Originally Posted by
p1fel
The 2011 iMac does have a neat optical drive to the side of the display though and I was wondering if I should buy the outgoing version over the latest version, that's all.
Only if you get a very good discount - external optical drives are dirt cheap so shouldn't have any bearing on your decision. The new version has much better performance and you will using this performance all the time, a built in optical drive is used very rarely.