Customer Reviews
Breath Taking Beauty. Both inside and outside.
I have to confess that I have a 'weakness' for really well thought out and executed products.
Since there are plenty of detailed and fine reviews on this masterpiece, I will try to focus on some details (including aesthetics)that havent been covered in other reviews.
Aesthetics:
Having been a "WinTel PC guy" for more than a decade, this computer (my first mac), can be a shock (in a very good way)to your senses. It is a real treat to watch the workmanship of this product. Only a passionate genius like Steve Jobs and his team can conceive and execute such a masterpiece to the very last inch. This guy not only truly embodies the concept of "no compromise" on quality but inspires and ingrains that into the souls of his entire staff. Even the Mac OS X's advanced and very beautiful UI is a befitting and worthy partner for this beauty.
Media Center computer:
From a perspective of media center computer, an important required characteristic for a media centered computer destined to be in a bedroom or in a living room is that it needs to a very quiet machine. Just imagine you watching a TV show(or even sleep) with a PC hard drive and its cooling fans and hard disk making their annoying humming noise. This computer is virtually silent. For kicks, I had it on my night stand for a couple of nights and I wouldn't even have noticed it if not for its breath taking beauty.
Just for contrast I have seen Pentium D (dual core pentiums) based PCs grunt until my senses became numb. Even the monstrously sized sony vaio liquid cooled media centered PC is noisier compared to this computer.
There is another aspect that makes iMac a compelling buy. That is iTunes. It enables seamless media content integration with iMac. It achieves that with a combination of a simple remote (so simple and intuitive that you don't even have to look at it to operate)and front row software (with a ipod like UI) makes it a pleasure to watch a variety of media including videos (including video and radio podcasts),movie trailers ,dvds, photos, music seamlessly. The only thing that is missing is an integrated TV tuner and accompanying DVR software. (I have a feeling this feature will be incorporated by the end of this year). But for now I have to settle for a third party tv tuner and software.
Memory and extensibility:
This comes with a 512 Mb of memory and I think it is a mistake. It should have a 1Gb single SODIMM so that we can have an option to fill up the remaining slot with another 1GB to max out at 2GB. From my experience 512MB just doesnt cut it expecially considering we will be inevitably relying on rosetta for atleast a few months. I have ordered a 1GB SODIMM which makes it 1.5GB and it will make one decent machine.
Another minor issue is that this computer can only have a max of 2GB. I wish it was designed to have atleast a capacity of max 4GB.
Value:
Some have argued that this imac is expensive. In my opinion it isn't. with $1550 after discount at amazon, this is very competetively priced. Dont look at PC starting prices at Dell or anywhere else. Just price it out with this spec and you will notice that it is fairly priced. Dont forget that it comes with a 20" gorgeous wide screen and comes with a great suite of software. In any case, for me, I would have been happy to pay a premium of 30% compared to a PC just for the gorgeous build quality of this machine that blurs the line between a normal computer and a piece of art. But I guess I didnt have to after all (no complaints!).
My only hope is that Steve Jobs and his incredibly talented team of passionate engineers design and manufacture just about everything that we use everyday including LCD TVs, cellphones and even toasters and eventually our homes themselves. Hell, why not!!!.
Sorry I cannot write about this and not talk about Steve Jobs. What a life this guy has lived. 30 years of unflinching and uncompromising passion to deliver great products. And this adulation coming from a veteran PC user...I guess I have a transplant myself now besides the iMac...and perhaps that is a good thing and long over due.
Overall this is a 4.5. But since I cannot rate a half I am rounding to 5.0 which is fairer than 4.0 .
Hope you all enjoy it as much as i did (and still do)!
Love this Mac
Wow this is one Fine Computer and so far the best one that come in some time. It might be as fast as Steve said it was but still Fast enough. I know it will be running at top speed when more Apps that are Universal comes out and some tweeks to Tiger. But still if one nice computer that come along and can not wait to see the others that will come out soon. But for the first one Mac with the Intel inside it not bad at all, And if I ask if to by this one or wait I would tell them to go a a head and get it, I all so founf Rosetta is not as slow as I thought it might be so that no longer any worry. Just programs like Photo Shop the works the CPU hard do run slower than if it were native to the Intel. But that is about it other wise Firefox Thunderbird Skype run fine. As well as Office 2004 and I know by the end of the year most of the big programs will be universal if not much sooner.
