Both myself and Jacqui have been considering getting new laptops for a while - her because her iBook G4 is ancient and she has worn all the letters off the keys, and me because the maximum 2GB RAM my Macbook Pro just isn’t enough when I’m working.

I had planned to buy a few months ago, but knew Apple were doing an update, so decided to wait until the new versions came out to see what was on offer. Unfortunately, a week or two before the new machines were announced, the Aussie dollar started a slide from US0.98 to US0.63, so the new machines ended up being priced a few hundred dollars more expensive than the old ones. I’d now need $4300 for a new laptop, and Jacqui would need another $1800 for hers. Given that we’re saving for an apartment, $6100 was a bit too much to shell out, so upgrade plans went on the back-burner.

Late last week I realised that since I work from home while Jacqui’s in the office, we could get an iMac between us, and I could keep my laptop for those occasions when Jacqui needs to work at home as well. She agreed, so it was onto the Apple Store to get a 24” 2.8GHz iMac. I noticed also that Apple had a refurbished version for $1979, so I went for that instead. I ordered it at 6:35am yesterday morning, got an email at 2:27pm saying it had shipped, and it arrived on my doorstep at 10am this morning.

I’d also ordered 2 x 2GB DIMMs from epowermac.com to upgrade the RAM to 4GB and they arrived this morning shortly after the iMac. It’s midday now and I’m typing this on the new machine, having already migrated all my data and installed the new RAM, all for a bargain price of $2145.50, saving nearly $4000. Gotta be happy with that!