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158 of 169 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful Machine, Beautiful Display, January 26, 2006
Without question, I love Macintosh computers. The ease of use, performance, and design that is Apple makes me productive, keeps the headaches down, and makes working on a computer fun.
When Steve Jobs announced the new iMac, with Intel Core Duo processors I was almost certain I wanted to buy it. Why? Macs are well known for ease of use and capabilities, but they have managed all that for years, with processors that are not always top-notch. That all changed in January 2006.
Processor in the new iMac
The Intel Core Duo processor in the new iMac is an amazing chip. What have I noticed about the speed of the machine featuring this chip? It is incredibly fast. You'd be surprised by how much faster even web browsing is, when you have a processor as powerful as the Core Duo. However, what I've really been impressed by is doing things such as video encoding. I've encoded videos in H264 as much as eight times faster than my Powerbook G4. Furthermore, the iLife applications that are included on the iMac fly, with the speed. iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and Garageband perform like never before. I've really been impressed by the speed.
The Core Duo is a great processor. It offers exceptional desktop PC performance, in a design that can fit in small computers and notebooks. It features two cores on a single die, which effectively gives you the performance of two processors. Don't let the 2 GHZ clock speed fool you. This Core Duo Chip will outperform 3+ GHZ Pentium 4 processors. It really is an amazing breakthrough, from Intel.
Video Card
The new iMac features an ATI Radeon X1600 graphics processor using PCI Express
128 MB of GDDR3 video memory. This is the best graphic card Apple has *ever* included with a consumer Macintosh. This graphic processor will work well for most gaming, and it is great for viewing back complex H264 movies, including high definition videos. You can enjoy high definition H264 videos, without drop frames. I couldn't even play these videos, on my Powerbook.
Display - Apple's 20-inch displays are beautiful, and it is built right into the iMac. The iMac is so thin too that people sometimes think the computer is only the LCD. For example, friends of mine didn't believe me, when I said the computer was behind the LCD! Back to the display's quality, it is very bright, crisp, and clean. It is also easy on the eyes, which is nice, when you're sitting at the machine for several hours. It features 1680x1050 resolution, which will give you plenty of room to fit windows and projects onto the screen.
Video out - The new iMac, for the first time ever, features a Mini-DVI output. This allows, with adapters, the ability to connect the iMac to a DVI display, a television via composite or S-video, or an analog display via VGA. I have my new iMac Core Duo connected to my 20-inch Apple Cinema Display, and it works perfect! A nice feature. This allows for screen-spanning, so I can take advantage of both screens.
Memory - This iMac is a powerhouse, but it is held back by the standard 512MB of memory. You can still do a couple tasks at a time, but for intensive tasks and multitasking you need more memory. Add at least another 512 MB stick, for a total of 1 GB memory, but you might consider adding even more. The iMac supports up to 2 GB of memory. It uses PC5300 DDR2 - SODIMM modules.
Applications -
Apple has removed some of the applications previously bundled, with the iMac. This includes Appleworks. Appleworks is no longer included, but if you own a copy, it will run fine on this machine. Apple does include iLife '06, which has iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, iDVD, and Garageband. There is the Safari web browser, some board games, the always useful iCal, AddressBook, iChat, etc. Overall, I was pleased with the included software.
iLife 06 is particularly great. I love the new full-screen photo editing, photo comparing, etc. You can now also order calendars and greeting cards made with your photos, direct from Apple, by using the iPhoto software. iMovie has new themes, which helps make professional-looking home movies, and iDVD now supports widescreen DVDs. iWeb is a brand-new applications, which makes it easy to create professional quality webpages, quickly. I can't wait to rebuild by site using iWeb. Apple continues to make it easy to create music, manage your digital images, make movies, and create web sites.
A trial (30 day) of iWork '06 is also included, which includes the page layout program Pages, and the presentation program Keynote (which makes presentations that blow away presentations made by rival Powerpoint).
