I've been thinking about buying a better monitor for my pc then I saw the new iMacs. For less than 2k I can pick up the 27 inch model. My pc is a couple of years old but works fine.
Any thoughts or recommendations on a new monitor and brand?
Is your monitor calibrated and profiled ? If not, then allocate some money for a Spyder 4 or an i1 display pro.
Changing from PC to Mac is not a trivial exercise - a lot of things work differently, or need alternative software that is not always fully compatible. Some have no Mac version or no Mac equivalent. Don't do it without careful consideration to the time and effort involved.
Be aware that the iMac has little or no expansion capability - you can't just pop in a new standard drive whenever you feel like it. And next time you upgrade you have to pay for a new screen too. Still, that's not much worse than upgrading a laptop.
If you are after an excellent monitor for photo-editing then the iMac is not it. Look for NEC, Eizo, etc. for excellent colour and tonal uniformity. Make sure the combination of viewing distance and monitor pixels per inch suits your eyesight so that fine details look good instead of having obvious aliasing.
Overall, you can be happy with any computer if the screen, mouse, keyboard and software is ok - even if it is slower than the latest and greatest. Don't waste money if you don't need to or can't get a benefit that you'll appreciate. For me an excellent monitor outweighs a speedier computer.
OK, Im going to be mr contrary. My move from mac to pc was completely painless and current imacs have USB3 and thunderbolt and really do have scope for expandability in many way.
The performance of a current imac is frighteningly good. Even my wifes 27" C2D based imac is still coping.
Some thought needs to go into it but for me it was easy, once I saw how well they performed and how reliable they were it was a no brainer.
My move to Mac occurred in Apr 2008 when I got a 24" iMac. I am still running that same system today. Everything still works beautifully. I have never once regretted the move. (I am sure there are those with the opposite opinion). It runs far better than any 4+ year old Windows system I've ever had.
Now all is not 100% rosy. The hard drive did crash about 2 years ago. Fortunately, I had bought AppleCare which took care of the expense. One could change out the h/d on this vintage iMac (not sure about the Dec 2012 ones), but I certainly didn't want to try. Added expense for the AppleCare? Sure, but the convenience of the all-in-one is worth it. Plus, since Mac X's Time Machine makes backups so incredibly easy, I lost no data. I have lost data each and every time a Windows drive has crashed - backup programs running or not.
The new iMac's look amazing, but for now, I'll still be extending the mileage on my current one.
I will add my support to those saying a move to Mac is not a problem. Yes there are differences with the operating system but I found it very easy. There was a course I took on Lynda.com about migrating which made the process much less painless.
I was in a similar boat a couple years ago. Basically, I was looking for a reason to switch to a Mac. It came to me in the form of a hard-drive problem, so I made the switch. The transition was not trivial; not hard, just different. It took me several months to get nearly 30 years of PCs & Microsoft out of my head. But in the end, I made the right decision. Now when I want to sit down to do something on the computer, I just do it---I don't have to download some update every other time I turn it on. My iMac is not perfect, but it's so much closer than my PC ever was.
