Looking to buy Apple, suprised by slow speed

[Wizard9999]

I know there is a lot of knowledge on here re Apple products. Any thoughts much appreciated, but please remember I am a techno-muppet and easily confused.

Went into our local Apple store today to look into a couple of purchases. Think we are now fixed on an iPad Pro for my daughter with an external Apple keyboard, no easy mouse option, but she says she likes using the touch screen when on the likes of Word (machine intended to be for homework :lol: ).

Also looking at an iMac, was thinking about one anyway, but the unfortunate coming together of my wife's laptop and my son's cup of hot chocolate has made it a necessity - luckily for my son I so hate Windows8 I didn't bat an eyelid at the spoilage :lol: . We don't really want the super big 27" screen, so were looking at the 21.5" version, which generally comes with a lower specification. However, was stunned by how slow all the versions on display seemed to be, especially when opening Word, Excel, etc. but also Garage Band and Photos. On the mid-spec version I reckon it took nearly 20 seconds to open Word at one point.

The store was busy (as much as anything with people using it as a free Internet cafe to look at FaceBook), but I did end up with four staff trying to answer the question "why are your machines so slow". Not really an answer from them, some thoughts that there is a problem with the 20 second opening machine, but generally the answer was "that's how long it takes on this specification machine". I pushed the point by also opening it on a £3k plus MacPro, which still took a few seconds to open Word, and Garage Band, despite having a 6 Core processor and 16GB of RAM (whatever that means).

Am I expecting too much of these machines?

Thanks in advance,
Terry.

 

[AndyP]

Terry that is ridiculous. Give me an hour and I'll post up a real time vid on how long it takes on my 2009 iMAc. Must do tea for the kids now.

 

[old]

The new imac have 1tb discs that are a combination of a very small ssd and a slow speed disc,you can spec a ssd only. To get good speed and use external storage if its required. Also if you need more memory buy and fit yourself, good cost saving here. Look on YouTube lots of reviews there.

 

[AndyP]

Here you go Terry. Learning how to use QuickTime did not take as long as expected, although loading to Youtube takes for ever.

I promise that this has not been speeded up. Word and Excel arenot already open. Open apps have a black dot along side them in the task bar eg on Mail and Firfox.
Your can see my iMAc spec and OS. MS Word and MS Excel are from MS Office for Mac 2011.

I've no idea why it should take so long in the store. Maybe Roger or Mark could shed some light on that one. Were you in an Apple Store or a Shed?
Too many other apps running? Slow connection to iCloud. ( I do not use iCloud BTW )

[youtube]f5DEM-M10wQ[/youtube]

photobucket version:-

 

[AndyP]

Thought I'd have a play with a stopwatch running in the background also saved in HD

[youtube]TgdEY1ZtMl0[/youtube]

I reckon that is 2.3 seconds to open a new blank document in Word. How much faster do you want

Go for it Terry, you know it makes sense.

I also ought to say that you do not have to use MS Word. You could just use Pages and save in word format.

 

[Wizard9999]

Thanks Andy. That is an awful lot faster than the latest machines being displayed in my local Apple Store (incl. the all singing all dancing MacPro). I did point out to the guys that the speed they are showing can't be helping their sales.

Terry.

 

[Wizard9999]

The new imac have 1tb discs that are a combination of a very small ssd and a slow speed disc,you can spec a ssd only. To get good speed and use external storage if its required. Also if you need more memory buy and fit yourself, good cost saving here. Look on YouTube lots of reviews there.

The 21.5" ones come with a normal 1TB hard disk, the bigger 27" ones have the "Fusion Drive", which is a combination of SSD and normal hard disk if I understand it correctly. Maybe I am just unrealistic / out of touch with prices, but I have to say I had not expected to have to upgrade a machine costing over a thousand pounds as soon as I buy it .

Terry.

 

[Doug]

Terry, I know very little about technology but I do know I would never go back to Windows, all I have is an IPad which I've used for two years & do all my business work on it with Pages & numbers.

I started with a wireless keyboard but soon packed in with that & just use the touch screen, I've never had an issue with the speed of the IPad, though I do occasionally boot up my old Windows laptop just to remember how slow things can be :lol:

I recently saw the IPad pro & was really tempted, I do like the larger screen. I really can't see you being disappoint with Apple, I held off for years even though the good lady wife & kids had a myriad of Apple products by the time I got this, I wish I hadn't waited so long.

