“The design of the 17″ Intel iMac is nearly identical to its last-revision G5 predecessor. As the old saying goes, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Apple wisely stuck with the stunning all-in-one design of the iMac; a design that no other computer manufacturer has been able to duplicate or even approach; a design that had industrial designers and consumers all atwitter with excitement,” Jason Tomzak writes for Digital Trends by way of I4U.com.
“The 17″ iMac has a tiny footprint for a full-featured desktop – 114.24 square inches (maximum width times maximum depth). In comparison, a small form-factor eMachines or Gateway computer plus 17″ LCD screen has a clown-like footprint of 240 square inches or more. The iMac takes up less than half the space without sacrificing components, speed or style,” Tomzak writes.
Tomzak writes, “Even though most leading-edge computers on the market come with 16X DVD burners, Apple held back by supplying the 17″ iMac with an 8X SuperDrive. Of course, the 8X SuperDrive burns CDs, DVDs and even Dual-Layer DVDs quickly and stably and produces few or no faulty burns. In my opinion, Apple really should have gone all the way with a 16X dual-layer DVD burner.”
“Rosetta-dependent applications like Word, Acrobat Professional and Photoshop CS2 open much slower than Universal applications, but they open faster on the iMac than they do on a loaded 1.5GHz G4 PowerBook,” Tomzak writes.
“The LCD screen on the iMac is simply wonderful. The 1440×900 resolution screen is powered by the ATI Radeon X1600 graphics with 128MB GDDR3 memory. It is perfect for all basic applications like iPhoto, iMovie HD, Photoshop and Aperture and even GPU-slamming applications like Final Cut Pro. The X1600 graphics card is reportedly suitable for serious gaming in OS X and in Windows XP Pro under Boot Camp,” Tomzak writes.
“Having tested numerous PowerPC and Intel-based Macs in business, media and general-use scenarios, I feel confident saying that the 17″ Intel iMac is one of the better systems Apple has produced. It stays true to the sexy design that made millions fall in love with it. It runs silently. The screen is beautiful. The hardware and operating system are the most reliable around. It’s very fast and can handle most heavy workloads,” Tomzak writes.
Full review here.
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Seattle Times: Apple iMac is ‘so beautiful with its simple, yet elegant design’ – July 08, 2006
Wired names best media center: Apple 20-inch iMac with Front Row – June 08, 2006
Review: Apple’s new iMac Core Duo ‘an outstanding feat of engineering, a high-precision instrument’ – February 16, 2006
Apple iMac the finest, most reliable, stable, elegant and intuitive personal computer available – February 14, 2006
Dr. Mac Bob Levitus gives ‘highest recommendation’ for Apple iMac 2GHz Core Duo – February 07, 2006
Review: Apple 20-inch iMac Core Duo 2.0GHz – February 06, 2006
BusinessWeek: Apple’s new iMac Core Duo is an iMac on Steroids – February 02, 2006
AnandTech: Apple iMac G5 vs. iMac Intel Core Duo – February 01, 2006
Thurrott: ‘I highly recommend Apple’s new Intel-based iMac’ – January 31, 2006
Thurrott: ‘Nothing on Windows approaches the quality of Apple’s iLife ’06’ – January 31, 2006
Computerworld: Apple’s MacBook Pro ‘fast, really fast – looks like a real winner’ – January 28, 2006
MacSpeedZone: Apple’s iMac Core Duo nearly as fast as Power Mac G5 Quad – January 26, 2006
InfoWorld: Apple perfects the desktop personal computer with new iMac Core Duo – January 25, 2006
Flawed CNET review pans Apple’s iMac Core Duo with 7 out of 10 rating – January 23, 2006
Washington Post: Wait a month or so before buying Apple’s appealing new Intel-based iMac – January 22, 2006
Apple’s Intel-powered iMac provides a smooth transistion from PowerPC – January 21, 2006
PC Magazine review gives Apple iMac Intel Core Duo 4.5 out of 5 stars – January 20, 2006
Time names Apple iMac Core Duo ‘Gadget of the Week’ – January 20, 2006
Mossberg: New Intel-based iMac the best consumer desktop with the best OS and best software bundle – January 18, 2006
“Tomzak writes, “Even though most leading-edge computers on the market come with 16X DVD burners, Apple held back by supplying the 17″ iMac with an 8X SuperDrive. Of course, the 8X SuperDrive burns CDs, DVDs and even Dual-Layer DVDs quickly and stably and produces few or no faulty burns. In my opinion, Apple really should have gone all the way with a 16X dual-layer DVD burner.””
