Bought a new iMac today.

[Jerry1]

I bought a new iMac today. I have a iPhone, iPad and Apple watch and I wanted to complete the integration among my devices.

I did do something new, however, I bought an older generation M1 computer from Costco and went a step further and bought the base unit with only 8GB ram and 256GB SSD. I had been looking at the iMac for a while and when I saw this one on Costco for $999.97, I pulled the trigger. It's the unit that has the Ethernet port so one step up from the base model. Original price was $1,499 which would have been $1,449 at Costco, for a savings of $450. Not bad.

I'm a little concerned about buying the base ram/ssd unit but I did a lot of research and worked to determine my real needs and I think it should work just fine. In years past, there's no way I would have bought a base unit, but the truth is that my use case is drastically reduced since being retired. I mainly surf and get emails. I have a couple very simple spreadsheets (financial) that I maintain and produce a word document from time to time. The only program I buy is Turbo Tax and a search on their site says the install size is only 1GB. I think the Office program I want is about 10GB.

They had it in my color (Blue) so I bought it today and it should be here Friday. Wish me luck.

 

[GenXguy]

Good luck!

 

[braumeister]

For that kind of usage, you should be fine. Enjoy it!

 

[rkser]

I bought a M2 MacBook Air with similar Specs, I too am retired with similar usage as yours.
Been a windows user for 30 yrs before they started breaking on me, so had to go to Apple for “better quality”. We will see how this works out.
Have been seeing YouTube videos to get familiar with Apple quirks.
We will wish good luck to each other.

 

[Flyfish1]

Nice - gotta love Costco!

 

[Ronstar]

I also think you'll be fine with your level of usage. As to spreadsheets and word docs - I used to be an Excel and Word user at work and home. Now use Apple Numbers and Pages for home without missing a beat. Don't know if Numbers and Pages are included on your Mac, but maybe give them a try before loading a third party office suite.

 

[Jerry1]

I also think you'll be fine with your level of usage. As to spreadsheets and word docs - I used to be an Excel and Word user at work and home. Now use Apple Numbers and Pages for home without missing a beat. Don't know if Numbers and Pages are included on your Mac, but maybe give them a try before loading a third party office suite.

I've tried Numbers. I'm too old to deal with learning the new quirks of a spreadsheet program, minor though they may be. Plus, I share my spreadsheets and Word documents with DW and her computer is a Windows machine with Office. Again, I know they'd be compatible (Numbers and Excel, and Google docs for that matter), but having both our computers on the same office suite seems easier in the long run.

 

[JDARNELL]

Very Nice. I surf the web and mainly use excel. I have been looking at the new I Macs also because I suspect I am going to age out on software and operating systems at some time. I also want a bigger monitor but it seems IMacs no longer do that so I could do one of the box things. Well I was able to mirror my iMac on the 55 in Roku TV so the solves the monitor problem for now. Once i get to the point of software obsolescence I will upgrade.

 

[Midpack]

I suspect you'll be fine. Welcome to the ecosystem, we love it. I have 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD that I clearly won't need, but I paid twice as much as an early adopter for the M1 24". Good on you!

 

[Jerry1]

Very Nice. I surf the web and mainly use excel. I have been looking at the new I Macs also because I suspect I am going to age out on software and operating systems at some time. I also want a bigger monitor but it seems IMacs no longer do that so I could do one of the box things. Well I was able to mirror my iMac on the 55 in Roku TV so the solves the monitor problem for now. Once i get to the point of software obsolescence I will upgrade.

It's not 55" but the 24" monitor is a good size. I have a 27" currently and I took some time to analyze how I actually use it and I think the 24" will be fine. Usually, I only have one window open at a time and I usually size it down and put it in the middle of my monitor. If I frequently had multiple windows open, I might think differently but , for the way I use the 27" monitor, I think I won't notice any difference using the 24".

 

[PaunchyPirate]

Welcome! I too think you should be fine with 8GB RAM for what you have said you want it for. Macs (of all types) are just a joy to work with compared to PCs in my opinion. I love how iCloud pulls all my "stuff" together and sometimes seeing my photos on a large screen computer is so much nicer and easier to organize than on my iPad or iPhone.

If you haven't made your decision yet on how to deal with email, once I got used to the native MacOS Mail app, I never felt a need to go back to Microsoft Outlook. The Mail app does everything I want it to. I have about 6 email addresses connected in to it.

