 | | Apple iMac 24" - 2.16GHz, 250GB, SuperDrive reviews
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| To those reading the JAEWOOK KIM review First and foremost, I was a lifetime WINTEL user (engineering industry) and switched to OSX in 2001 while attending graduate professional school. After recognizing a few initial differences, I adjusted (and embraced) them and now work 2 or 3 times faster using my Macs than I ever did using a Windows machine. Next, in response to JAEWOO's comments: He claims that the OS-X Crashes frequently. Is he talking about OS-X crashing frequently OR is he talking about applications crashing? With OS-X, applications can crash... it's ordinary... These things happen. HOWEVER, in sharp contrast to Windows, these crashes are limited to the applications, and the operating system and (most importantly) OTHER applications are not affected. In windows you can get the blue screen of death when an application fails. Under OSX, you can continue using other unaffected programs. This is a BIG distinction. If my MP3 player crashes in Windows XP, I may lose some work that I'm doing in MS Word. however, in OSX, if my MP3 player crashes, I don't lose anything. It would be impossible for Apple (or any developer) to promise that no application would crash on their OS. Regarding memory, the iMacs are limited to 3GB because of a limitation of the Intel chipset. Windows machines running the same chipsets are also limited. From what I've heard, you can stick 4 GB in there, but only 3 will be recognized. Again, this is clearly listed in the specifications, so if you need more RAM, get a professional machine not a consumer machine. Who needs more than 3GB or RAM for a consumer machine? Ripping on the apple keyboard because the cord is only 18 inches long is retarded. If you want to sit across the room with the KB on your lap, get an extension cable (or the bluetooth KB and mouse). The Apple keyboards are some of the finest keyboards made. Their tactile response and feel is second to none. Even their Laptop keyboards are fantastic. I'll admit that their mice are strange, but when was the last time you bought a PC and were happy with the mouse? I've always been a big fan of Logitech optical cordless mice anyway Gaming... if you buy a mac for hard core gaming... you're a fool. If you want to game, buy a console or a windows box. Drivers for peripherals? The funny thing is, if the peripheral is supported by OSX, the drivers are (95% of the time) included and built in. however, many manufacturers insist on only supporting Windows. That's just the way it is... do some proper shopping and get compatible stuff. Since Macs have long dominated the desktop publishing and graphical industries, there are more than enough printers available. Don't go with a newcomer like samsung. Brother, HP, EPSON, and CANON all make excellent printers that work immediately upon plug-in. For example, my Brother printer (a 5070 with an ethernet connection, i believe) is immediately recognized and no setup was necessary... just plug it in, turn it on, and boom, print away. Speakers on a all in one computer are weak? Say it ain't so? This one falls under duh! Of course they're weak... it's an all in one computer that's only one and a half inches thick. How much bass you think they're going to be able to pump out of a pizza box full of computer equipment? How happy would you be with those small crappy speakers they frequently attach to flat panel LCD screens? Probably not happy at all. Finally... my favorite... Apple's are more expensive More expensive than what, $300 generic boxes with minimal features. Yeah, they're more expensive. however, when you make a legitimate 1 to 1 comparison with all features included, the price gap narrows significantly. Also, you must consider this, Apples retain value and windows boxes do not. I bought a flat-panel i-Mac in 2002 and paid $1900 for it. I sold it two and a half years later for $1375 on eBay. Go buy any XP box out there, use it for two and a half years, and see if you can sell it for 70% of what you paid for it. If you think this is an isolated point, i also just sold a two year old Powermac G5 for $1500 that I only paid $1999 for. Furthermore, these new macs allow you to run windows natively on them. I just set up a 17 iMac for my wife's new law practice and using a program called Parallels Desktop, she runs the few law-specific Windows programs she needs without any problems. Many programs actually run faster in Parallels on a new iMac than they do on comparable non core duo XP machines. Very nice indeed. I switched to OSX back in 2001 (version 10.0 beta) and haven't looked back since. |
| The Computer of My Dreams It just so happened that my emac crashed and the next day apple came out with the new 24 imac. I ordered one as soon as it was available. We upgraded to a 500 GB HD & 2 GB memory. Sweet! The 24 inch screen is huge, much bigger than you would imagine. I've had it for almost 2 weeks now and it's been trouble free. I am a photographer and the big screen is perfect for working with images. It is amazingly fast. There is basically no lag time. The screen is extremely bright, great for viewing photographs or movies, but too bright for word processing. But it is easy to adjust the brightness. In short, this is the computer of my dreams! PS People seem to have questions about turning down screen brightness, so I'm adding this. Go to apple logo on the top of the screen. Scroll down to systems preference,click on the display logo. You can turn down the brightness bar. I usually have it about 80% down and it's plenty bright, but it doesn't hurt my eyes. PS2 I much prefer this Imac to the newer version with the high gloss screen. The high gloss causes to much reflection problems when viewing images (unless you have it in a very controlled environment). Also the high gloss screen is too contrasty for visualizing how an image will look on paper. The advances are insignificant for most of us. My 2 GB of memory is all I need, and 500 GB hard drive is more than enough, as most of us use external hard drives anyway. |