Good luck with what ever you go for.

 

[RogerS]

Terry..I suspect that they were pulling Word off of a server. It makes sense to do that in a store as that means their Macs are 'virgin' as there are no additional programs loaded and so easily sold on later. I agree with you though. It doesn't help their sales.

And don't forget the Apple refurb store. I get my Macs from there always. Mind you, my current iMac is seven years old !! And still going strong.

 

[old]

The 1 terabyte fusion drive is what you do not want . look at the apple site for better spec with ssd only . or go for larger fusion drive as its a much better spec .all my sudjestions cost more but that's apple.

 

[TrimTheKing]

The new imac have 1tb discs that are a combination of a very small ssd and a slow speed disc,you can spec a ssd only. To get good speed and use external storage if its required. Also if you need more memory buy and fit yourself, good cost saving here. Look on YouTube lots of reviews there.

I don't believe the new iMac's are user upgradable in terms of memory. I may be wrong but I thought they were sealed units now unlike my late 2010 model that has a memory access panel in the bottom.

Apple wanted $800 for 16GB RAM, I bought the equivalent from crucial for £120...

Cheers
Mark

 

[RogerS]

The 1 terabyte fusion drive is what you do not want . look at the apple site for better spec with ssd only . or go for larger fusion drive as its a much better spec .all my sudjestions cost more but that's apple.

What's wrong with a 1TB Fusion drive?

EDIT: Just checked and can see why...only 24GB of SSD which is very low. If I was Terry I'd see if there was a refurb iMac with the higher SSD capacity - ie not the very latest model.

I'd be tempted to get one of these. And then upgrade the memory myself to 16GB. OK - it's not the latest Retina display but I guess it depends on what you want to use it for.

Or this one which does have the retina display.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Check this link Roger. Seems like that model isn't user upgradeable…

Summary : RAM Upgrade Official Disclaimer & Cautions

Apple's own support site provides simple text instructions to upgrade the RAM in these 27-Inch iMac models. For the "Late 2012", "Early 2013", and "Late 2013" 21.5-Inch iMac models, however, Apple instead notes that the system "has no user-accessible RAM compartment. RAM replacement on the iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012, [Early 2013 and Late 2013]) must be done by an Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider."

It certainly is unfortunate that Apple decided to make it so difficult, or even impossible, to upgrade the RAM on the 21.5-Inch models. In particular, using adhesive to attach the display to the chassis -- rather than magnets like previous Aluminum iMac models -- is a design decision that is inelegant at best. As Apple does not consider the RAM in the applicable 21.5-Inch iMac models to be a "customer installable part," EveryMac.com cannot recommend that users perform the upgrade themselves.


Looks like the 27" ones are but not the 21.5". More research required to be 100% but that page is pretty comprehensive.

Cheers
Mark

 

[Wizard9999]

OK chaps, I very much appreciate your help and the time and trouble you are going to in order to make sure I get the right machine.

It is starting to get beyond me a bit, but I have just looked at the Apple website and I could amend the specification of a 21.5" machine to include 16mb of ram (rather than the standard 8mb) for £160. Given I am about as far from being a "power user" as you can get, do you think this is a smart move - I am thinking as much about longevity than anything else and the fact that Mark has dug out that retro fitting more ram in the future is not an option?

I know retrofit is possible on the 27", but that is really a bigger monitor size than we want.

We are also planning to buy a wireless Lacie back up drive to use with my daughter's iPad Pro. Given this I assume you would advice upgrading to SSD rather than the 1TB hard drive, correct?

Terry.

 

[RogerS]

Are you looking at a new machine, Terry or a refurb model.

It also depends on whether or not you intend to do a lot of video editing. If the latter then get an iMac with as much RAM as you can afford.

If you are not planning on video work then if you are considering a refurb then I think the fusion drive 21.5 with 8GB will be fine and that you don't need more memory than 8GB. My reasoning being that that model has a very generous 126GB of SSD (which is not quite as fast as system RAM but faster than a hard drive). I have 8MB on my iMac and I have no memory pressure at all.

If you are looking at a new model then I would go for the normal hard drive and get 16GB of memory, simply because I think that 8GB of SSD in a fusion drive is pointless.

As a slight aside, the current Feb 2016 issue of Mac Format is rather good and has a lot of useful tips in it.

