Finally, some truth in the Rosetta emulation issue that is not being spieled by a salesman
I have never found MS Office slow on both my Macs, specs in my sig. I use Word and Excel all the time at home and at work and find them absolutely fine. That said, for years I was using Word 5 as Word 6 and 98 were just like running a Windows application... (Kinda because that was exactly what was happening under the hood...)
I have used a few Intel based Macs now and for native Intel applications it works very nicely and they seem good, fast, robust machines. The downside was emulated apps, reminded me of what my Power Mac G4 was like before I upgraded it when it was still a 256MB 466MHz relic :flower: The point of the matter has always been that Apple's Rosetta technology was never going to be faster than the other JIT PPC recompilers on the market, and that sadly is not particularly fast.
For this reason, I would not be surpised if Apple keeps the Power Mac line running until Adobe CS3 is released, though still release the new Intel "Mac Pro's" this Autumn but have at least one or two model PowerMac G5s to tide those who need speed in major apps.
Either way—RAM. The more RAM your iMac has to emulate PPC code via Rosetta, the better. 1GB should be your minimum. Anything less and you will start to choke the poor thing.
And as for the Windows and Mac OS X learning curve, yes I can quite see why. It's different isn't it? And here's a secret—I struggled at first. However, the key thing to have in your mind is that Mac OS X is not Windows, nor Linux and vice versa. Stupid statement of the year that may well be, but it must be remembered that Apple is not in the business of making a version of Windows that runs on Macs but with a different UI.
Mac OS X is about a different way of working, a different paradigm of thought. You can see this in how the thing functions. It has a set of robust graphical file management tools in the Finder, a Macintosh strength since day 1. A lot of menu items are also recalled by their shortcut such as Cmd (Apple) + Shift + A = open the applications folder, Command + K = Connect to Server etc.
A lot of this shortcut business stems from the people who use Macs who like shortcut keys, desktop publishers especially.
In the end I warmed to Mac OS X, and I mean really warmed to it. I came from Mac OS 9 and for a little while I had a Dell notebook with Windows XP and it was definitely a step up when I realised that I am not spending time waiting for virus and spyware scans, nor does the computer do this strange freeze for long moments with no explanation thing, networking seems to just work (although networking with Windows can be trying at first).
There are so many things that Mac OS X does excel at, and likewise some things that Windows excels at. I found the warming period to be much more gradual and gentle. After a couple of months, sitting in front of a Windows machine tries my patience as simple tasks like browsing network shares seems to lock just about any PC I use at work for a few minutes a piece, or plentiful non responding applications, the Internet connection somehow loosing itself etMay you will come around to it too, but the key is not to think too much of "Now I do it like this in Windows so in Mac OS X I do it like..."—start afresh.
Oh and as for the supplied mouse, I expect that would be the 'Mighty Mouse'—for the record, I hate that thing too! I stick to a two button corded MS mouse for my notebook and an old Apple Optical pro mouse (the black one) which is solid and has a nice adjustable click stiffness. They keyboard however I admit—I love it. A very tactile feedback when I am working in InDesign.
Good luck with it all, stick with it and see how things go! :flower:
Vicky