Hard Drive -
The 20-inch iMac comes with a 250 GB hard drive. This is going to be sufficient for most people to hold their photographs, music, and movies. However, some people may need more. It is also important that you remember to backup your important files to either another external hard drive, or DVDs. I only point this out because today with great machines like the iMac we're storing more of our great memories on computers than ever before, so make sure you don't lose them, if something happens to your machine. Apple includes a great backup program called Backup 3, if you subscribe to the .mac service. I use it all the time, and it simple interface helps me keep peace of mind.
Superdrive-
The optical drive included with the new iMac allows you to watch DVDs, listen to music, burn DVDs, and burn CDs. You can also burn dual-layer DVDs, which is nice. It is a slot-loading drive, so the disks slide magically in and out of the computer's right side. There are no drawers to break off.
Front Row Experience - Apple has included a new software title that at this time is only available on the iMac and MacBook Pro. Front Row. Front Row comes with your iMac, and a remote control is also included. Front row allows you to watch and listen to media items, on your computer, from across the room. Click one button on the remote, and bring up Front Row, for quick access to your music, movies, podcasts, DVD, and more. I like this feature, but I wonder how useful it is, since I'm usually sitting right in front of the computer and can just use a mouse, to access this content.
PowerPC Applications on Intel Machine
If you own a lot of software for Mac, then most of it is probably compiled for PowerPC. Developers are working hard to make titles run natively on both Intel and PowerPC, but many titles are not yet ready. However, many titles you can use on an Intel Mac because Apple has included Rosetta, which translates the PowerPC code into something the Intel machine can read. However, you never see Rosetta for it works quietly in the background and makes running PowerPC applications seamless. Microsoft Office, for example, works perfect under Rosetta. Intensive applications such as Photoshop will run under Rosetta, but it will be slower until Adobe has an Intel compiled version of Photoshop. Rosetta does work and if you add memory to your iMac, you may find such application somewhat equal to how it would perform on a 1GHZ PowerPC G4, from my experience.
Two titles I use EyeTV and Toast 7 are not yet compiled for Intel, but they run fine on my Intel iMac, under Rosetta. Again, you don't have to open anything special to use Rosetta. Your Mac knows when it needs it and uses it.
Wireless- The iMac can still connect wirelessly to networks using its included Airport Card. Furthermore, it features a Bluetooth module to connect wirelessly to devices.
Design - This iMac is beautiful, and you notice the quality as soon as you begin to open the box. It is packaged with care, in beautiful packaging. The iMac is thin, and the display floats above your desk. Furthermore, Apple includes a nice keyboard and mighty mouse, which allows for multi-button clicking.
Overall, I am very happy with my iMac Core Duo. It should perhaps come with more memory standard, but it is a very impressive machine. It is incredibly fast on Intel-native applications, and it does a very good job running PowerPC applications. If you're upgrading from a G4 Mac like myself, this machine will seem to fly. If you're upgrading from a G5 based Mac, it will be faster on native applications, but the increase in performance will be less significant to you. The Intel machines are the future of Apple, so there is no question this is a good machine, and it is powerful enough to be a good computer, for quite some time. I'm happy with my purchase, and I look forward to continue exploring it in the coming days
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96 of 106 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ahead of its time, January 25, 2006
The release of iMac Core Duo marks a historic moment for Apple. It is Apple's first computer to use Intel's CPU. At first, new iMac seems largely identical to its predecessor -- an iMac G5 with iSight. That is entirely intentional and a carefully orchestrated move. Merely 3 months ago, Apple released redesigned iMac G5 with iSight as a test bed for imminent Core Duo version. Resembling iPod, this design occupies very little desk space while providing a surprising number of advanced features. iMac Dual Core improves now-stabilized design with several new features and improvements, the least of all is Intel Core Duo CPU. Among other changes include faster memory architecture, faster hard disk, 802.11a wireless network (currently unsupported), and faster ATI Radeon X1600 with DVI extended desktop connection. Let's take a look at each.