 

[AndyP]

OK chaps, I very much appreciate your help and the time and trouble you are going to in order to make sure I get the right machine.

It is starting to get beyond me a bit, but I have just looked at the Apple website and I could amend the specification of a 21.5" machine to include 16mb of ram (rather than the standard 8mb) for £160. Given I am about as far from being a "power user" as you can get, do you think this is a smart move - I am thinking as much about longevity than anything else and the fact that Mark has dug out that retro fitting more ram in the future is not an option?

I know retrofit is possible on the 27", but that is really a bigger monitor size than we want.

We are also planning to buy a wireless Lacie back up drive to use with my daughter's iPad Pro. Given this I assume you would advice upgrading to SSD rather than the 1TB hard drive, correct?

Terry.

Terry, we are far from power users as well, no gaming etc. I have shown you what my 6 yr mac with 12gb RAM is like and I dare say the new models have faster chips etc.
I would get the RAM while you can.
I agree with you a 27" monitor is too large. On a normal desk you would not be able to sit far enough away from it.
I have a wired (firewire) Lacie drive (500mb) and it has worked flawlessly for about 8 years, only had to use it once. Can't comment on the SSD's I have never had one. 1TB seems an awful lot but I understand it is more the norm.
I have 500mb and in 8 years this is what is left on it.

 

[RogerS]

......
We are also planning to buy a wireless Lacie back up drive to use with my daughter's iPad Pro. Given this I assume you would advice upgrading to SSD rather than the 1TB hard drive, correct?

Terry.

Andy, thanks for reminding me as I meant to pick up on this.

Terry - you can't connect an iPad of any sort to an external hard drive as far as I am aware.

 

[AndyP]

Do you need a separate backup drive for the iPad? I presume the iPad will be synced with the iMac and therefore wired or wireless drive would be fine?

 

[RogerS]

iPads only backup to iCloud.

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[TrimTheKing]

Terry I would personally fill it with as much RAM as humanly possible from the off and also go with SSD HDD. If you're buying a sealed unit for a LOT of money ten it would be horrible to find down the line that your behaviour changes or they release a RAM hungry OS X and you find yourself regretting not going for it.

I have 16GB in mine and even browsing (admittedly at times I can have 25+ tabs open in safari) that I get the spinning wheel of doom a lot. I will be upgrading mine to 32GB, partly just because I can but partly because RAM is one of the best ways to speed up a machine.

Don't write off the 27" just yet though. I appreciate it looks big in the shop but I have it on a normal desk and it soon becomes perfectly normal and having the extra screen real estate is a massive boon when having multiple apps open. Again though this is all down to how you use a machine and personal prefs.

Here's mine (excuse the mess...) which is no more than 2 feet away from the edge of the desk.

Cheers
Mark

 

[AndyP]

(admittedly at times I can have 25+ tabs open in safari)

Would you class yourself as a power user then Mark?

 

[RogerS]

Gonna disagree with you again, Mark. The latest non - user upgradable iMacs only have an 8th SSD in the fusion drive which is no good to man or beast. And I am sure that Terry is not so disorganised that he needs 20+ tabs open at the same time ! I only have 8GB of memory and never get the Spinny thing. So 16Gb of RAM and a proper fusion drive with 126GB of SSD is the right way to go.

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[RogerS]

(admittedly at times I can have 25+ tabs open in safari)

Would you class yourself as a power user then Mark?

Nah...just disorganised! !!!

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[TrimTheKing]

Gonna disagree with you again, Mark. The latest non - user upgradable iMacs only have an 8th SSD in the fusion drive which is no good to man or beast. And I am sure that Terry is not so disorganised that he needs 20+ tabs open at the same time ! I only have 8GB of memory and never get the Spinny thing. So 16Gb of RAM and a proper fusion drive with 126GB of SSD is the right way to go.

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I'm not exactly sure what you're disagreeing with! We've both said fill it with as much RAM as possible and SSD...

Mark

PS and it's nothing to do with being disorganised. If I see something I want to look at but don't have time right now I open in a new tab and read later.

Often I am researching various things like how to keep this effing forum working or add features that you lot want, at which time having multiple tabs open with different info sources is imperative in saving time waiting for pages to load/reload etc...

 

[RogerS]

No we're not. You're saying fill it with as much RAM as possible which implies the latest iMac and fusion drive but I am saying that if it is a question of 16GB RAM and a 126GB SSD vs 32Gb Ram and a 8GB SSD then the former wins hands down.

