Apple iMac G5 Desktop with 17" M9249LL/A (1.80 GHz PowerPC G5, 256 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive)

by Apple

Product Details

Product Manual [1.87mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 18.5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 22 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002OG6OI
• Item model number: M9249LL/A
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 30, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Welcome to the future.
The iMac G5 offers all-in-one elegance that’s delightfully affordable. Take in the view on a widescreen flat-panel display. Proudly display the iMac G5 in any room of your house — it’s lightweight enough to move from your kitchen to the den or bedroom. The 17-inch provides the same screen area as a 19-inch CRT — with twice the brightness, sharpness and contrast. Hidden behind the display, you’ll find the entire computer: central processing unit (CPU), logic board, hard drive, optical drive, speakers, microphone and power supply. But you’ll actually find that the computer just fades away as you organize music and photos, or compose tunes and edit movies with the iLife suite of integrated applications for your digital lifestyle. What’s more, since the iMac is wireless-ready, you don’t even have to place it near a phone jack. Simply pop in an AirPort Extreme Card, hook up an AirPort Express to your DSL connection or cable modem, and you can surf the Internet wirelessly, listen to tunes in another room and print wirelessly.

The new iMac G5 includes power supply, stereo speakers, and a slot-loading SuperDrive enclosed within the widescreen flat-panel display.

The Display is the Computer Apple designers removed the extraneous, miniaturized the necessary, souped up the performance and concealed the result in immaculate perfection. The iMac G5 hangs suspended from a graceful anodized aluminum stand and its widescreen display lets you chat with several friends while you retouch photos, surf the web or scan email — and see everything at the same time. Technology Democratized The iMac G5 brings the same innovative system architecture in Apple professional desktops to the home. The G5 processor makes everything zippier — connecting to email or the web, creating movies, songs and DVDs, arranging photos or playing music. The 1.8 GHz G5 processor is ready to run modern 64-bit applications under the secure and stable Mac OS X operating system. What’s more, the G5 speeds up Mac OS X and all the other included software, such as iLife ’04, Quicken 2004 and World Book.

All-in-One Ease
iMac G5 tucks away all the modern amenities in its two-inch thin body, such as a slot-loading SuperDrive. Burn DVD slideshows of vacation photos or send friends a DVD with a special movie for the holidays. Back up your iTunes collection or make a mix CD for that special someone. Naturally, you can pop in your DVD movies and watch them in 16:10 widescreen letterbox format on the gorgeous LCD display. Your ears will hear pristine audio from built-in stereo speakers. Pointed down, the speakers bounce sound waves off your desk, counter or table into your ears.

A Place for Everything Remove the back cover on the iMac G5, and you’ll discover that perfect order is not just a requirement, but also candy to the eye. Thoughtful touches abound its dense layout, since Apple engineers considered the placement of every bit of technology — several times. Inside, you’ll find enough modern technology to make even nerds drool. That’s a 1.8 GHz G5 processor, 600 MHz frontside bus, 256 MB DDR SDRAM running at 400 MHz and NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra with 64 MB graphics memory. So you’ll be able to play Worlds of Warcraft, Doom III and other fantastic entertainment. Power to Spare What’s more, the thin enclosure even holds the power supply, so you won’t need to accommodate a huge power brick. Obsessed by the drive to offer you the best personal computer, Apple engineers strove to add fit and finish in every detail, down to the power switch located on the back panel. When you remove the panel, the button goes with it. But with the case closed, the button makes contact with the power supply.

Quieter than a whisper, the iMac G5 measures less than 25dB when idle and a slit in the back of the case allows heat to rise out the top

 

Ports include: Two FireWire 400 ports, three USB 2.0 ports, two USB 1.1 ports, VGA output, S-video and composite video output.

Stay Connected Of course the iMac G5 offers all the right ports to connect to your universe with ease. Starting with the new headphone jack that’s also a mini-optical plug. So you can watch DVDs and listen to them in 5.1 surround sound. You’ll also find a passel of USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 connectors for your camera, camcorder or gamepad. Or if you want to connect your iMac to your TV or a digital projector, the mini-VGA port gives you the option. The line in jack lets you record an electric guitar into GarageBand. iMac offers Ethernet for wired networking as well as a modem for dial-up Internet. Your modem can also double as a fax machine. Extreme Graphics The sizzling graphics processor and next-generation high-bandwidth architecture kicks 3D games and graphics into high gear, with three times the frame rate as the previous iMac in Unreal Tournament 2004. NVIDIA graphics provides hardware transform and lighting (T&L), per-pixel shading and drop-dead gorgeous effects at high resolutions. All models deliver over a billion textured pixels per second and an advanced Live FX engine engineered to generate the most lifelike characters. With Quartz Extreme, the graphics processors take over transform and lighting calculation functions from the CPU, freeing the G5 processor to perform essential system tasks faster than ever before.

