-JQ- Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 Through an ugly week of issues...basement flood, dead water heater, HVAC, stinking house and a possibly dead Mac Book Pro, I bought a new iMac as a pre-emptive maneuver. The laptop was VERY damp and one of my external backups actually had water on the surface of the drive. First move was to wrap everything in newspaper and wait for a day or so...praying that everything would dry out. Apple has a built in feature (hidden feature?) that allows you to port over all your files from the old to the new...including 99% of my software keys. one to one is the name of the "software" and it cost $99 to unlock/join. But to keep me running without reinstalling everything again was worth $$$$$$$...bought one day - picked up at apple store the next day with everything from the old machine loaded and running (which is thankfully working too). This was more awesome as even my preferences came across. I must give props to the apple people...even though it was like buying a car at the store. You get handled like a car purchaser with mini appointments and hand-offs to sales, tech, training throughout the process...building the cult is what it felt like. I finally relaxed and drank their coolaid...it didn't kill me so here I sit...27" screen and 8GB RAM and a 1TB hard drive! And I find that I really like the little magic mouse, I was skeptical about no "buttons" but it is quite cool...ymmv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wgnoyes Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 I never made the comparison before of the Apple Store v. a car dealership, I guess mainly because I hold the Apple Store in MUCH higher esteem than any car lot. I went in looking seriously at a 15" MBP and, after analyzing my processing needs with the apple guy (I run MS Office, Adobe Dreamweaver, a few other things out of Creative Suite, only rarely any video editing and then nothing fancy), ended up with a 13.3" instead, saving about $300. They didn't have to do that, and it cost them some money, but they did and I appreciated it. I'm going to get to experience this again, because I'm going back to get a iMac. (Windows has GOT to go!) I've narrowed in on the high-end 21.5", but that extra screen real estate is compelling. So which one did you get, the "basic" (basic?) one or their top of the line beast? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-JQ- Posted May 27, 2011 Author Share Posted May 27, 2011 I got the 27" monitor version with the i5 quad processor and increased the stock RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB. They credited me some on the stock RAM, sort of a trade in value. I like that they aren't on commission too. I was going to buy 16GB RAM and the sales guy talked me out of it. The car dealer comparison was just the various handlers, runners, sales people they have running around. The stock was absolutely packed with people, too. I'll stick with mac so long as I can keep my software running on future machines. I haven't been on the laptop to see if the licenses will work still on that one too...hmmm... The new creative suite (not master collection even) was $1200 at the apple store --- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wgnoyes Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 Yeah, CS was going to be a huge issue with going Apple because the cost was as much as the hardware it runs on. Cindy through her work has a contact who works for Adobe, however, and my CS5.5 is coming to me at Adobe employee rates, which works out to be a 90% discount. They added the RAM at the store? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Steele Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 Yep, I am really enjoying my 27" as well. I wish I'd done it years ago but I was able to get the latest model a couple weeks ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-JQ- Posted May 27, 2011 Author Share Posted May 27, 2011 (edited) Yup traded the RAM at the store when they did the one to one file transfer hocus pocus. IIRC it has 4 slots and came with 2 x2gb and now I have 2 4gb SIMMS/Dimms what ever they are these days. The two 4s will allow me to add 2 4's in the future to get 16 GB ...I guess parity? It cost $200 NET...I remember paying $160 for 8MB ram... I'm curious about the new thunderbolt plug. I assumed it was apple proprietary but it isn't. They claim 20x the transfer speed of USB 2.0 I NEED me some speed! We'll see about the prices on the devices...oh and they allow easy daisy chaining, etc etc. +1 Scott good to hear no issues. 5.5 Edited May 27, 2011 by -JQ- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wgnoyes Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 (edited) There aren't any thunderbolt devices yet, though Promise (ironic company name) is the one showing on the Apple website the 4-drive and 6-drive raid boxes that you could plug in for general external storage or Time Machine. One to One also gets you a year's worth of classes and consultations at the Apple Store. I'm sure I'll be going to a few of those. Edited May 27, 2011 by wgnoyes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wgnoyes Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 Course one comparison I do see between Macs and cars is that we seem to refer to them both by year, as in a 2008 Ford F150 or a 2011 MacBook Pro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Habicht Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 Yeah, CS was going to be a huge issue with going Apple because the cost was as much as the hardware it runs on. Cindy through her work has a contact who works for Adobe, however, and my CS5.5 is coming to me at Adobe employee rates, which works out to be a 90% discount. They added the RAM at the store? Adobe used to swap out licenses, either free of charge, or very cheaply, if you were moving from one platform to another. It's possible that they required you to mail back the installation CDs for the system you were leaving.... I know of multiple photographers who managed to get that done in the past.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wgnoyes Posted May 28, 2011 Share Posted May 28, 2011 I read about all that on the adobe site. But I was running CS3 and their platform exchange only goes between whatever is the current version/release, and besides there was an awful lot of stuff in the master collection that I just wasn't using at all. No matter; CS5.5 Web Premium and Indesign just showed up today! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wgnoyes Posted June 6, 2011 Share Posted June 6, 2011 ...I'm going to get to experience this again, because I'm going back to get a iMac. (Windows has GOT to go!) I've narrowed in on the high-end 21.5", but that extra screen real estate is compelling. I did step up from the high-end 21.5 to the 27; I just couldn't ignore the bigger screen, and would have always had the regret that I could have but didn't. This screen's huge and awesome! Oh, and I just scored my first USPSA match on the macbook pro 13.3". Worked great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Habicht Posted June 6, 2011 Share Posted June 6, 2011 I read about all that on the adobe site. But I was running CS3 and their platform exchange only goes between whatever is the current version/release, and besides there was an awful lot of stuff in the master collection that I just wasn't using at all. No matter; CS5.5 Web Premium and Indesign just showed up today! O.K. Sorry that didn't help you..... Glad you're liking the 'puter..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GlockDoc Posted December 25, 2011 Share Posted December 25, 2011 Coming from a 17" MacBook pro, the 27" iMac was a game changer. I use the i7 model with an external FW800 drive (until thunderbolt HD prices drop out of the stratosphere) for my photography work using Lightroom 3 and CS5, and I've been nothing but happy. Unfortunately it seems that knowledge at the retail stores is a little spotty. Best course of action is to find the old bearded guy. There seems to be one at every store and they're usually the most likely to have owned and/or used every model since the Macintosh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YukonGlocker Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 I love my iMac 27. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wgnoyes Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Coming from a 17" MacBook pro, the 27" iMac was a game changer. I use the i7 model with an external FW800 drive (until thunderbolt HD prices drop out of the stratosphere) for my photography work using Lightroom 3 and CS5, and I've been nothing but happy. Unfortunately it seems that knowledge at the retail stores is a little spotty. Best course of action is to find the old bearded guy. There seems to be one at every store and they're usually the most likely to have owned and/or used every model since the Macintosh. I haven't seen an old bearded guy at an apple store yet, except for me. I made the mistake of going in there one time wearing a blue shirt. Customers started asking me questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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