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[TrimTheKing]

No we're not. You're saying fill it with as much RAM as possible which implies the latest iMac and fusion drive but I am saying that if it is a question of 16GB RAM and a 126GB SSD vs 32Gb Ram and a 8GB SSD then the former wins hands down.

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It implies nothing of the sort!

At no point have I made any comment on what species of HD should go in it other than SSD, I have only said to fill it with as much RAM as it can take. System RAM! WTF does system RAM have to do with SSD drives…?

I don't know where this 8GB fusion drive bit has come from, I haven't mentioned them at all. I was talking about the largest possible SSD drive you can get in them, I haven't looked at specs but basing on the fact I am planning on putting a 1TB SSD into my iMac.

Scrap that, I'm annoyed now so just looked at the specs. The 21.5 currently comes with options for various drive types with either 256GB or 512GB SSD options, or a 2/3TB Fusion drive with 128GB SSD. Were I speccing one of these then I would go with 16GB RAM (SYSTEM!!!) and either the 512GBSSD or the 2/3TB Fusion as either of those would be fine I would think, given the Fusion is smart and loads your most used files etc into the SSD.

I don't know where you've got this got this 8GB SSD/Fusion thing from! On the apple site right now the options are 1TB/24GB Fusion, 2TB/128GB Fusion and 256G/512GB SSD...

Methinks you're either misunderstanding what I'm trying to say, or spoiling for a rumble that doesn't exist… :evil:
Go on, tell me what I've done to upset you and we can man hug it out! :eusa-whistle: bscene-drinkingcheers:

Cheers
Mark

 

[AndyP]

Are you enjoying this as much as I am Terry

 

[RogerS]

Mea culpa.

Mea maxima culpa.

:text-blondmoment:

You're right, Mark - I dunno where I got the 8GB SSD from. I did think that the 2TB fusion drive on a 21.5" would be expensive but I was gobsmacked at the low price. The Apple website told me that if I ordered in the next 27 minutes then I'd get it tomorrow ! So I....didn't

I agree with you that the 27" is ideal.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Haha! You had me going there! Toys were being well and truly thrown out of my pram! [emoji6]

Cheers
Mark

 

[TrimTheKing]

Are you enjoying this as much as I am Terry

None of this has probably helped Terry's choices much, but now we've closed it off we can get back to helping him spend his money!!

Cheers
Mark

 

[AndyP]

Seriously guys I cannot see the need for a 27" monitor in a "normal" domestic environment, on a normal domestic desk. Up to the user I guess and the type of usage. About the only time I have two apps running side by side is when using photobucket and writing a post with images.

Only a couple of years ago by TV was smaller than that!

looks like Mark has at least 2 screens on his "normal" desk

edit:-
FWIW I very quickly ditched the "magic mouse" for a wired one. Back then my iMac came with a wired keyboard too. NB The magic keyboard does not come with the number pad. I think I would get very pi$$ed off with recharging or replacing batteries.

 

[RogerS]

I'd welcome it. Two A4 pages open at the same time. Two browser windows open. I have a 24" and could do with an extra 3"......as the actress said to the Bishop

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[TrimTheKing]

Yes Andy my desk has my 27" iMac on an arm so it can go back into the cupboard and next to it a 24" monitor linked to my work laptop. My desk is biggest than the standard domestic I guess but I still reckon it's worth having even if you have a 'normal' desk.

It's all about what you use it for though and you're absolutely right, if you don't need the space then it's a total waste. I bought it because I do use it and also for the fact I could buy the basic level and knew I had upgrade options. Some of that flexibility has now been taken away unfortunately...

Cheers
Mark

 

[DaveL]

I would always go for the biggest monitor you can fit in, screen real estate is very useful. When I was at work I had a setup with 2 monitors that were 22" only 4:3 but very high resolution and then the laptop screen next to them. At home I have 2 Phillips 21.5" 16:9 monitors that give plenty of room for editing video and have notes and music on the other screen.

 

[Rod]

I think you've frightened Terry away?!!

I would always go for the biggest most powerful kit you can afford and justify.

My MacBook Pro now has 8Gb and a 1Tb HD.
I take a lot of photos and HD videos which are very "hungry". Before the upgrade it had 4Gb and 250 Gbs which struggled a lot both with speed and storage.