iMac Core Duo is one of the first shipping computers with Intel's Core Duo CPU. This CPU features two processors in a single chip that share 2MB L2 cache. Numerous articles and reviews talk about how well (or not) Mac OS X performs under Core Duo. Here's my take. When running Universal Binary applications, it flies. On many occasions, it is as fast as dual-core 2.3GHz PowerMac G5. And in some occasions, it is even faster. It is worth noting that my iMac has been upgraded to full 2GB. With factory standard 512MB, you will experience some choppiness and "spinning beach ball" mouse pointer. At the very least, expand the memory to 1GB as soon as possible. This iMac may not be twice as fast as 2.1GHz iMac G5 under all circumstances, but it's fast. I have been using it for few days now and Safari is perhaps the most dramatic example. Web pages render super fast, even highly customized My Yahoo! page. One of the most demanding computing tasks is playing 1080p high definition H.264 video. To test this, I downloaded and played high-definition music video (Maria Taylor H.264 1920x1080) on both iMac and dual-core 2.3GHz PowerMac G5. To make the matter more interesting, I played another clip (NASA H.264 1280x720) at the same time. The iMac cruised along as PowerMac struggled.
The unfortunate reality is, however, many applications are compiled and optimized for PowerPC (G3, G4, and G5). Notable examples include Adobe Creative Suite 2, Intuit Quicken 2006, Macromedia Studio 8, Microsoft Office 2004, and Roxio Toast Titanium 7. Even Apple's own professional applications (e.g., Aperture, Final Cut Studio, and Logic) won't be available in Universal Binary until February and March. Apple's solution is Rosetta technology that silently and automatically translates PowerPC applications for Intel CPU. For the most part, Rosetta works well, but not without few issues. Most significantly, Rosetta needs memory to function. Essentially, you will want to double the memory. Microsoft recommends 512MB of memory for running Office 2004. Under Rosetta, you will want 1GB. Even with ample memory, do not expect miraculous performance. In most instances, my iMac equipped with 2GB memory ran PowerPC applications only a bit faster than Mac mini (1.5GHz G4 with 1GB RAM). The good new is that Universal Binary is proceeding nicely, with many major titles ported every week. By end of 2006, most applications should be shipping as Universal Binary.
Speaking of memory, new iMac supports dual-channel memory interface that transfers twice as much memory at once. To enable dual-channel, you will need to add memory in pair. Since iMac has two 200-pin SO-DIMM memory slots, the second module must be identical to first module in 3 ways: capacity, speed, and configuration. If you want 1GB total, add two 512MB modules. For 2GB, add two 1GB modules. Both modules must have the same speed rating (you shouldn't use anything but DDR2 PC2-5300 SO-DIMM). And make sure both modules have the same number and type of chips. If you cannot spring for full 2GB now, I recommend adding 1GB for now (for 1.5GB total) as iMac with 1.5GB operating in single-channel will still perform better than memory starved iMac with 1GB operating in dual-channel.
New iMac includes solid storage options, 3.5" 250GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA hard disk (mine is Western Digital) and SuperDrive. SuperDrive can play and burn all the major optical disk standards, including CD-R (24x), CD-RW (16x), DVD-R (8x), DVD-RW (4x), DVD+R (8x), DVD+RW (4x), and DVD+R double-layer (2.4x). 250GB hard disk supports Native Command Queuing for faster disk access and is extremely quiet (about as quiet as notebook hard disks). To expand storage space, I recommend purchasing dual interface (FireWire 400 and USB 2.0) external hard disk. Other than memory, this iMac is not user serviceable.
Unpacking iMac is a fun experience. Everything is neatly packed into an attractive box. It comes with many fun features, including built-in iSight video camera and IrDA remote control. Connect iMac to 5.1-channel speaker system via Toslink digital audio connection, it becomes a mini home theater. Included Front Row application turns your iMac into supercharged iPod, letting you view photos, listen to music, and watch movies (including DVD) with a remote control. Also included is the latest iLife '06 with GarageBand (create your own music and podcast), iMovie (create and edit home movies), iPhoto (manage your photos), iTunes (manage your music), and iWeb (create and manage your website).
