If you were to buy a 27″ iMac with your own money for use at home, which one would you go for and why would you choose one retailer/supplier over another given there’s hardly any deals about?
In the market and not sure if the 5k retina is worth me having as I won’t be doing super hi-end P’shop files…maybe the odd bit of freelance here and there. Anyone been in a similar boat recently?

Buy from Apple or John Lewis (if they have the free extended warranty offer going on)

I went for the highest spec I could afford.

Check out what Apple have in their refurb shop.

Don’t buy additional RAM from Apple. Horrendously overpriced. Get it from Crucial.com instead.

I would get the 5K display if I could afford it as it is amazing.

No real advantage of other retailers… generally only very old models get discounted. I would look at the refurb section of Apple’s website. I’ve bought 5 Macs that way for work over the years and they’ve all been spot-on.

Just got a 27″ retina iMac a few weeks ago. The old display is good, but the new one is so much nicer to look at once you’ve used it you wouldn’t want to go back.

Also I would go with SSD or at least a Fusion drive over a conventional HD. The performance difference is substantial, and although Apple do charge an inflated price for the upgrade I would say it’s non-trivial to do yourself unless you’re pretty handy.

I’m working on a 5k 27″ iMac with i7 Processor and 16GB of RAM. If I could afford it this is what I would have at home. It’s not just about the resolution on the 5k model, it’s the extra screen space you get. But everything looks tiny to start with!

If you aren’t in a hurry sign up to KRCS’s emails. We got the above Mac from them a few months ago for less than the standard display model.

https://www.krcs.co.uk/

It’s not just about the resolution on the 5k model, it’s the extra screen space you get. But everything looks tiny to start with!

❓ There’s no extra screen space. Everything is the same size, just more detailed.

I got mine direct from Apple as a refurbished unit.

Some deals are better than others so just had a spec and budget in mind and kept an eye on their website for a good offer. I couldn’t tell it wasn’t a brand new machine, came with Apple care and is still going strong.

“I got mine direct from Apple as a refurbished unit.

Some deals are better than others so just had a spec and budget in mind and kept an eye on their website for a good offer. I couldn’t tell it wasn’t a brand new machine, came with Apple care and is still going strong. “

This is what I did. Got the fusion drive also which is excellent.

As with a lot of things, get the best spec you can afford. If you spend what seems like an enormous amount of cash on Apple products, they do actually future proof you for a long time.

Doesn’t really matter who you buy it off as none will offer substantial discounts – they don’t need to. If you do have any issues Apple customer service is absolutely brilliant!

john lewis, refurb store or jigsaw24

5k retina is worth me having as I won’t be doing super hi-end P’shop files…

the funny thing is the retina screen is not ideal for retouching, the 100% pixel view for detailed work is too small so ‘cmd +’ from 100% gives you a truer size like a .25 dot pitch 1920×1080 screen but it’s interpolating to fit the 4 retina pixels for each image pixel so not a true representation. retina is great for everything else and actually viewing whole images but i’ll always use a separate dedicated graphics monitor. they (iMacs) have a bit too much contrast and saturation for proper pre press work too.

I’d build another hackintosh

oliverd1981 – Member

I’d build another hackintosh

I was thinking about doing this, but is it not a pain in the chebs every time you need to do a system update?

I got mine direct from Apple as a refurbished unit.

This

And don’t forget your Quidco cashback.

We buy all our work machines from the refurb store – every one has looked brand new and not had any unexpected problems.

Buy from Apple. Don’t buy the cheapest model as its really low spec. Get at least 8gb ram and if you can afford it get the 5k screen it’s amazing. Storage is very easy to add externally, an ssd / fusion drive will make reboot very fast although if you “sleep” the machine it restarts very fast anyway. Get the 27 it looks massive to start with but you soon get used to it and extra size is very worthwhile

If you know a student try and get them to buy it as they get great discounts.

The MacRumors site amd forums are excellent, have a read of this http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/imac/

I was thinking about doing this, but is it not a pain in the chebs every time you need to do a system update?

Yes it is, and why I bought a Mac Mini. It was worth every penny and I’m no thicky with computers. If you never update it a Hackintosh is viable, but more or less every update was an evening with Google on the tablet. If you have to work on it, just don’t.

“And don’t forget your Quidco cashback”

You sure?

They are no longer available on Topcashback.

If you know someone who’s a student take them and their student card to the Apple store with you. It saved me %15 of my MBP.

You sure?

They are no longer available on Topcashback.