I'm not to sure if an iPad is a suitable replacement for a laptop or desktop for school work but what do I know?
Perhaps the Pro model does more things than my iPad but it's not cheap at £899

Rod

 

[Wizard9999]

No still here, and reading with interest, thx all :eusa-clap: .

I was also sceptical of the iPad pro for homework, but you can use it for MSOffice. The guys in the store inform me that it actually has a faster chip than the MacBook we were looking at. I would get an extra keyboard to go with it (proper one, not the sort built into a case), no mouse option so menus, etc. is accessed via touch screen. My daughter has had a play with one in the Apple store and is happy it would be fine. As it happens her school is trial iPads with the year above her as a study aid - have spoken to head of IT and if the trial goes well the school would be giving iPads to my daughter's year, so no risk of having to buy a second one. But not certain trial will result in them going ahead so do not want to just wait and see if it does. The "genius" people in the store have given me complete assurance that whilst a wireless mouse will not work with the iPad a keyboard will and so will a wireless back-up disk.

On the iMac I had not really expected to get into modifying one of the standard specifications, so unexpected territory for me. Currently we do not do any video editing, photo manipulation, etc. and I suspect a relatively low spec model would be OK (assuming the MS product opening time is a particular issue with the instore machines). However, I am keen to try and future proof as I would like to have the machine for as long as reasonable and my lack of knowledge means I am unlikely to be getting into upgrading it myself further down the line. Adding 8mb at the time of purchase sounds sensible. Given we will have a large back up disk going SSD may also make sense for storage.

In terms of size, I fully appreciate the benefits of large and / or multiple monitors. Though I have never been a trader I did have a desk on a large bank trading floor a few years back, I was a 'poor relation' because I only had four screens whereas the options guys had eight (apparently the number of screens is proportional to intellect :lol: ). But this will be a family machine and will be located in our family room and will be on a smallish desk, the bigger one will just be too big for the location.

One thing that has not come up is chip. Assuming I am limiting myself to the 21.5" version there are three chip options. The step up from base to mid-option seems to be mainly about chip speed, the step up to highest spec seems to be a little about chip but also about going to a 4k monitor. Looking at the two monitors side-by-side in the store we do not think we need the 4k monitor and were therefore thinking about the mid-range chip. Does this make sense, or if we get the extra ram could we recover some of the upgrade costs by gong for the entry level chip?

Thanks again for your help.

Terry.

 

[AndyP]

Can't answer the chip question as mine is a 3.06ghz Intel Core 2 Duo and the whole "speed" thing is a minefield for my tiny head to get around. Faster chip (ghz) is not the whole story. The way memory is used also has an impact.

I worked on the principle that unless you are using processor and memory hungry graphics or video applications then the base spec would be fine. Having said that I forget what the options were when I bought mine. Right now I would be happy to pay the extra £150 quid for the 2.8ghz.

FWIW I agree with you about the 4k for the reasons above.

Whatever you do you will not regret it.

Oh and if you have ever used Skype you will be blown away by the quality of Facetime video calls.

 

[RogerS]

Terry I can't find any reference on the Web that you can backup an iPad to a hard drive. Happy to be proved wrong.

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[RogerS]

Terry I can't find any reference on the Web that you can backup an iPad to a hard drive. Happy to be proved wrong.

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Ok..proved myself wrong. .looks like you can!

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[TrimTheKing]

Terry

A combination of CPU (chip), RAM and storage (SSD) speed will determine your experience. It's difficult to say whether the extra RAM would make the difference between mid and entry level CPU but my suspicion is not quite...but to quantify the difference is very difficult to say without direct side by side comparison.

My advice would be to spec up each of the options (discount the 4K one if you've already decided you don't need that, which I tend to agree with btw) and spec them with the max RAM they can take and the fastest/largest storage you think you will need then decide whether you're prepared to pay that much for it.

For your info I am running a late 2010 27" iMac with 1TB HDD, 16GB RAM. It runs everything I can throw at it at a speed that's good enough for me, so I would suspect, without looking at the specs of the new that they will be better/faster CPU's than mine, so given the way apple work I would suspect you will find the same kind of lifespan from these.

Hard to say categorically but apple have stated they want their machines to run for as long as possible and design their OS's on that basis, so as long as that ethos continues...

Hope that helps

Cheers
Mark