I am thinking of getting a new iMac for my wife. What are your experiences with iMAC? I want to get 24" screen with 2.8 GHZ and 2GB Ram. We've been PC users all our lives but wanted to try something different. Any user comments or impressions are appreciated as I trust my Vintage friends. Fire away!

 

I have had Macs since 1984. I also have had to have some PCs.

YOU WILL LOVE THE iMac!! Finally you will just be able to use your computer and not have to buy all those other little programs to protect it and make it run right. You won't have to spend all the time on computer maintenance, you will just turn it on and use it.

You can finally relax with your online experience and not have to worry about viruses, trojan horses, etc.

Things just work on a Mac with no effort on your part. A bare bones Mac is the equivalent of a fully loaded PC since everything comes with it as well as a lot of software. Unless you have particular needs you probably won't even have to buy any more software.

Currently I have almost 30 Macs and 2 PCs. I spend almost all my IT time on the PCs. We've gotten so that we don't even allow the PCs an outside line. We bring all stuff in thru the Macs and then transfer the screened stuff to the PCs.

If you've been on a PC you don't even know what Plug and Play is.

I wish I could say you'll never have a Mac issue but I can say that any issues you have will be so far and few between you will have forgotten how you fixed the problem the first time.

 

What if you have several WORD docs and EXCEL spreadsheets you'd like to move over to the MAC. Any issues there? Most of the world deals in the PC environment so I always get docs in WORD or spreadsheets in EXCEL. Will I be able to use them?

 

^Well, the Apple representative said that if I buy the MAC version of MS OFFFICE, I can save the files either as word, powerpoint, or excel and these files can be read by MS OFFICE in PC. I am willing to pay for the MAC version of MS OFFICE as PC is dominant in most environment. I am just wondering if it is worth paying a thousand dollars more for 24" or just go with 20" as we don't do video editing or sound board mixing. The only drawback with iMAC is that eventually when we have to upgrade, we'll simply have to get another unit.

 

That sounds like a viable solution John. I'm interested to hear more from other MAC users. Thanks for posting this.

 

I don't have the iMac, I have the Mini Mac hooked up to a twenty-two inch LCD display. I've been very pleased with it and can't picture myself going back to a PC.
If you're not watching movies or doing video editing, I would think that the twenty inch would be more than sufficient for your needs.

 

That is a good point. I don't have a creative bone in my body so video editing and sound mixing are very distant concept for me.

 

Why did wildncrazy say you don't have to worry about viruses or trojans? I assume if you're on the web, getting email, etc. that you're open to attack even with computer condoms (i.e. firewalls, etc.).

 

Viruses, worms, etc. are generally written for PCs, not Macs.

 

Buy the Educators' version of MS Office for Macs, it's a lot cheaper. I think I paid $119 for it and also got a $25 mail-in rebate.