I do prefer Microsoft Office Excel and Word for my "office" needs. Thankfully, I'm retired and haven't made a Powerpoint presentation in 5 years! Yay.

Enjoy your beauty.

 

[Jerry1]

If you haven't made your decision yet on how to deal with email, once I got used to the native MacOS Mail app, I never felt a need to go back to Microsoft Outlook. The Mail app does everything I want it to. I have about 6 email addresses connected in to it.

I have a gmail account and I use the Mail app on my iPad and link to my gmail account. Works well. I think that’s what I’ll use in the iMac if it works the same/as well.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

I have a gmail account and I use the Mail app on my iPad and link to my gmail account. Works well. I think that’s what I’ll use in the iMac if it works the same/as well.

I hear you. I could never get used to the gmail interface. But everyone is different. I won't hate you. Enjoy.

 

[Jerry1]

I hear you. I could never get used to the gmail interface. But everyone is different. I won't hate you. Enjoy.

You misunderstood. I don’t use the gmail app. I use the resident Apple app and link my gmail account to it like you were saying.

 

[Rustic23]

I use Libre Office on my laptop, thinking about a MacBook, and there is a version for Apple. Have not seen any reviews.

 

[rkser]

I downloaded Chrome on my M2 Macbook Air & use Gmail, I was afraid it may slow down my 8 Ram, 256GB SSD but it has not yet. We will see how it goes.
I still have my windows Lenovo Laptop.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

You misunderstood. I don’t use the gmail app. I use the resident Apple app and link my gmail account to it like you were saying.

Ahhh. You are correct. I misread that. Great. You should be good to go then.

 

[Lakedog]

I use Libre Office on my laptop, thinking about a MacBook, and there is a version for Apple. Have not seen any reviews.

I've had MacBook Airs since 2012 and have always used LibreOffice with no issues. Switched to the M1 chip MacBook Air last year (and still use LibreOffice).

 

[NanoSour]

Best of luck. You're gonna love it me thinks. I recently bought an base model M2 Mac Mini to replace my 27" 2010 iMac. Did a "Blow that Dough" on the Studio Display and it's awesome.

 

[Jerry1]

Best of luck. You're gonna love it me thinks. I recently bought an base model M2 Mac Mini to replace my 27" 2010 iMac. Did a "Blow that Dough" on the Studio Display and it's awesome.

The studio display is awesome. I was close to blowing the dough on a setup like yours but I really wanted the clean look of the iMac.

 

[NanoSour]

BTW, to bump up the 256GB internal drive, I purchased an ACASIS external M.2 enclosure and put a 1TB Western Digital stick in it. It almost doubles my RW speeds so I installed Sonoma on it as my primary boot drive. Two months in and it's lickety split 2800 MB/s R/W vs stock speeds of 1700 MB/s. It was much cheaper than the Apple upgrade to 1TB ($180 vs $400).

 

[Jerry1]

BTW, to bump up the 256GB internal drive, I purchased an ACASIS external M.2 enclosure and put a 1TB Western Digital stick in it. It almost doubles my RW speeds so I installed Sonoma on it as my primary boot drive. Two months in and it's lickety split 2800 MB/s R/W vs stock speeds of 1700 MB/s. It was much cheaper than the Apple upgrade to 1TB ($180 vs $400).

I’m doing the same thing. I got a hub that integrates with the base and looks like it is part of the iMac. It also accepts a m.2 SSD. I got a 1TB for $65. The 256GB in the unit is just for the system and programs. I’ve been running my machines that way since I got my current desktop about 11 years ago.

This is the hub I got.

https://www.amazon.com/Minisopuru-A...b+usb+c&qid=1705492779&sprefix=,aps,98&sr=8-4

 

[Midpack]

I’m doing the same thing. I got a hub that integrates with the base and looks like it is part of the iMac. It also accepts a m.2 SSD. I got a 1TB for $65. The 256GB in the unit is just for the system and programs. I’ve been running my machines that way since I got my current desktop about 11 years ago.

This is the hub I got.

https://www.amazon.com/Minisopuru-A...b+usb+c&qid=1705492779&sprefix=,aps,98&sr=8-4

That is really slick, well done.

 

[frayne]

Nice and once you go Mac, you'll never go back.

 

[folivier]

One neat feature of the M processors is the ability to run some iPhone and iPad apps. I like to be able to see my wyze cameras, thermostats, etc. on my laptop.