Product Description

This is a classic Macintosh, very reliable & dependable. No virus worries burn Cds surf the web, check your emails, download your Itunes etc. You'll be very pleased with the response of this machine.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A reviewer who actually has used one..., September 22, 2004

By 

C. Wadsworth (Napa, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apple iMac G5 Desktop with 17" M9249LL/A (1.80 GHz PowerPC G5, 256 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive) (Personal Computers)

I have spent about 30 minutes with each of the iMac configurations (17" and 20") at my local Apple Store and can report on what I've seen.

The design of this machine is brilliant and online pictures do not do it justice. It is remarkably stable and easily adjustable. The cpu/monitor (hereafter refered to as the "slab") tilts vertically with the push of a finger in a smooth motion. The arm that supports the slab also can be slid easily to rotate on the horizontal axis. The slab also supports standard VESA mounts so that the iMac can be attached to the wall on an articulating VESA arm. An interesting design note is that the fullsize components are meticulously arranged in the chassis so that the whole unit is center balanced on the anodized aluminum arm. This alone is an impressive engineering feat. Equally impressive is the user repair/upgradeability of this machine. Virtually every component is easilly accesable and replaceable by the user.

Some people have opinioned that the i/o ports in the rear might look ungainly or make the unit unstable. Not true. The units I looked at had ethernet, usb and firewire cables plugged in and routed through the whole in the base of the stand. It looked very clean and from a stability standpoint I don't think the iMac knew they were there. And by adding an Airport Extreme card and Bluetooth module (yes I agree they should have been standard) You iMac may be completely wireless, save the powercord.

The monitors on both models were sharp and bright with excellent viewing angles. I prefer the 20" model for the extra screen real estate.

The store I visited was very busy and loud so I decided to give the speakers a workout and see if they could cut through the ambient noise. I launched a movie trailer for Nemo and was surprised at how good they sounded. I don't think they can compare to a powered external speaker setup but considering their size and placement (they are inset under the bottom lip of slab and fire down at the desk) they sound very good.

Because the Apple Store I visited was so noisy, I was unable to hear the iMac's fans so I can't report on how the machine would sound in a quiet home office environment. Apple claims it is whisper quiet.

General speed of the 1.8 model was excellent. Applications opened quickly if not instantly and everything felt responsive.

For the benefit of those wavering Windows users out there, I want to make a point about my own experience with processor speed. Before switching from a homebuilt PC with an Athalon 1800 back in 2002 I was worried about the speed hit I would take when moving to a lowly 867mhz G4. I can honestly say that the only thing that suffered was high-end games. Everything else I do on the computer was actually faster! OS X's integration of included software - email, web browser, Calender, iChat (text, audio and video messaging), the iLife Suite (iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, Garageband and iDVD) and the aftermarket addition of Microsoft Office allow me to do everything much more efficiently. What Apple does better then any other manufacturer is integrate its OS to the hardware and give everyday users a built-in suite of software tools to manage all their core computing needs.

And one more quick aside; in my 2 years on the Mac platform, my machines have never been attacked by malicious spyware or viruses.

If you are looking for a combination of style, speed, usability and long term value, I would highly recommend the new iMac in either monitor configuration. One thing that is rarely mentioned about Macs is their resale value. You can feel comfortable that these machines will hold their value better then any other manufacturer out there. So when it comes time to upgrade in a few years your Mac will be worth half the price of a new model as opposed to 1/10th for a comparable PC.

48 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ignorance is not bliss, Bob, it's a curse, September 16, 2004

By 

Peter Wheatley "Peeeta" (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Apple iMac G5 Desktop with 17" M9249LL/A (1.80 GHz PowerPC G5, 256 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive) (Personal Computers)

I have to agree with other reviewers of this system that praise the power, the industrial design and the usability of the iMac G5. Apple has always been an industry leader in user-friendly computing and yet guys like Bob have to jump at any opportunity to slam them.

If Bob had done any research at all, or better yet, had ever USED an iMac for longer than his 2 minute maximum attention span, he would realize that most of his opinions are unfounded.

