[QuickSilver]

I am starting to shop for a replacement for my age old G5 20 inch iMac. It bugs me that there are no 24 inch iMac's anymore and I cannot justify the price of a 27 inch (let alone the space needed for it). I was on apples site and went to the refurb section. On the entry level iMac 3.06 C2D I can save $200.00 on the unit. I have tried sticking with my G5 but it is getting tons of spinning rainbow balls and the fans run all the time. Any thoughts on the refurb units? I know they come with 1 year apple warranty.

 

[bobmac]

You're too late, no refurb 24" just 21 and 27 now. Just checked on the cdn site but maybe I'm wrong.

Actually just wanted to mention that, if you want, you can get Applecare for a refurb machine.

Also if you qualify for an edu discount, the prices are closer together.

Good luck.

Bob

 

[QuickSilver]

Yeah I noticed they were out of 24 inch iMac's. Very disappointing. Wish Apple would not have killed that model. Grrr

 

[Nuje]

I know it's a price and space increase, but QS - if you can find a way to get a 27" (particularly with the i5), do it. I was absolutely blown away with what a difference there was between that iMac and my 2.5GHz C2D MBP.
8GB of RAM (reasonably priced 2GB sticks) is pretty sweet as well.

I spent $500 more than I had budgeted to step up to the i5 and 8GB RAM, but every single day I smile and am soooo glad I did.

 

[doglips]

Any thoughts on the refurb units? I know they come with 1 year apple warranty.

Been very satisfied with my setup, had it for 18 mos (it even came with more ram than advertised on apple.ca):

15" refurb alu MBP C2D, 2.6 GHz, 4 GB ram, 200 GB HD @ 7200rpm; 20" refurb ACD

Didn't get applecare but bought with credit card that extended manufacturer's warranty. So far so good!

 

[Mach2billy]

Hi QuickSilver. If you want to consider just replacing the hard drive in your existing system, it can be easy to do, depending on which G5 model you have. My sister has one of the original G5 iMacs, which was the easiest one in which to do this work. Her system had been having the same pinwheel issues that you're having. You can check out the details of swapping hard drives in this good MacWorld article. After I replaced the hard drive and added some more RAM, her old system now runs very nicely, but of course it's not as fast as a new system, and it can't run Snow Leopard or beyond.