I'm going to buy a Mac

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Sep 5 2006, 05:53 PM) [snapback]314772[/snapback]</div>

Hi Daniel,

If you are just going to surf the web, check email, write letters etc, then 1GB is sufficient. You won't even take advantage of having 2GB. If you are thinking of maybe doing something with your pictures down the road then definitely get 2GB.

Check out http://www.neooffice.org/.

 

Get 2GB RAM, but not necessarily through Apple. Check their price against crucial.com.

NeoOffice is...something I wouldn't recommend. What you're getting in NeoOffice is a port of the PC version of Office, and you're missing out on what's, well, not great, but better about the Mac version. I guess if you're a starving, orphaned college student who's supporting six younger siblings, then yes, get NeoOffice. But for all it's faults, the fact that it's not yet Universal Binary, etc, Microsoft Word is a much better product.

If you're not looking for major compatibility with Office, and just need to type some stuff and make it look good, definitely check out Pages. No spreadsheet, but a dandy little word processor that is much better at page layout than Word.

Oops. Didn't read your whole post closely, I guess. So you need spreadsheet capability. I still say get Word. Using NeoOffice is like welcoming Windows into your Mac. Ugly, cumbersome and annoying, IMO.

You should be fine with the iMac.

 

Also, Office is $350 on Amazon, and if you are a legal guardian of a student you can get it for $128 from Amazon.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Sep 5 2006, 04:53 PM) [snapback]314772[/snapback]</div>

The Mac Pro is more computer than most people need. It's a very powerful machine, but for what you described as your normal usage its really not worth the extra money. The iMacs are also very strong computers - and well suited for most day to day use. Plus the new ones come with a built in iSight camera if you'd ever want to do any video conferencing, etc.



As for me, I'm getting a MacPro as soon as I can afford one, but I'm a professional photographer and constantly have 2 Adobe programs running along with 3 or 4 other programs. It's time to upgrade from my older G4 PowerMac.

Good luck with the Mac! I love mine.

 

Regarding the RAM question. My main computer is a 20" iMac. I used to be fine with 1 GB for everything including M$ Office. I upgraded to 2 GB when I started emulating a PC using Parallels. At that point having 2GB greatly sped up Parallels.

 

Given your needs, I would go with a 20" iMac. It will do everything you need and more. I would also go with 2Gb of memory. Memory is fairly inexpensive these days and the rule of thumb is "go with as much memory as you can afford." Memory through Apple is expensive, so you may want to consider Other World Computing for your memory needs. (it is very easy to replace yourself)

I made the switch earlier this year from PCs to Macs and I absolutely love it. It's like the Prius -- it's the best purchase I've ever made.

I went with a 20" Intel iMac / 500Gb Hard Drive / 2Gb RAM / 256mb video / 3-year Customer Care Plan / 320Gb USB Hard Drive.

Have fun!

Bryan

 

Daniel. Buy as much memory and harddrive space as you can afford. You may not need it now, but you might later. And it's cheaper to have them do it all now, than buy it later and try to do it yourself. Office for Mac beats the generics.

I have both a desktop with flat screen and a laptop. I hardly use my desktop any more. I work almost exclusively on the laptop. If it's for you, consider the MacBook Pro over a desktop. I never thought I'd ever prefer a laptop; I bought it to use at work and for my masters. But having a portable computer beats all. And once you start playing with what your mac can do, you'll find you'll need more memory and a bigger harddrive. So, buy as much as you can afford.

 

I think the most important thing when picking ram options for ording a mac is the configuration of the memory more than the amount. If you aren't carefull, you might end up with two 512K sticks when you order... so that when you want to go to 2gigs you'll have to order two 1gig sticks instead of just ordering 1. You might have to pay a bit more, but you might save in the long run.

I got burned trying to save money a few years ago when I bought an imac without realizing that only one memory slot was user accessible. I ordered only a 256 with the idea that I would put in the max of 1gig. Turns out that in order to do that I would have had to order a 512 with 1 stick. (hopefully all that made sense). I ended up hacking it to get the ram in afther my applecare was up.

The biggest processor hogs that I use on my mac are iMovie and iDVD since the speed of you encoding is directly related to processor speed. If you want to do that or music, then get the mac pro if you can swing it.

 

You might want to check the archived articles at Macaddict and Macuser for comparisons of different macs, memory etc.

 

Hi Daniel. I second Godiva's recommendation that you consider a laptop MacBook or MacBook Pro. The Pro is powerful, but I'm not sure you really need that. Portability, WiFi, and Bluetooth are great! Get lots of memory in any case.

