billmck Loc: Central KY

Rumor has it that there will soon be new iMacs available, so I'd wait just a bit before purchasing. I moved to an iMac about 10 years ago and have no regrets.

jdmiles Loc: Texas

I am sure a new Mac will seem like a super major upgrade from a 10 year old windows machine. For myself I will never go to Mac. New windows machines can do a everything a Mac can do and do it cheaper. The flag I get is when they say be sure to get 16g of memory. For a windows machine that is not even a starting point. When I built my Win 10 machine 3 years ago I started with 32g. Then I started doing panos in Lightroom. That is when I discovered It was choking on the file size and I upgraded to 64g. Now I have an R5 and files to download are huge. I plugged the CFExpress card into my laptop and witnessed a download speed of over 750Mbytes/sec. Downloading to my windows machine the best I can do is 380Mbyte/sec because I am limited by USB 3.1. I ordered a USB 3.2 Gen 2 adapter that should get rid of that bottleneck. My point is if you go with a Mac (or windows) be sure it will meet your future needs. The technology of cameras is changing fast at this point.

malaneystuff Loc: SE Wisconsin

Thanks for all the input! At this point I’m leaning towards the 27” iMac. I understand that the “Pro” is being discontinued and the 27” is being redesigned with the M1 cpu. I’m not in a real hurry but want to move while I have a functional, but old, Windows PC. So thinking moving to a 5K monitor and faster processor will be a quite a change for me. Also, I like the ability to be able to add memory to the current iMac as a user. This saves a bundle over needing Apple to do it. Thanks for the reminders on software costs and storage options. To be honest, I have the time and money now to look into upgrade options. If I wait too long my will spend the money.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

VMWare Fusion is inferior to Parallels Desktop. Only Intel Macs can run BootCamp.

The Intel MacBook Airs were slooow. M1 Airs are rockets. I’m anxious to see what Parallels can do with the release version of Desktop for Windows on ARM.

Hip Coyote

I guess I am the odd man out. I bought a 27 inch iMac and returned it a few days later. I now have an HP laptop, with a docking station that works better for me. I am an apple phone and Ipad user. I am familiar with the iOS and easily switched. What irritated me was that the menu bar, in iOS is fixed to the top of the monitor. In windows it is at the top of the active window. IN the iOS, this required me to constantly look up to the top of the 27 inch screen away from my active window. And, when I brought all my financial stuff over from quicken windows to Mac it wanted me to renew all my passwords / contact each bank web site, etc. and I just was not going to do that. Yes, I could have put win10 on the Mac but I just abandoned the idea and now have a Intel 7, 11th gen chip with 16 megs of ram and it works great. I use an external SSD drive for photos and that was readable via mac or win. Also, I backed up my catalog in my dropbox and just brought it back resident on the new computer. Oh, and it all cost about 60% of the iMac cost. That being said, the Mac was a beautiful machine...great monitor, very very fast system. Now, when you go to some coffee shop and see some old hipster in the back looking at his sleek laptop that might be me!

John Hicks Loc: Sible Hedinham North Essex England

Moving from a pc to Mac good luck in your endeavour, although you will no doubt have to pay a lot more for Mac gear, how ever if your heart is set in the move you will never be happy until you do, good luck with your move.

teammt

Mac will read external HD's formatted for Windows.

fstoprookie Loc: Central Valley of California

I have been an iMac user for about 15 years. I was a Windows guy and had an awful time getting use to the different key strokes it took to do my stuff - It took me about 6 months to get use to the iMac. After that I would NEVER go back to Windows. I would pack the iMac with as much memory as I could afford. Right now I'm using 64gb of memory and can handle almost any processing I need. I run Lightroom & Photoshop and LOVE the ease with which my iMac helps me in my picture files post-processing. GOOD LUCK in your new adventure and your new iMac. PS - get a 27" iMac - You'll LOVE it

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

From a cross-platform Mac/DOS, then Mac/Windows user since 1985:

Most Mac users stick with the brand for a combination of reasons. I use Macs and Windows, because there is software on each platform that is not available for the other.

Macs are often more expensive to buy if you compare them with home-brew PCs. If you price similarly configured brand-name hardware across platforms, though, their up-front hardware prices are similar.

That said, owning a computer isn't about the purchase price. It is about both suitability for use (needs) and the total cost of ownership over the life of the system. That cost includes your time, out-of-warranty repairs, help-desk support from whatever source, and many intangibles related to ease of use.

Macs tend to come with more immediately usable software and (especially historically) more built-in features, plus the ecosystem of iCloud, iTunes, iBooks, AppleTV, Apple News, etc. Windows machines are historically more common in enterprise environments, but there are notable exceptions (IBM uses them, and so does GE). Here's an interesting article:

https://mbsdirect.com/mbs-blog/article-forrester-research-and-ibm-studies-show-macs-are-cheaper-than-pcs

Macs are consistently rated in Consumer Reports as having the highest customer satisfaction for phone support, online support, and problem resolution, and one of the lowest incidences of repair. Their M1 laptops are currently at the very top (#1 and #2) of their ratings list. I suspect their upcoming round of higher end Apple Silicon Macs will float to the top of those ratings in their respective categories.

Things are not always what they seem, or what the established IT community want you to believe. That's my understanding after working with both operating systems for decades. Apple and Microsoft have both released some gems and some turds over the years, but my experiences have favored the MacOS environment. Back when I did database solutions development in FileMaker Pro, I developed on a Mac, and deployed on PCs, because Windows boxes were what we had where my solutions were used. (I did all the development on a Mac, and testing on Windows XP running ON the Mac in Parallels Desktop.)

malaneystuff Loc: SE Wisconsin

Just an update. I got my iMac 27” delivered 2 days ago. So far really happy. Using an older version of Elements I needed to pay for an upgrade since the Adobe version I had will not run in 64 bit. I have a bunch of Topaz add in’s that all came over without an issue since Topaz allows a single user to run on multiple platforms/PC’s. Just being a family that is an Apple family, the integration with iphones and ipads is slick.

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

Ya know ...
That there Intel iMac will run Windows kinda good ...
Just sayin ...