new iMacs

I'm presently using a 2007 model iMac 24" which has been absolutely trouble free, real pleasure to work with. I understand new iMacs are being released. I'm thinking about the 27" as a replacement. What is your opinion of this machine and how would you spec it on purchase? I have read that the new monitor has much reduced glare, that would be a welcome improvement if true. No optical drive though, not sure what to think about that. I think that a new iMac is in my future, any reason to reconsider? I love FREE advice.

Have you already upgraded to the new operating system, yet? If not, then you need to find articles on what older software you have working now that might not or will not work on the new iMac's new operating system. This caught ALOT of people by surprise when they jumped on the upgrade at release time. Lots of angry folks. I love my older iMac notebook but am staying away from the new opsys as long as possible since I have some applications that will not work on the new opsys. Seems like there are three different screens that can be ordered now. Still, love my Mac.

Thanks Troup, good point. I am expecting some software upgrades as well. Inevitable it seems.

Gary, I have a mid-2011 iMac 27" and I love the size and quality of the screen. I think it was well worth the extra cost to get the 27" over the 24" especially for photo processing. It's running system 10.7 so there weren't any software upgrade issues. I haven't looked at the latest offerings (helps avoid CPU envy ) so I can't comment on display improvements. I get pretty crazy shooting and not so crazy deleting, so I've now got all of my images on a 4TB, Thunderbolt external drive and I do recommend thinking where you'll store you images and how much storage you'll need as well as backup issues. The Lightroom updates don't seem to be as fast as using the internal drive but that may be because I'm approaching 15000 images in my LR file. The was a noticeable speed improvement when I replaced by Firewire 800 external drive.

Gary, I also have a mid-2011 iMac with a 27 inch screen. The Thunderbolt port is extremely helpful managing large numbers (21,000 plus) of photos in Aperture. Quite noticeably faster than the USB 2.0 drive I used to use. I run MacOS 10.6.8 and PS 6.0X.

The applications that will break on a new iMac are those that run require the old PowerPC patch, Rosetta, which is missing in Mac OS 10.7 and later. Some were upgraded. Some were abandoned.

There was a time when I would have advised waiting for the next Mac Pro, but the iMac with the Thunderbolt port is easily powerful enough to meet your photography needs. I prefer Aperture to Adobe Lightroom, especially with very large libraries of photos. But I think it is mostly a matter of taste.

Unless there have been changes recently to Apple monitors which I would believe the iMac would be considered in that family the color gamut of Apple monitors is quite a bit smaller than that of Adobe RGB which would make it less than ideal for critical color adjustments such as what serious photographers would be striving for. This has been the case for some time but usually no ones wants to admit or deal with it because of the "If it's an Apple it has to be better" mindset.

Brad is correct. Although, most monitors that the BULK of photographers (professionals included) use are not truly color accurate, or display a wide gammut. Most monitors can not produce colors that come close to matching Adobe RGB. I used one of these monitors for too many years - then I upgraded to an NEC Wide Gamut monitor (27" PA271)... the difference has blown my mind. I run it (daisy chained) off my 2nd external Thunderbolt drive - it's a mini-display-port connection, so it runs off the same cord/port as the Thunderbolt from my MacBook Pro. The NEC is a pleasure to work with. However, it is spendy. The new iMac uses IPS technology (just like the NEC), and the new displays are 75% less reflective than before - so that has GOT to help. I know laptop screens are typically not very color accurate, but a good hardware-based profile can really help a lot. I'm sure that the new iMac (go for the 27", as it is user upgradeable), with a quality monitor profiling device, will yield VERY good color accuracy, at a fraction of the cost of an NEC.

The lack of an optical drive can easily be worked around by purchasing an external DVD drive (Apple's USB SuperDrive is just one option, although there are plenty of more 'full-featured' options made by 3rd party manufacturers). Personally, I haven't purchased a DVD-based software in a few years - everything I've installed has been via download. The only need for burning a DVD has been for the (very) rare case when an image buyer has not switched to FTP/digital delivery of image files. Hope this helps!