Apple questions again!

[MrsSnaplegs]

Ok DH and I are both about to upgrade to iPhone 4s and are thinking about upgrading netbook to an iPad 2, dd also has small iPod and we have a big iPod. It appears we are becoming an apple family!
We need to change home computer as it is v v old and slow with more memory on my phone than the desktop
So question we can get a refurbished Mac for under £200 but would need to get monitor and keyboard etc I think that is compatible - I understand the old ones won't work? Is this right?
So if I have to spend another £200 on these items would we get away with just getting a wireless keyboard and mouse for the iPad and getting rid of desktop completely? We only use computer really for Internet and some basic word and excel type work, storing photos and that's it really. What do we do with all photos we have stored on disk etc can we get something to connect to iPad so we can then upload to the cloud?
Sorry for the basic questions!

I can't answer your questions about a Mac, but it is pretty easy to use Iphones, Ipads, and Ipods with a PC. We have bought fairly inexpensive desktops (iiro £350) and they are fine with ITunes and IOS5.

The free version of the Cloud only shares photos taken within the last month (iirc). Eg, if I take a photo on my IPhone it appears in the cloud camera roll on DH's Iphone, but disappears after a month.

You can pay for cloud storage, if you want to.

Your photos that are on your current PC disk can by moved to your IPad when you synch. You don't need a special attachment. You can buy an attachment to download photos from your camera to your IOS devices.

"The free version of the Cloud only shares photos taken within the last month (iirc)"

PhotoStream is limited to holding photos taken within the last 30 days and also will only hold 1000 photos at a time. So it you take more than 1000 photos in 30 days some of them will be bumped off of PhotoStream before 30 days are up.

You cannot upgrade that limit by paying for iCloud, it's 30 days and 1000 photos for everyone.

"would need to get monitor and keyboard etc I think that is compatible - I understand the old ones won't work? Is this right?"

Most USB keyboards should work but non-mac ones might work a bit oddly, Mac keyboards have different keys on them and so you do really need a Mac keyboard to make it nice and easy to use.

Most monitors should also work, however you might need an adapter depending on the sort of monitor and the sort of Mac that you're looking at.

What sort of refurbished Mac are you considering? Then we can offer a bit more definite advice.

In general Apple are definitely heading towards a world where you don't need a computer to use a iOS device. But particularly with photos they're not quite there yet. There might be some other app that might allow you to upload photos to some other storage place if you use anything at the moment.

Beware of buying anything too old - if it cant run Lion it won't upgrade to icloud and MobileMe is going in June

What is the model of the refurb mac? How much RAM does it have?

If it's a Mac Mini then beware. When they first came out, they were in my opinion woefully short on memory. To the point where I took mine back and got my money back.

OK this is the sort of thing we have been looking at for a refurb

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/320787478544?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 - the seller seems to get them in quite frequently but I'm not sure if this is enough to support the other apple items properly and we would still need to spend about another £150-200 on peripherals I suspect.

but then I saw this today and wondered if we would be better as it seems to give us more for a similar price

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120800643647?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

We have been given £200 as a joint Xmas present so I want to make sure we get the best deal we can.

Avoid that Mac unless you're a real Mac enthusiast. It's got a Power PPC processor not an Intel one. You will have trouble finding software for it and won't be able to put Lion, the latest OS on it and therefore get access to iCloud.

Well firstly I wouldn't get the Apple you linked. It's old architecture and none of the new Apple software will support it. In short you'd be buying into yesterday's technology.

So with that in mind, a new PC is the way to go. The PC you linked fits your budget but then they are including XP which is old and I'm not even sure you can sell anymore. And also the CPU I suspect is old technology.

eBuyer sell a rocking system for £200 but you'd need another £70 for a copy of Windows 7. This has a much bigger hard disk, modern CPU and eBuyer being a well known company, means you'd be better protected than some anonymous eBayer.

Thank you ! Never used ebuyer before but will have a look
I can get genuine MS software through work so will look at that
I knew MN would help