What's the advantage of buying an iMac over building a Hackintosh?
Solution 1:
If your intention of buying a iMac/Hackintosh is to use it for a long term, then go for the iMac (or the Mac Mini/Macbook/Macbook pro with an external monitor). If it is for just playing around, experimenting or learning OSX internals(as @shpokas mentioned), or using for a relatively short term, the hackintosh is just fine.
If you think the iMac is too expensive for you, then hackintosh is definitely not the way to go, IMHO, I do not see any ROI in the hackintosh.
Solution 2:
If, as you say, you are "lazy", then you will certainly want to go with the iMac. Building and maintaining a hackintosh is not for the faint of heart. The first one I built took me over a month of trial and error and scouring google before I had what I would call a "functioning" system.
Solution 3:
The only (as I see it) reasons to build a hackintosh instead of buying an iMac are listed below.
- Cost: A hackintosh with the same specs as an iMac will be substantially cheaper.
- Expandability: Let's see, an iMac lets you change the HDD/SSD, and the RAM. If you're good, you can swap the optical drive for a disk drive or a SATA port. If you build it yourself, you can put whatever you want in it and change it as often as you want. Note: Yeah, you could buy a Mac Pro, but they start at $2500.
- Nerd Cred: Building a computer: +10. Circumventing an operating system and its copy protection: +25.