Took the plunge last night. Hopefully I didn't get ripped off. Not a PC gamer, not a graphics person - just wanted a more stable system.
"Apple iMac Desktop with 20" Display MA589LL/A (2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive)"
Personal Computers; $1,499.99
Sold by: Amazon.com
Could have gone the used route, I suppose, but I figure this platform will run Leopard and I'm going to have a learning curve, anyway.
I bought the misses an Intel iMac last June. I had grown tired of spending so much time keeping her Dell Win XP box up and running. She was constantly frustrated by all of the BSODs and system slowdowns.
She loves the iMac. She never complains, never needs my help, OS X never locks up, and she never reboots. It's a great machine.
Is Jeff Bezos going to install and plug it in for you?
Congrats... Great. Welcome to the best side of computing.
Are you keeping up with the FR switchers, Swordmaker? Every day there seems to be 1 or 2 more.
I think you did the right thing. That's the box I went with a few months back, exact same specs. Now, I know that I'm not 100% impervious or worry-free, but, for the most part:
No spyware
No viruses
Much less in the way of software updating requiring restarts
Where you have to close everything you've got open
No more scanning
No more headaches, or, at least, almost none
I was sick & tired of Microsoft taking over my computer, sometimes shutting me down whether I wanted to or not. And since there's one app I can't seem to find a decent Mac facsimile of (Google's Picasa for photo editing), I downloaded Boot Camp & did what I thought I wasn't going to, install XP on a partition.
I'm still running Windows on my Dell laptop, but I'll never buy a Windows machine again, ever. I wouldn't notice this as much if I hadn't put XP on the iMac, but when you start Windows up...one day I'll COUNT the various firewall warnings, bloatware pop-ups, and general annoyances that all have to rear their heads before I can do anything. And I'm not even using Windows to have any connection with the Internet--actually, I'm going to try to switch off its ability to connect permanently.
I have been dismayed that Google won't come up with a Picasa for Mac. iLife is great, but iPhoto is the ONE app that's clunky & slow & a pain. Picasa to iPhoto is almost sorta like Firefox to IE, except iPhoto is very Windows-like in how it slows everything down. Disappointing, but at least I had the option to put XP on the machine.
One thing I will say about XP is that it's been remarkably stable on my laptop, more so than it had been on my previous desktop. But I started reading about the issues a user like myself would run into with Vista, thought about what I was already dealing with with Windows, and decided to take the plunge.
I think the OS wars & the browser wars are silly, but I don't think there's anything wrong with sharing common experience. After switching to Firefox I'd never, ever use IE again--and, again, although in a pinch I could always find a way to get by with it, I would never again buy a Windows computer. I mean, I suppose I could learn how to run Linux, but what for? Apple makes machines that are, for the most part, built to last. Until they need to be replaced, at which point the amount of time I'm getting back that I took for granted for so many years should pay for the cost of a new box a few years down the line when it becomes necessary.
Just imagining that I don't have to waste any time in any given week not being able to do anything because I have to run an antispyware scan, or because it's too long since I ran an antivirus scan...the occasional Mac software update & perhaps defragment is more than a worthwhile tradeoff. I won't go to the extent of having to throw my specs into some tagline or avatar text because it's not going to become my identity; and I don't care if someone thinks Opera (or even Safari) is a better browser than Firefox. I use what I use because it works for me. And the iMac is a heck of a box. There are maybe two small things that I was used to doing a certain, easy way in Windows that I just can't do on the iMac. The learning curve is not difficult, and, given everything else, if I had 50 little shortcuts & macros & tricks that I just wouldn't be able to do...instead of 2...I think it would've still been worth it.