Apple has quietly updated its Macintosh product line today. The iMac line is now all Merom (Core 2 Duo) based, and a new 24" model has been introduced. The iMac line now starts at USD 999 or EUR 999.01 (the cent does it) for the 17" model. The Mac Mini line receives a processor upgrade, but prices remain the same.
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Member since:2006-01-09
We have a 20" iMac here. We like it for a few reasons:
- it sits tidily and attractively in our living room (no mess of wires and no ugly boxes)
- it does the business and is nearly silent
- I do not get tempted to take it apart
It will be here doing its job until the (John Lewis) warranty runs out in four (and a bit) years time.
Sooner or later computers need to become appliances!
Even geeks need to channel their efforts into enjoying their specialties.
Member since:2005-10-12
One day, after a hot July, your drive will show signs of crashing. You will immediately try to do a backup using CCC. It will abort 90% of the way through. You will open the case, and discover a hard drive positioned in such a way that it is guaranteed to overheat.
Never mind, you have your backup. You'll try to start from it. Oops. Its USB. Can't boot from USB, only Firewire.
OK, you install a new drive, install the OS from scratch, now you try to get back your settings. Scattered in library files at random all over the place, and when you do copy them back, they don't work right.
Yes, sooner or later computers need to become appliances. But they have not in the iMacs. When they go wrong, and they will, you are royally screwed. Make a clone to a firewire drive, and make it now. Maybe your idea of an appliance. Not mine.
Edited 2006-09-06 21:36
Member since:
2005-10-12
The new 24 inch iMac seems to sell for about £1150 in the UK, ex VAT.
A decent 24 inch screen, Acer, is about £420. You can get a Core 2 tower system with roughly the same specs as the iMac for around £500-600 ex. But maybe an X2 system with a spare extra hard drive and more memory and better graphics would be better bang for the buck and still save you a few pennies.
Don't really understand the attraction of an all in one design. Has to be more expensive over time, because you should be able to get longer use out of a decent 24 inch screen than out of the base unit, where you'll probably want quad cores or whatever within a few years.
In fact, what one would probably recommend to the graphic artist would be a tower and dual 20 inch screens, these having fallen in price so much recently. Use a matrox card, and get an awful lot more bang for the buck. Shows the fallacy of trying to match the spec exactly.
Edited 2006-09-06 19:07