Software is not an issue and hasn't been for many years. I challenge Bob to list all the essential software he can't live without on his Dell whatever that is unavailable on a Mac. But I'd also take this one step further to suggest that he may need more software to get things done on his PC that can be done in fewer steps with better results on a Mac. The very fact that every new Apple ships with a complete office suite (Apple Works), photo and video editing software (iPhoto, iMovie), not to mention iDVD (a DVD mastering program), iTunes (the industry-leading mp3 software)and Garage Band (a sophisticated music composer) has been completely overlooked by our friend Bob. All that software is in the box! What's even better is that all this software is designed by Apple and designed to work with each other in much the same way. That means once you become comfortable with a particular Apple-designed program, you'll intuitively understand how to find your way around the others. What's more, you can pull elements from each program into another (adding photos to an iMovie and bringing them both into iDVD) without any hassle. At the very most, you might want to pick up a copy of MS Office if you need to, which, by the way, is 100% compatible with the PC version making file sharing perfectly seamless.

Let's not forget about the thousands of 'drivers' that the PC world simply can't live without. You know, those annoying little programs that have to be given to you on a CD rom or download from the internet for your PC so you can operate a printer or a digital camera? In the world of Apple, the drivers for all current and most future peripheral devices are pre-installed. Have a digital camera you want to connect? Plug it in and the Mac instantly recognizes the device and even opens the program you need to use. Have a new printer, plug it in and print. If you're not a computer techie and don't get off on dabbling in DOS, stop wasting your time with a PC.

And to the comments about DELL having better value, check it out. Do your research. To get a comparatively powered machine from Dell (remembering of course that 1.8 Ghz on a Mac equals about 2.6 Ghz on a PC) complete with comparable monitor, graphics card, RAM and software the price is the same if not more. The technical specifications cannot be compared between the two platforms, but it's not worth getting into here.

Fact is, since Apple holds a comparatively small marketshare of consumer computers, most of the general public are unaware of the many, many virtues. If you like to be creative, if you like to be efficient, if you like to use your computer as an extension of your abilities, the iMac should be seriously considered. Once you go Mac, you don't go back.

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Using a 1.6iMac G5 for a week- FANTASTIC!, September 24, 2004

By 

Prof David T Wright (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Apple iMac G5 Desktop with 17" M9249LL/A (1.80 GHz PowerPC G5, 256 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive) (Personal Computers)

As an engineer, consultant, businessman, and educator- pramatism (bang per buck) absolutely rules.

No question- having suffered dozens of daily crashes with the latest PCs and Microsoft software, hundreds of OS updates, crippled unreliable Dell and IBM laptops (yet working in aerospace, space and formula one)- I am so P**sed off with the quality (lack thereof) in IT (17 years worth!)....Count the hours wasted and dollars spent on software...

To the new Apple- within 5 minutes it was connected to the Internet, talking with all the printers, scanners, faxes, gamespads, videocams without any hitch whatsoever (REAL WOW). OK so OSX looks scary- 30 minutes to get used to without even looking at the straightfoward manual. Appleworks free office suite reads all my papers and articles without a glitch even though they were written (and crashed) in MS Office. Some software updates- quick with a disk optimiser automatically (no fragmented disks..).

Speedwise an iMac G5 1.6/ 512MB RAM/160 GB HD/17 screen boots up and feels about 3 x faster than a Dell Inspiron Laptop/Pentium 4 1.6/512MB RAM/30GB HD/16VRAM/15 Screen. Never mind the cool factor or that an equivalent Dell costs more.. I even have to move my head from side to side as the screen is so big!

Moans- more power would be great (e.g. better graphics card options, dual processor option) but in reality the iMac is such such a marvel of industrial design in the true sense, doesn/t crash all day, and works very effectively at a great price. BTW I did a factory 1 slot 512MB option so that could 3rd party upgrade another 512 more cost effectively- but am told that the 2 slots do not need to match in size.

Overall- a real winner- My *New* Dell laptop has become a paperweight holding a cable!

UPDATE (a few days later)- everyone who has seen and used the new iMac wants one; I *want to* use the computer (fun!) rather than dread it (Windows); think that office productivity - languishing despite vast IT investments- may rebound if coporations were brave enough to invest in one of these for all staffers... (not one crash in 40 hours use- a record!!!). BTW may start to put in some industrial strength engineering modelling apps soon (with a second new Mac- a Dual PowerMac 3GHz when it comes)...

UPDATE 2- another 512MBRAM (to 1GB pair); big hardware boost for graphics:
Numbers: CINEBENCH 2003-rendering 1 cpu- 170; graphics C4D shading 204; OpenGL SW-L 529; OpenGL HW-l 928; Speedup 4.59
XBENCH Results 146.68

Hard not to smile with this computer- no crashes, virtualPC for Win apps, no viruses- soon m$ free ..