Networking support is very comprehensive. It includes 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g Wi-Fi (WLAN), Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000BASE-T), and Bluetooth 2.0. Also included are 2 FireWire 400 and 3 USB 2.0 ports (plus 2 USB 1.1 on the keyboard).
Finally, the graphics. This iMac has faster ATI Radeon X1600 GPU with 128MB GDDR3 SDRAM. Using fast 16-lane PCI Express, this is an excellent consumer grade graphics solution. As games get ported to Universal Binary, you will get very respectable frame rate even in high details (for instance, 100 frames per second for upcoming World of WarCraft Universal Binary). The built-in 20" LCD is gorgeous and bright, running at 1680x1050 resolution. If that is not enough, you can expand by attaching another LCD such as 23-inch Apple Cinema Display (1920x1200).
EDIT: I am not sure why Apple's customer service would deny dual-channel support as it is a good selling point (if somewhat overrated). In any case, this iMac supports dual-channel, as well as new MacBook Pro (maximum memory throughput of 10.7 GB/sec in dual-channel memory vs. 5.3 GB/sec in single-channel). That said, since iMac's frontside bus is 667 MHz, the full benefit of dual-channel will be limited, but will ensure all the components to run as fast as they can.
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36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's Jamais Vu , April 29, 2006
I've never owned a Mac before. I started out as a Unix programmer in the late 1970s and at one point, managed a network for more than 60,000 users all on Unix. I moved to Windows with 2.0 and followed Microsoft along, becoming an engineer there for several years. In recent years, I became frustrated with the architectural problems of Windows, due to Microsoft's need to support applications that are more than 10 years old.
Looking at the Mac, there's just no question that the hardware is aesthetically stunning. This is a beautiful machine and it just cleans up all the clutter on your desk instantly.
When you connect it, all the USB and Firewire ports are conveniently clustered together, and the system pivots very easily for you to get access to them. System set up took all of five minutes.
Where Apple shocked me was with their Zero Configuration utilities embedded in the operating system. This is transparent to the user, but when you power on your Macintosh - it discovers what i needs to know about your network, like other network devices, servers, printers. For the more technically adept, if you've managed your network properly, your new Mac is ready to roll and is fully configured in under 10 minutes.
My new iMac found my email server and printers and prompted me for my network credentials. I was on the internet, and running great in mere moments. The performance is just wonderful.
The included iLife '06 software is wonderful. These are the kinds of utilities that you'd spend hundreds of dollars for in the Windows world and they'd not be quite so well integrated as they are on the Mac. Even small details are considered. For example, the built-in iSight camera immediately pulls up the iPhoto software and allows you to quickly modify the picture you take. I did a quick "Warhol" template on a picture and emailed it in less than 30 seconds. The iWeb utility lets you build very attractive web sites with very little effort. If you're at all musical, the GarageBand utility will let you build complete soundtracks and you can then add those to your custom DVDs through iMove and iDVD.
At first, I was concerned whether there would be applications available for the new Intel platform. I was very pleased to learn that World of Warcraft slipstreamed in their universal binary support. So, when you install WoW on a new intel based Mac and run the update, it automatically installs the universal binary during the patch download.
Microsoft Officer 2004 is still PowerPC based, but the built in Rosetta translation system provides more than adequate performance for what I'm doing. I'm using Entourage as my email client and the other Microsoft Office applications with no problems.
Performance is excellent, the system is very quiet and it's just absolutely crisp, clear and beautiful to look at. Whether you're interested in the stability and security of the Mac OS X operating system or whether you simply want the advantages of very, very well integrated hardware to run Windows XP - you should consider the new Macintosh systems very carefully. Apple has a huge winner here.
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