Contemplating a Mac

Hi I have a 2 year toshiba laptop which has 4gb ram, 300gb hard drive and a 2.0ghz processor (the intel core duo 2 one), I'm looking at buying a 27" iMac with 3.2ghz processor (the intel i3), 4gb ram and 1tb hard drive. The guy at the computer store who I spoke to me was trying to convince me that I should upgrade to the i5 processor and a higher ram, but I don't think I'll need it. I use itunes fairly heavily, minor photo editing program (google's picasa, which i'm planning on using iPhoto for instead), the occasional adobe photoshop/lightroom tweak, am a uni student so usually have a few word documents and about 10 webpages open and use online databases fairly heavily. And watch movies/tv shows and the occasional sims game (dont judge please)

So people who know what all this processor stuff means, please help me!

Also as far as i can gather the 3.2ghz is the 'smallest' processor with the 27" according to the apple store? can i decrease this (seeing as im doing fine with the 2ghz) and get a cheaper price

Thank you!

There's no way to get a slower processor on the 27" iMac. It's that, or nothing at all. And yes, the i3 ought to handle all the things you want to do on it just fine. The i5 would be faster, but not necessary for what you want to do.

Don't think about what you would use it for now. Think about what you would use it for three years from now. You're a uni student, you are getting an education in a field you may pursue as a profession. Think about the computer you may want to use in that profession. It would be nice if the computer you buy now would be able to handle the tasks after you graduate.

The i5 will last longer for you. Since this is a big purchase, it's a "might as well get it now" thing.

Don't forget the referb section on apple.com. you can get your i5 for the same price as the i3.. I opted for the i3 referb.