Which iMac for me?

Here's my deal.

I'd like to get an imac sooner rather than later. I really can't afford the 24", am considering the 20" after saving for another month or two, or I could buy the 17" any day now. I currently have a three year old Compaq with a 2.0 pentium 4 that I've upgraded to 1 GB Ram & added an ATI Radeon X700 Pro 256 MB video card to. It has a 17" monitor, which is perfectly fine.

I'm thinking I could get the upgrade 17" with 2 GB Ram.... I know the card is smaller than what you can get on the larger-screened models, but I'm sure it will be much zippier than what I have now. I want to get into video editing, lots of music & whatnot.

Any thoughts from those who know macs better than I do? (i.e. anyone?)

Jeff Kurfess

I have a 17inch G5 and am upgrading to a 24inch - you can never have enough screen space in my opinion. if your video editing, bigger the better. Rememeber you can trash your PC and run Windows on your new Mac.

I'd wait and go for the 20-inch.

Jammers said:

I have a 17inch G5 and am upgrading to a 24inch - you can never have enough screen space in my opinion. if your video editing, bigger the better. Rememeber you can trash your PC and run Windows on your new Mac.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Jammers. Can pretty much every software program expand to fill the whole screen?

I'm also thinking about a new IMac, but then the 24" do you guys think I should jump in, or just wait on a new IMac?
Thanks!

By the new, I'm new in the Mac World, so I'm hoping the join the club soon!

jeffk27 said:

Can pretty much every software program expand to fill the whole screen?

Click to expand...

Most can but to be honest, you wouldn't always want to. On my 20", I have most of my apps take up 1/2 - 3/4 of my screen, otherwise there's just too much white space. I'm of course referring to typical apps like text editing, web browsing, email, etc. With things like graphics, I would probably take more advantage of that unused space, but I've yet to buy Photoshop because I already have it on my PC and hate spending money to buy the same program.

You can throw other windows like a finder or IM list to fill that space as well. And it can be nice to have some of your desktop icons in sight while you're working on stuff, too.

Dimitri said:

Most can but to be honest, you wouldn't always want to. On my 20", I have most of my apps take up 1/2 - 3/4 of my screen, otherwise there's just too much white space. I'm of course referring to typical apps like text editing, web browsing, email, etc. With things like graphics, I would probably take more advantage of that unused space, but I've yet to buy Photoshop because I already have it on my PC and hate spending money to buy the same program.

You can throw other windows like a finder or IM list to fill that space as well. And it can be nice to have some of your desktop icons in sight while you're working on stuff, too.

Click to expand...

Thanks. That's very helpful. When I first saw macs it just looked a little odd to have all that open space on either side of the web browser, but you make a great point about how handy it might be to have IM lists or icons in view along the side. Thanks again.

I bought the 20" iMac (g5 2.1) and love it.. (i also bought the 17" iMac Intel 1.83 CORE2DUO)

I love my 20".. but i dont haev a ton of screen real estate.. so i hooked up another monitor.. thats what i love about macs.. it a year old and i still have room to grow.

That aside, if you are planing on doing video, of any sort, i would get a 20 or 24

EDIT-XTREEM said:

I bought the 20" iMac (g5 2.1) and love it.. (i also bought the 17" iMac Intel 1.83 CORE2DUO)

I love my 20".. but i dont haev a ton of screen real estate.. so i hooked up another monitor.. thats what i love about macs.. it a year old and i still have room to grow.

That aside, if you are planing on doing video, of any sort, i would get a 20 or 24

Click to expand...

Thanks. I do want to edit video & think you're right. I should at least get the 20" for that. Are you aware of a big difference between the ATI Radeon X1600 & the NVIDEO that comes with the 24"?

Where to buy with upgrades?

Has anyone found a place to buy an imac with full upgrades?

I've found quite a few places where you can buy an imac with 2 GB of RAM, but so far no place that sells it with a 256 MB graphics card upgrade.

get a 20", and upgrade it to 2 gig.
if money is not a problem, get the 24" instead.

how are you going to use your future Mac? for the most part you should be fine with the 20" with 2 gig ram.

Kulokoy said:

how are you going to use your future Mac? for the most part you should be fine with the 20" with 2 gig ram.

Click to expand...

Since it's my first mac, I'm mostly hoping to get something that will be my primary computer & last a long time. I know I want to dive into all the multimedia stuff offered in iLife, so definitely some video editing & music. I'd like to have a graphics card with enough juice to do some basic 3D gaming, but mostly something fast for video rendering.

jeffk27 said:

Has anyone found a place to buy an imac with full upgrades?

I've found quite a few places where you can buy an imac with 2 GB of RAM, but so far no place that sells it with a 256 MB graphics card upgrade.

Click to expand...

Apple.com?

Yep. That's what Apple calls a built-to-order (bto). You can get these special orders:

ATI Radeon X1600 graphics processor using PCI Express, 128MB of GDDR3 SDRAM or an optional 256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM on 20-inch model.

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics processor with 128MB of GDDR3 SDRAM using PCI Express or an optional NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM using PCI Express for the 24-inch model.

Any Mac retailer should be able to get you one of those. Delivery time might be a bit longer though.

i just picked teh 20 inch over the 24 because the 24 was simply too big. in the store the screens look a lot smaller than when cramped onto a desk in my basement bedroom with 7 ft ceilings.

for jeff i would consider waiting until you can afford the 20 inch. maybe try a finance or something. while the 24 is too big for me, the 17 is too small.

jeffk27 said:

Thanks, Jammers. Can pretty much every software program expand to fill the whole screen?

Click to expand...

You are the typical windows user :black: lol - that is not an insult lol.

Windows users tend to hit maximise and run every window full screen - I used to do it on my PC. With Macs the green button maximises the window to the right size - your browser only needs to be as wide as the page you are viewing for example. Thus you can fit two, three maybe even four windows open at a time - more productive.

peat said:

In the store the screens look a lot smaller than when cramped onto a desk in my basement bedroom with 7 ft ceilings.

Click to expand...

I found that when I went in the other week. I thought I was standing infront of a 20in and it was 24. The 17in do look small in store.

I'd save for a 20in. Look in the back of mac magazines, they usually have quite a few adverts for resellers which you can custom build through

I purchased the 20in 2.16 Ghz with 2 gig Ram and 256 Video card I also took the 500gig HD.The 24 wasn't out of my budget.However I didn't have the money to spec it like the 20.
Best of luck what ever you go for

I'd get the 20 inch