Rex93

With having two Dell dimension desktops and a Dell Vostro laptop, decided it was about time to take a walk on the Apple side for a change. Dell have had too much money from us!!

Currently looking at an IMAC 20' with the following options:
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
320GB Serial ATA Drive
Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse
Apple Wireless Keyboard
iWork '09 preinstalled
AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac - Auto-enroll

Does this look like a good choice for my first Apple Mac and is the Applecare worth the £136 for the 3year cover?

Already have Iphone and using Itunes without any problems.

Any advice that may help would be greatfuly received.

Markus

Looks a pretty good spec to me and it should last you a fair while.

As for wether Applecare is worth it. I'd say yes. It's always nice to have the cover should anything go wrong. No machine is perfect and problems can arise. The other point is that with the iMacs, especially the newer ones, replacing the hard drive does require a fair bit of dismantling and this would void the warranty, so if, in a years time, you wanted a 500GB or 1TB drive in the machine the Applecare should, I think, allow you to get Apple to install the new drive and preserve your warranty.

As you can probably tell, I might like macs If there is any other advice/questions you have, ask away, there are a few of us Mac lovers around here

Rex93

thanks Markus,

I think the 320GB will be plenty for a good while anyway, so no worrys with regards to pulling it apart anytime soon.

Anti virus not needed, so we are lead to believe, is that the case?

Interesting to see that if necessary, windows can be run alongside OSx, so shouldn't have too many if any issues with transferring things from one to the other.

Reading a few reviews today and so far nothing much to suggest not opting for the above, although there was mention to how hot the unit seemed to get whilst it was being used, any problems you know of and something to worry about or not?

I expect the stupidly easy questions will be heading your way in the not to distant future.

Markus

Ah, the age old debate about AV on a Mac. Some say you should run AV on OS X to prevent you from forwarding on emails/files that contain PC viruses to PC users.

Personally, I have not run an AV program on OS X for many, many years. If I were to run one, the first I'd look at would be ClamXav which is a free virus checker based on ClamAV.

Yes you can run Windows on the iMac, be it at the same time as OS X, by using a Virtual Machine solution or dual boot the machine by using Bootcamp. Very handy indeed and I've got my iMac configured to dual boot using Bootcamp and I've also got VMWare Fusion setup to use the bootcamp partition on my drive as the hard drive for it's Virtual Machine.

My early 2006 iMac does get a little warm from time to time but I'm not worried about it to be honest.

AllanB

Hi I work for MacWarehouse the Uk largest Apple reseller and have got a fair bit of Mac experience ;-).

I'd agree with Marcus AppleCare is money well spent its pence per day but its not just a warranty. Don;lt forget you get TechTool a diagnostic tool so if you do have an issue you get priority access to the Apple support team who can work through any issues you may have and can use TechTool to help with the diagnosis of the problem.

AppleCare also gives you access to engineers who can help with Apple apps and with Snow Leopard ( the new opperating system ) due this year this may be of extra use especially if your quite new to the Mac and might want to ask questions around Bootcamp for example.

Let me know if you need any help


AllanB

LanCat

To be honest the need to run windows apps is pretty minimal but Crossover is another option if you need to run a windows app but don't want to run the full windows environment.

corradoboy

I believe there are new iMacs on the horizon, so might be worth holding on. (edit : just read that they have now been released CLICKY)

Also, virus's are starting to appear on the platform. The biggest one recently was embedded in an installer for iWork09 and CS4 (Photoshop/InDesign etc) and circulated on many torrent sites. As it was part of an installer, people were hoodwinked into entering their admin passwords believing they were only installing the pirated software, but hidden in the background was the malware and spyware to allow remote access and monitoring of the Mac and a trojan attack.

AppleInsider | Two new trojan horses threaten Mac software pirates

RichB

Interesting, I've always wondered about these dialog boxes that I keep sticking my admin password in...
I use little snitch to tell me of any odd in or outbound traffic... Well worth the small price it costs!

Ans

Once you've had Mac you don't go back!!! ;-)

Ans

AllanB

Too right converted 18 years ago and rarely use a PC out of choice.