Sadly Tomzak doesn’t realize that Apple is using an 8x Burner because that’s the fastest notebook drive available. The iMac current design wouldn’t support a traditional desktop optical drive.
Apple – turning into a expensive PC vendor?
Whats that irritating buzzing sound in my ear? – Oh Hi Dynamic Mesh! Got your check from Microsoft this morning? – Oh good………..
I think the bottom line is that Apple wants to sell as many computers as possible. In the short term, they could care less whether you’re running Mac OS, Windows, Linux, or some homebrew you came up with in your garage. They just want you to buy a Mac. They have the style, the marketing, and the technical specifications to do that. In the long term, they know you’ll fall in love with Mac OS. As most of us here know, drinking the Mac Kool-Aid is a process, not instantaneous.
MW: knew – Had I known I’d become a Mac zealot, I might have never bought a Mac.
Dynamic mesh,
do you have any intelligent comment or opinions to offer? or do you just fill your time trying to bait people who have better taste than you, with your dim witted, un-imaginative ramblings.
ive found just the site for you just for dynamic mesh
(its for all the windows losers like you to hang out together, and ask themselves why they are such dweebs).
Mesh,
All PC’s will be expensive if they are fully Vista capable.
“All PC’s will be expensive if they are fully Vista capable.”
Customer talking to sales associate: “So I’m going to need at least a Pentium D processor and a GeForce 6800 card?”
This may actually be true. I’ve heard that some people are somewhat disappointed with the beta running on a GeForce 6600!
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“atwitter” – Oooooo, me so horny!
macnut222: “Tomzak writes, “Even though most leading-edge computers on the market come with 16X DVD burners, Apple held back by supplying the 17″ iMac with an 8X SuperDrive. Of course, the 8X SuperDrive burns CDs, DVDs and even Dual-Layer DVDs quickly and stably and produces few or no faulty burns. In my opinion, Apple really should have gone all the way with a 16X dual-layer DVD burner.””
Sadly Tomzak doesn’t realize that Apple is using an 8x Burner because that’s the fastest notebook drive available. The iMac current design wouldn’t support a traditional desktop optical drive.
–> I don’t know the physics behind all this, but I did hear that the *vertical* orientation of an optical drive may have something to do with it – especially if you have your iMac tilted at more of an angle (if the laser is even minutely off target it’s coaster city):
http://www.macintouch.com/imacisight.html :
“”These speeds seem considerably lower than the drive’s potential. Apple’s 20th Anniversary Mac, the first Mac ever to ship with a vertically oriented CD-ROM drive, was limited to a 4x read speed (considered slow even at the time). This was due to its almost vertical orientation. Prior optical drives had similar limitations, and were rated to perform only when within five or ten degrees of vertical. The iMac tilts considerably more than this, but angle does not seem to affect the drive’s performance.
Perhaps Apple’s decision to mount the drive vertically limits the effective speed attainable by the SuperDrive. It just doesn’t perform the way its ratings would suggest. If working with optical discs is a big part of your usage, you may be disappointed in this not-so-Super drive, but if it’s not, you probably won’t notice or care. Whether a CD is ready for your iPod in six minutes or ten probably won’t make a big impact in your life, and video compression is such a slow process that the drive won’t even come close to slowing down ripping your DVDs to smaller MPEG-4 or DivX files. Still, this is the third iteration of the vertical optical drive; by now we’d expect that if there was a solution, Apple would have found it. Apple’s 8x/24x claim is just not borne out in actual usage.”
— >*NOT* doom and gloom – just info – Many, many, problems with the iMacs burning DVD’s:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=517921&tstart=0
Get high-quality media. It really does make a difference with DVD’s. Verbatim & TDK are all I will use. I really believe the vertical orientation contributes to this as I have a 200 audio CD carousel that has (of course) a vertical orientation. Every once in a while it will not recognize a CD and I will have to reload it (only from the remote – not physically). I believe that with a *horizontal* orientation, the disc is able to spin more “true”. It’s just from my own experience. Someone who knows the deeper technical details may have a different perspective.