Newbie and thinking of buying an iMac 24"

As new buyer in getting a mac , what should i look for, i recently starting liking the mac and i love what apple is doing with software and technological innovation as a company. I got a few Qs...

When do price drops usually happend with macs desktops?

Are the stock apps that come with the imacs use alot of hardware resources and would an upgrade to the stock hardware be neccessary?(planning on using alot of the ilife apps, im more of a medium to heavy user and very tech savvy)

Do you guys know other any cool mac sites for enthusiast or anything interesting?(I want to get a feel for the community and whats going on with apple)

Lets just say ive been with windows for awhile and i hate "VISTA" but i cant totally abandon it because I use it @work. I recently starting having huge interest in macs.

When do price drops usually happend with macs desktops?

They don't.


Are the stock apps that come with the imacs use alot of hardware resources and would an upgrade to the stock hardware be neccessary?(planning on using alot of the ilife apps, im more of a medium to heavy user and very tech savvy)


They can, most notably Garageband and the video apps.


Do you guys know other any cool mac sites for enthusiast or anything interesting?(I want to get a feel for the community and whats going on with apple)


This site is a good resource. You should also familiarize yourself with Apple's own support section on their site.


Lets just say ive been with windows for awhile and i hate "VISTA" but i cant totally abandon it because I use it @work.


When you are using a Mac, you will have to abandon your thoughts and ways of thinking from Windows. If you don't, getting used to the Mac will be much more difficult.

Price drops?
Who can tell - usually 2 weeks after you buy the thing

The stock apps work fine, you may want to use the free NeoOffice to emulate MS Office or buy apple's iwork. Iwork includes Pages (Word with better layout), Keynote (Powerpoint but can actually make good looking presentations) and Numbers (Haven't used it but some have said that it has actually made spreadsheets cool)

Other Mac sites, depends on if you want news or tech advice. This forum is pretty cool, and I have used macs for 15+ years

VISTA - haven't used it - but interested to know why a PC user would hate it so much. Of course Apple's Bootcamp can let you run Windows for those tasks where you cannot avoid it