They were earlier this year but I see they are not now 🙁

19 Feb 15 Apple Store 778.32 15.57 Paid

Went into Nottingham earlier for a touchy-feely compare and contrast between the standard 27″ iMac and the 5k retina screen. My eyesight is pretty shite without glasses on these days but there was a definite difference between the two – the 5k is only £150 more which in the big scheme of things isn’t much so going down that route. Can’t decide if it’s worth getting the processor changed from i5 to i7 now as it can’t be done later – anyone else done this? Is it worth it as I won’t be doing animation etc? I’ll be using InDesign, Illustrator & Pshop.
Both come with 8GB RAM as standard – KRCS charge £106 for an additional 8GB installed whereas Apple charge £160, though it’s meant to be relatively easy to do yourself (I am however a spanner when it comes to stuff like this). This can obviously be added at any point. Can someone explain the difference between a normal hard drive and a flash/fusion drive and the pros/cons?
The guy at KRCS was very helpful as I’d expect as they specialise in Apple but the John Lewis guy (about 10) was far less clued-up. Both macs from both KRCS and JL come with 2 year warranties.

About to pull the trigger – just need a little more help…so help! 😉

Cheers

We bough the mid range 27″ iMac as our TV. Didn’t bother with Retina as once you’re 3 feet from it you can’t see the difference. Bought from Apple Store only as they’re quicker to deal with than John Lewis. Never had an Apple item go wrong, so not that bothered about warrenty.

Anyone?

Fusion drive – the system learns what you use most and pre-loads that into the solid state portion of the drive for a quick start. It’s a combined SSD (Effectively RAM but on a slower data pipe) and spinning disc item. Standard HD has rotating platters that are read by heads crossing the disc surface which is slower that the solid state disc to read.

Pros/cons speed of Fusion drive, more expensive to replace outside of Applecare/warranty period. Normal HD slower to read/write, cheaper to replace.

The faster processor will allow your machine to work for longer as the software evolves over time and bogs the machine down with extra features. Large Photoshop renders will not cause the machine to hang for too long. If you have all 3 Adobe apps open at once they can be a tad processor intensive.

There will be an on-line guide from Apple on how to change the RAM have a rootle around their support area. Or system profile tool will give you a link to it from the machine. Buy fro Crucial with Topcashback/Quidco to save some more.

OP just seen your post. IMO Fusion / SSD will make more difference than the processor especially if you are not doing heavy video encoding or other processor intensive tasks. Get the memory, Apple “overcharge” so if you trust the other company use them, check what make if memory they put in. FYI changing memory is very simple especially in an iMac but for £100 they aren’t charing that much over the cost of the memory chips.

Happy shopping, I’d love an iMac similar to that you are looking at but cannot justify it as my 2009 Mini (with drive and memory upgrades) is still getting the job done as I’m a low horsepower user.

I was thinking about doing this, but is it not a pain in the chebs every time you need to do a system update?

Upgrading from SNowl Leopard to mountain Lion was seamless – i haven’t bothered updating since – it’s a Mac – if you want to worry about updates get windows.

@oliver – upgrading the OS is simple and means you get the latest features, all for free. I can understand some people not upgrading immediately but I do it ASAP.

I got a used one on gumtree for 800 quid. top spec, solid state drives, loads of ram and not much different to current new models although they are about to be refreshed.

@oliver – upgrading the OS is simple and means you get the latest features, all for free. I can understand some people not upgrading immediately but I do it ASAP.

Absolutely; I just click on the upgrade button and let it get on with it, it’s so little hassle these days, just like upgrading iOS.
Incremental updates just happen anyway. Unlike the shitty Vista Business I have to live with on my work computer; not a day goes by without McAfee demanding that I restart the machine because of yet another update, or some desktop manager thing which I don’t understand does the same thing, sometimes both together.
Complete load of crap. 👿

Get it from John Lewis as they pay their taxes.

I have a 27″ Imac (pre retina) but made sure it had the 1Tb fusion drive and the best i7 processor available.

It came with 8GB but adding extra RAM was super easy, plug and play. Added the full 32GB for less than Apple wanted for 16GB upgrade.

Buy the best you can at the time. Hard drives can be replaced as can RAM.

Chatting to some bods out on Sat who use the latest macs…they reckon I should just get 256GB SSD and not even bother with the Fusion drive even though it’s a quarter of the fusion drive…I have a 1TB external drive too if need be. Just how much quicker/better is a solid state drive as opposed to a fusion (which itself is way better than a normal hard drive)? Oh and def retina 5k.

Rascal a fusion drive just joins a SSD with a normal hard drive (ie it’s a fusion of the two 🙂 ). A 256SSD with an external hard drive connected via say usb3 is just as fast as internal drives (so say the forums). The hard drive a I out into my mini spins at 7200rpm vs the 5400 which Apple seem to install (it was a Westen Digital Black). Given you are buyin a new machine having a Fusion all inside the box is the neatest solution

I have a Retina 5K with 256 Gb SSD and 8 Gb of RAM. The fusion isn’t worth getting really for the money unless you absolutely need 1 TB of storage on the machine.

I sit at it all day every day and it’s been amazing so far. Even compared to a similar spec Windows laptop connected to a 27″ display this is great. much tidier on the desk too.

Try and find a student to get the significant discount!