Is an IMAC right for us?

Greetings from Switzerland.

My laptop (old Dell) is knackered and needs replacing. I basically use it for the internet and editing photos with Picasa. My wife has a basic Macbook and LOVES it.

We don't really need the portability of another laptop but do need another personal computer (wife doesn't let me touch the Macbook). I saw a 24" IMAC coming through the airport recently which looked fabulous. I loved the big screen.

We're planning to get a video camera for the ski season and so want to use the computer to store and edit video.

3 Questions:

For Internet (including online TV), photo editing and video storage and editing is the basic 24" IMAC sufficient or is it worth getting the higher spec model with 2.8Ghz, 2GB, 500GB ($2750) vs 2.4Ghz, 1GB, 320GB ($2150) or even further upgrading the memory or hard drive further ?

The wireless router provided by my broadband provider doesn't support 802.11n. Does this make much difference to the transfer rate ie is it worth buying the Apple wireless router?

Does the Apple software support an HD Video Camera ie can we edit and burn DVD's in HD or would we need to get a non HD Video Camera?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Bob

I run a G network and haven't had any problems with transfer speeds. I do some online gaming as well with no issues. iMovie supports HD but of course you can't burn an HD DVD since the Superdrive does no offer that ability. I would say the higher spec iMac as well for all that you want to do.

You will be fine with the base 24in imac. Just upgrade the RAM to at least 2GB. The wireless N spec means nothing for what you are doing. If you were going to be transferring files on a LAN network, then maybe, but for an internet connection, its not going to make a difference.

Thanks for the advice - useful to know that the N Spec isn't relevant. I read a thread here suggesting to get RAM from a 3rd party rather than Apple as it is much cheaper and easy to install. Guess I'd have to find a supplier in Switzerland.

Do you know if this is the same for Hard Drive?

One of the problems with my current laptop is that I have filled the hard drive with photos and have to delete each time I want to add - Raw photos on the DSLR are 10MB each and even JPEG's are approx 3MB.

HD Video footage is even more hungry for storage space - I read as much as 10GB for an hours footage

Wondering if it is easy to do this later on or whether seperate storage is cheaper than going for the 500GB upgrade option offered by Apple.

Going for a 500GB hard drive and 2MB RAM would be $300 with Apple - Assume it will be easier to do that with Apple than try and do it seperately.

The other £300 is for the 2.8Ghz processor which I assume won't make much difference?

Thanks

Bob

The internal hard drive is difficult to replace, although you would be able to pay a technician to open up the machine and upgrade it at a later date. An alternative, and much easier solution would be to buy an external drive. The new iMacs have a Firewire 800 port, so it be just as speedy as the internal.

You're right to buy RAM from another supplier. It's easy to install yourself - instructions are in the iMac manual.

The 2.8Ghz processor won't be any different in everyday use, compared to the others, but you might knock 10 minutes off an hour's video encoding.

For your use, I'd recommend the largest internal HD that you can afford, you'll have to buy from Apple.com, and then buy a decent FW800 external drive when that gets too full. And yes, get 3rd party RAM.