Beware the new Macs (various)

[musicman691]

Well Apple did an update to various pieces in their computer line. There's now a 13 inch Retina Mac Book Pro (sealed and not user upgradeable of course). New Mac Mini's with quad core processors but integrated Intel video.

Then there's the iMacs. Slimmer (supposedly like 5mm thick). Optical drive - gone. Firewire port - gone. Does have USB3 ports and Thunderbolt (1 on the 21.5" and 2 on the 27") so you have a place to plug in your adapter cables for FW. They did keep the Ethernet port though. No user upgradeable ram in the 21.5" but there's 4 slots in the 27" for ram. Scary are the hard drive options - you can get standard spinning drive or what Apple calls a fusion drive that's a hybrid of SSD and spinning platter. According to the person giving the spiel at the Apple event online the fusion drive swaps programs back and forth from the SSD to the platter depending on how much a program is used. Not cool for PT. 21.5 " not available until November and the 27" December. i5 chip stock with i7 available - pricing on the Apple store is only for the i5. Can't even order them now or see what prices would be for various options. Here's the link to the iMac page: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/hom...ac/family/imac

My take - if you want an iMac go to the refurb store. Just got a 27" 3.4 Ghz i7 quad core for $1914 shipped to NJ.