Rich did you go to the rallye sunseeker at the weekend ? Was really good this year



AllanB

Markus

The two recent trojan's were interesting, as you say, you're being asked for admin auth and that can be normal for some installers. I could be pious and say it's not a big threat as only those who downloaded illegal versions of the software were at risk.

One app I would recommend is Little Snitch. It will monitor any outgoing connections from your machine, so if you did inadvertently install something that was trying to call home, LS would pick up on this an alert you to it, at which point you could block it, plus find out what is trying to call home and if it's a trojan, eliminate the little bugger.

RichB

Hi Allan, Not this time, got a 7 month old girl now so that sort of stuff gets tricky
Saw the remains of the crash on the front (on here), looked nasty!

Rex93

well, delivery on or before the 18th, hopefuly I have made the right choice?
Went with the AppleCare in the end, daughter says she uses the iMac at school, says she hates it!!!! Especialy the mouse.
Hoping the expected delivery date is as far out as when we ordered the iPods, hate waiting!
Now, do I clean up the dell and get rid of now or wait till the mac turns up?

ScoobyDoo555

LOL about the mouse. My students don't like em.

I've changed them all to dual button optical mice.

FWIW I use a Kensington Turbo Mouse 2. Multi-buttons and scrollable over several screens

Dan

corradoboy

The Apple Mighty Mouse can be dual button. Actually, it can be four button if you want it to be. The pinch shoulders can be used (I don't like that) as can the scroll ball. The top shell is touch sensitive and can be set up for single or dual button. I'm hoping the next evolution will have an integrated trackpad instead of the scroll ball, as these have been troublesome from the off.

ScoobyDoo555

Also got a mighty mouse, but prefer the Turbo standard usb mouse is just as good (and MUCH cheaper!)

Dan

jowl

I think the mighty mouse is the worst Apple product ever! (well, apart from the G3 iMac mouse perhaps!)

Congrats on the purchase though - the more you use it, the more you think 'ah, this is how it should be!'

So, AllanB - any delas on the 15" Macbook Pro. My original Core duo macbook is starting to show it's age (5 hours to convert a TV recording to H264?!)

corradoboy

You should see how long that would take on my old G3 Pizmo I'm gonna do an insurance job for a new iMac soon

jowl

It's just an excuse anyway. I was playing with the new Macbook Pro's in the Apple Store. They look fantastic - was always happy with the 13" Macbook screen but the screens on the MBP look fantastic. And Multitouch.

AllanB

Jowl drop me an email at work with what you need and some contact details and we'll see what we can do allan.bayman@macwarehouse.co.uk


AllanB

jowl

Cheers. Not quite in a position to buy yet - and tbh was looking at the Apple refurb store.

See where I am in a couple of weeks. Damn Mr Jobs for tempting me with his wares

Rex93

Well, I have had the mac since the 16th, was a good boy and cleaned up the old Dell first(giving it to my sister) and set the mac up on the 18th!!! Yes it was hard to resist.

First opinion? well, what can I say, amazing, love it to bits.

Plugged the power lead in and after finding the power button! (who reads the manual at first) on comes the welcome video. That was enough to tell me I had made the right decision, computer desk now has to make way for a 'small' shelf as it looks bare without all the pc cables running everywhere!

Being my first mac experience it is going to take a while to find my way around but with having said that, everything that I was using on the Dell is up and running on the mac. The only difficulty so far was getting the lexmark to work wirelessly, easily sorted in the end by downloading the leopard drivers from lexmark.

As mentioned previously in the thread, its going to be macs all the way from here in, even get on well with the 'mighty mouse'. May sound stupid to alot of people but the whole experience so far seems to be that little bit more higher quality.

An unassociated downside was that on the same day the mac turned up, my youngest daughters ipod touch went south!! trying not to think of it as a bad omen! however, on a good note Apples service so far with regards to repair and collection has been second to none.

Markus

Welcome to the realms of the Apple

I'm glad that it's working seamlessly for you. That is one of the things Apple tries to be very good about when it comes from switching platforms.