have student ID..just say your a lecturer or a member of the support staff.

collige wrote:Why are you opting for the 27"? 27" Is massive, even for gaming. Keep in mind that bigger resolution + same specs = worse performance.

Well I have two 21" screens atm, so I'm pretty used to working with alot of 'desktop' space.

And yeah, I'll look into bank loans to see if they're cheaper, the interest through apple is fairly low though it's 15%, pretty sure banks will be over 25%.

I have a mate at uni atm said hed let me use his ID, fucking 15% off you get! amazing.