| 24-inch iMac is fabulous We took delivery of our new iMac (24-inch, 2.16 GHz, 2GB memory, 500 GB disk, GeForce 7600 video) on Monday. 1. Migrating from our old iMac (20-inch, 2.0 GHz G5) was trivial thanks to Migration Assistant. I think this feature of Macintoshes is so under appreciated. I have moved from one Windows machine to another on 3 occassions. The pain (re-installing all the applications) and time (8 hours) involved is not a fond rememberence. 2. The size of screen is awesome. I have a 23-inch ACD connected to my Power Mac. Now, my business partner (and wife) has a bigger, brighter (much brighter) gorgeous screen. 3. It runs 15° C cooler than the older iMac. we have yet to hear the fan. This baby is quiet. 4. We installed Parallels to run SwishMax (for making Flash movies) under Windows 2000 and it works perfectly. The performance is equal to or faster than our 1.8 GHz Athlon machine. We have also installed WebTrends (for creating webserver activity reports) and it is 10 % faster on the iMac. 5. $2500 USD is a bargain for this machine. Big screen and fast processor. 6. Photoshop is slower (1/2 the speed compared with the G5 iMac), but we don't work on really large files so it is not that bothersome. 7. Word is slower, but you can't really tell unless you run an extensive test. This is a 5-star machine. ,dave P.S. It prints to our Samsung CLP-500N color laser printer perfectly. All the extra features of the Samsung printer (e.g., duplex) are available. |
| Terrific Desktop, Great Value, Very Stable O/S First- let's start with the fact that we converted to Mac's in our office 2 years ago, and have never regretted it for a moment. We are in the real estate development business and use 6 systems networked with 3 HP Color printers on a 100/1000 mbit ethernet routers and switches, and can tell you we never, ever have a problem of any consequence in either the O/S, compatibility on the web, or with applications such as Adobe, Microsoft and Intuit. We upgrade our systems twice a year, to the newest and greatest iMacs, and sell our used iMacs for amazing prices. Very happy iMac users are we. We just bought our first batch of 24 iMacs, with the Core 2 Duo processors, and are extremely pleased. From the firewire process built in to every iMac at trade up, where you can just connect the new unit to the old one, and within 20 minutes have all your data files and programs moved to the new machine, to the absolutely painless adjustment to the new Intel Core 2 Duo (Merom) processors, bright screens, fast video frames, incredible clarity on the visuals, and oversize 24 screens, we simply have nothing to complain about. New converts may leave some software behind, such as some highly specialized software, and games, but the offset is an easy to use O/S that never crashes. By that I mean should an application stutter, it has no effect on the O/S overall, and you just start the APPLICATION up again, (not the O/S) usually with the document you were working on right there again, and off you go. This is as close to a perfect computer as we have ever used in our business. And, finally, unlike some of the more recent Wintel units from HP and others, THE VIDEO IS PROCESSED SEPARATELY ON TOP QUALITY VIDEO BOARDS with 256Mb and 1st CLASS VIDEO PROCESSORS (not crammed in to the main system memory and processed on the primary CPU as many Wintel systems are today to keep their prices cheap). Add in Firewire 800, USB 2.0, internal Wi-Fi that supports the brand new N standard that replaces the G standard, and Bluetooth. Gosh, these things are great. A simple plug in jack allows for you to use external speakers and Woofers if more defined audio is for you but the included built in speakers work pretty well, not to mention the video camera and software to get you going on the web with video conferencing. At $xxless the $x Amazon rebate, or $xx, no shipping, no taxes, 24 screens, a One Year factory warranty that can be extended to 3 years for another $xx, and 1.0 Gb memory with Intel Merom processors, an O/S that is beautiful onscreen, and relaxing to use, that just never gives us the dreaded Wintel Blue Screen of Death , how do you find a better deal? You don't. Anyone who tells you otherwise simply hasn't got an Apples to Apples comparison- so to speak. 4-1/2 Stars from us after using 6 of these for about a month. Highly recommended. |