If you go with the MacBook or iMac you get iLife included. The iWork package from Apple is Pages and Keynote. Keep/download Open Office for M$ Office compatability if you don't want to feed Redmond. Pages is a good document layout program; not professional like InDesign, but strong and flexible. Keynote beats the pants off Powerpoint, but if you don't do presentations, why bother? Frontrow and the remote are great if you want to watch movies, listen to music, and otherwise make the iMac more than an office tool. Get AppleCare, though you don't have to do that at purchase. It's like the Toyota extended warranty; if you have something go wrong, you'll be very thankful you bought it. If you can afford it, get the wireless keyboard and wireless MightyMouse, cheaper if bundled in the purchase. If you use WiFi in your house (another reason to get a MacBook) you can have your iMac untethered except for power.

Feel free to email or PM me with any specific questions.

As an aside to theblackpearl, consider leasing a MacPro for your business as a professional photographer. A lease is a directly deductable business expense, and in three years, you send it back and get the 6GHz quad-core new machine... You can get a top-of-the-line machine now which will be useable until you get the next generation machine.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Sep 5 2006, 05:53 PM) [snapback]314772[/snapback]</div>

I have not read the rest of the replies, but here is my ₡.02 on this. I JUST got a iMac and a Mini Mac over the weekend. And with the iMac, I had them put 2GB of RAM in, right away. With the Mini Mac, and the 512 it came with, it was such a difference. Way slower. And I just do about what you do...so I went back and upgraded the Mini to 2 GB.

Glad I did.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Sep 6 2006, 12:38 AM) [snapback]315030[/snapback]</div>

Maybe it's not the same where you are, but here you get AppleWorks included when you buy a Mac and this is adequate for ordinary needs of word processing, spreadsheet etc. Except that I prefer FileMaker for my databases. 1GB should be ample. I'm amazed when I hear that so many people have 2GB but then my first machine (not a Mac) did my word procressing and ran a spreadsheet with only 256K RAM back in the 1980s. And that was MS/DOS.

 

Wait a week! Apple is having a press announcement on the 12th. Officially they make no indication of what is in the works before hand. The rumor mill (which seems to have a good batting average) is talking of an upgraded iMac. A 23" version is even mentioned.

I agree with the comments above, for most people the iMac is a better option than the Mac Pro. With the uses you indicated, the extra costs of the Mac Pro would be hard to justify. (Remember with it you also need a display, which is part of the iMac.)

I like iWork, but the copy that is included with the Mac is a 30 day trial. (I had used Pages on my MacBook and saw the trial days go down, and later when I tried Keynote, it seemd to reset the 30 day counter.) It it fits your needs, it is a good buy at $79.

If you need to run windows you have some options:

1) BootCamp. This is "beta" software and a free download from Apple. It will be a part of the next version of the Mac OS. You will need to buy a copy of Windows. This is a dual boot option that requires Windows XP. (This is the way I went.)

2) Parallels. This is now commercial product at somthing like $80 plus a copy of just about any other Intel operating system, including multiple versions of windows.

3) Crossover Mac. This is a new beta package that apparently implements the Windows API within the Mac OS environment. Right now it is limited in what Windows applications it will run, but it does not need a copy of Windows.

 

Well. The iMac lineup changed. Now you can get a 24-incher!

http://www.apple.com/imac/

Cheers!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Sep 6 2006, 05:40 AM) [snapback]315089[/snapback]</div>

Your logic about Office makes no sense to me. Open Office/NeoOffice are basically MS Office, but crappier, at least on the Mac. The Mac version of Office is known to be better than the PC version. Anyway, if you hate MS Office, it seems to me you would hate the other two. IMO, they are slower, clunkier, more annoying and just plain stupid programs. Not that MS Office doesn't have all those qualitites, too, it's just a much better product than the free ones. And MS Office on the Mac is a different animal than on the PC.

AppleWorks is bad idea, too. Way out of date application.

 

Which might bring the price of the smaller one down some

The biggest limiting factor on a computer's "speed" for me has always been RAM. It's the cheapest and easiest way to make your computer feel more powerful.

As for Macs in general, I'm an artist, and I have been brainwashed for along time that Macs are supposedly better for artists. That's pretty flatly wrong though, especially when you compare Adobe and Macromedia (now also Adobe) products on Mac and PC with similar specs. They just run weirdly slow on good Mac machines, and take noticeably longer to do even the simplest things.

I also do 3D stuff, and my 3D app, Maya, is very buggy on MacOS.

Fortunately none of this affects OP's intended use other than RAM I'd put my vote in for Neo/OpenOffice. I put up with the crappiness of it because it's open source and I like to support that type of work.

 

Apple just released their 24" iMac today! Looks like we didn't have to wait a week. It's so awesome! Their entire iMac line is now updated with Intel Core 2 Duos. So...what really is in store for next week? 2GB is RAM is good enough so that it'll last you a while. No need for future memory upgrades. Of course, they could be cheaper later on, but who knows.
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