| Windows users beware This is my very first Mac and I bought the new 24 inch iMac the very first day it was announced. I had this computer for a week now and have been using it everyday since. I am a lifelong WinTel user and using the Mac has been a mixed bag. In summary, although Mac is better than Windows in some ways, it is also clearly deficient in some ways. PROS: 1)The 24 inch screen is sharp and beautful. Apple claims it is 40% brighter than the 20 inch iMac and I believe it. 2)This machine is very quiet. My old WinTel machine sounded like a Boeing 747 taking off and this machine is almost as quite as a laptop. 3)This machine is fast. It uses Intel Core 2 Duo which is not only faster than Core Duo, but it is also 64 bits. 4)Apple OS X is easier to use than WinTel. 5)Apple OS X clearly has fancier looking GUI. The edges of its GUI are very smooth. Apple's GUI looks like work of art. In contrast, Windows GUI looks boxy and very rough. 6)It comes with a remote which allows you to use iMac as your personal iTunes jukebox. Believe me, it is lot cooler than it sounds. CONS: 1)Apple is more expensive than the comparable WinTel. 2)Apple OS X does not have similar variety of software as WinTel. For example, for a personal finance software, you are pretty much stuck with Quicken for OS X, which has awful amazon reviews. You will also find most of the games are unavailable to OS X. 3)24inch Imac's height can't be adjusted. This is a rather significant annoyance since the screen is fairly large and adjusting the monitor's height is often neccessary to reduce neck cramps. 4)iMac's peripherals are mediocore. Apple's keyboard and mighty mouse, although beautiful to look at, are seriously flawed. The keyboard had only an 18 inch USB cable. I had to buy a separate USB extension cable for the keyboard. The mighty mouse is the most unergonomic mouse I have ever used. It is flat and offers zero support for the hands. Furthermore, it is only a optical mouse and it lacks the sensitivity required by a 24 inch high resolution monitor. I highly recommend purchasing an laser mouse from an external vendor (make sure they have Mac drivers). 5)MAC OS X is unstable and crashes occassionally. This has been the biggest surprise. Perhaps it crashes only when it is running software coded for PowerPC chips, but my iMac has crashed 3 times in a week when I was playing its preinstalled Chess game. Additionally, my IMac crashed once when I was running Word 2004 (written for PowerPC), and once when I was running Call of Duty 2. 6)Printer drivers for OS X are often unavailable. Samsung did not offer a print driver for OS X (many printer companies don't). So I had to find a driver someone created and was distributing over the internet to enable my iMac to use my Samsung printer. 7)Drivers for peripherals are often non-existent. I bought a Macally Game Pad which specfically supports Mac. To my biggest surprised they did not have a driver for Intel based Macs, and had no plans to create one. I had to search all over the internet to find a third party gamepad driver software which cost me an extra $15. 8)24 inch iMac's speakers are weak. Despite its proclaimed 24 watts, the speakers on this iMac have zero bass. It is not suitable for listening to music using itunes. I highly recommend getting external 2.1 speakers. 9)The memory is only expandable to 3GB. I am somewhat perplexed by this since the 24 inch iMac has two slots for memory. Theoratically, it should be able use 4GB, but I have been told by the Apple's geniuses at the Apple store that the 3GB is all the 24 inch iMac can use. If you are a satisified Windows user, you may want to wait for the Windows Vista which will offers many of the beautiful GUI and features offered by Apple OS X. |
| Big, Bright, and Fantastic We purchased our new iMAC (our first Macintosh by the way) with the following configuration the first day they were available on-line last year with the following options: iMAC 24/2.16 CTO 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE 7600 GT w/256 250GB Serial ATA Drive iWorks 06 Kybd, Mighty Mse & Mac OS X Country Kit 2004 MS Office for MAC Pros: 1. Big and bright, did I mention this thing is big? And bright? Seems larger then my Dual 19inch Dell setup at work. 2. Easy setup, I have never had a computer this easy to take out of the box, hook up and be on the Internet. 3. Widgets!! If's like having a second computer always up and running with the little software that you have to look for on a Windows machine or it doesn't even have. Click the mouse scroll button down and boom! You have your calculator, money translator, flight tracker, pirate translator, etc. etc. etc. 4. Love both iLife and iWorks, Microsoft could take some hints from Pages2 and Keynote how to really polish and deliver what consumers want. 5. Speed, this thing is fast!! I actually tried booting all available programs at once and it rocked!! 6. Speech Voice Recognition, love the way you can have the page read to you and use voice commands in OS X 7. Plug any memory thumb drive stick in and it just plain works. Plus the icon stays on your desktop as long as it's plugged in. A real plus for the wife who was always panicking when she closed the original opening window on Windows machines and thought all her files had disappeared. On the MAC it's always right there for her. 8. .Mac, what a great way to easily backup / upload files to the Internet, MAC OS X and .Mac really do work seamlessly together. 9. Seems to run really cool and very quiet. 10. No spy ware!! This is one of the real reasons we looked at MAC. Our Windows machine became bogged down with spy ware. Cons: 1. Our new Maxtor external HD was pre-formatted as read only by MAC's while it was read / write by PC out of the box. Had to reformat the HD for our MAC to write to it. 2. Does required rebooting more then I was led to believe. At least 50% of the software updates I have installed required a reboot. Admittedly fewer then Windows, but still I have had to reboot at least once a month because of this. 3. My Pocket PC Verizon XV6700 PC phone does not sync on the MAC without purchasing special separate software. 4. Can't keep paper in our new HP printer scanner. My wife and kids are using the MAC more then they ever used the Windows machine. 5. Fights over the MAC. Now when the MAC is taken people get cranky, Ok I'll use the dumb small Windows machine, but I don't like it!! When are you getting off the MAC?? |
| all I can say is WOW I have been a dyed in the wool PC modder/user for years. I have built and maintained my own high-performance PCs since my dad gave me a 486/66 back in the early nineties. My last PC was a tricked out P4 with ALL the best mods. dual SLI, water-cooled, etc..the works. But it still was: unreliable, noisy, inconsistent, tedious to tweak and repair. I went to an apple store recently and played with a 24 iMac w/ the dual core 2 duo chip. I was totally hooked by the elegant styling, amazing OS, and sheer performance of this beast. It's silent, fast, efficient, powerful... PC go bye bye. This is the computer for computer people. AND non computer people. |
| Fast, Quiet and Beautiful This is my 12th Mac in 22 years of owning Macintosh computers, and it has to be the most beautiful design so far. This 24 iMac replaced a hot and noisy 2.3Ghz G5 MP Tower and older style ADC 23 monitor. I don't think I will ever go back to a tower model again. The core2duo also runs very cool. The iMac screen is much brighter, the whites are truely white, and the system runs totally silent. It's also faster in the benchmarks that I have run compared to the 2.3GHz MP G5 tower. 24 is slightly larger than 23 , so you get 92 dpi instead of 96 dpi, making text slightly larger and easier to read. Monitor resolution is 1920x1200. Photoshop CS3 (beta) flys on this system. Load times are 10 seconds compared to 23 seconds on the G5. About 95% of my software is already Universal Binary, so this has been a very move from PPC to Intel software. This computer is excellent for watching DVD's on, and with M-Audio's USB-Fiber Optic adapter, you can pull Digital Dolby 5.1 sound off the movies to your stereo, or connect a fiber optic cable directly to the iMac. The new Mighty Mouse took a few days to get used to, but after a while, I found myself looking for the little scroll wheel on my other mouse. I have 2 Gigs of RAM (recommended for power users) and the faster 7600GT video card (optional). The 24 model adds pro features like Firewire 800 (super fast), 24W stereo amp with larger speakers, and an external monitor plug (just in case 24 isn't big enough). Make sure you have a solid desk for this model, as it is fairly heavy, and will bounce around if you put it on a lightweight desk. I would highly recommend this system to anyone with an older tower model. |
| Bad Screen, Stuck Pixels and Misleading Description This is my first MAC and I just got it today. I have several issues: 1. The screen has 3 stuck pixels and by the size of them they are not only 1 pixel per spot, they are a cluster (2-3) of stuck pixels. They are right in the middle of the screen and are extremely annoing on a dark background. 2. The backlight is uneven across the screen. 3. Amazon description lists 1 GB of memory in 1 slot but the machine has (2) 512 MB modules. If you want to upgrade is going to cost $300 more because you have to take the memory out and replace it completely. This machine is going back for a replacement and if the replacement has the same issues that one is going back too. Extremely dissapointing for a $2000 machine. |
| Very Happy With It! I used to manage desktop and server support for an IT department within a large international bank, and for a change, purchased an iMac flat-panel in 2002. Nowadays I earn my living as a VBA programmer for Access/Excel on Windows. When I first got my iMac in 2002, OS X would crash, and I've been bugged by the slowness, but that's expected after 4 years. I recently purchased the new 24 iMac and have been very happy. Besides being a beautiful computer, transferring all my old data and configurations was cake using the Migration Assistant, since I had some firewire cables. Almost all my programs transferred with licensing intact, as well as all of my passwords stored in the Keychain. The only issue I've had has been setting up bluetooth with my Treo 700p. It is likely a conflict with the wireless keyboard and mouse, although it's more likely I haven't set it up correctly. It works fine if I use USB. The machine flies, and using virtual and remote desktop software, I can work simultaneously on both Windows ansd OS X. Comments and Suggestions: - It's a great machine, but be prepared to put a TV-sized monitor on your desk. - Get the wireless keyboard and mouse to reduce clutter. - I love the Mighty Mouse. I've always enjoyed the Microsoft 2-button optical mice, I hate heavy mice, and the beauty and ease of the Apple mouse is simply amazing. - I don't care about limited upgrades - mine is purchased with 2GB RAM - and I don't expect to have to upgrade much, other than daisy-chaining more storage. I currently have two external firewire drives. |
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