iMacs Freshened with 2.0 GHz G5, Bluetooth, WiFi 790
amichalo writes "Apple has updated the popular consumer level Mac, the iMac G5.
So better support the now standard Mac OS X Tiger, Apple has made significant improvements to all standard configurations including 512MB RAM, Radeon 9600 128MB graphics, and on 2.0 GHz models (17" and 20"), a slot-loading dual-layer 8x SuperDrive is standard. The 1.8 GHz 17" model includes a slot-loading Combo Drive.
Also standard are Apple's AirPort Extreme 802.11g WiFi and Bluetooth. Pricing remains at $1300, $1500, and $1800 respectively for 1.8 GHz 17", 2.0 GHz 17", and 2.0 GHz 20", though 2.0 GHz models include additional upgraded features.
These improvements are significant as this line has not seen a refresh in about a year and the upgrade to a Radeon 9600 graphics card will allow the new iMac to take better advantage of Tiger features such as Core Image, which is significant because the video card cannot be upgraded. Lastly, Apple is continuing the interactive chat and QuickTime support program for the iMac G5."
One significant thing about the iMac (Score:5, Interesting)
looks like the end of the PowerMac (Score:5, Interesting)
iMac $1,499.00
17-inch widescreen LCD
2GHz PowerPC G5
667MHz frontside bus
512K L2 cache
512MB DDR400 SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load 8x SuperDrive (double-layer)
ATI Radeon 9600
128MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem
PowerMac $1,499.00
1.8GHz PowerPC G5
600MHz frontside bus
512K L2 cache
256MB DDR400 SDRAM
Expandable to 4GB SDRAM
80GB Serial ATA
8x SuperDrive
Three PCI Slots
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem
What about DVI (Score:5, Interesting)
Low level design flaws? Hold off buying. (Score:4, Interesting)
If it hasn't been fixed, the eMac may still give better bang for buck. If this matters to you then hold off buying until you see an accurate performance comparison.
Re:Not interested, however... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:don't forget the emac (Score:5, Interesting)
And does anyone have any info on if apple still runs an upgrade program(if it was bought just before a refresh , i think this one was purchased in february or so ) and how long before the refresh would count. I am going to dig around and call apple myself , but any insight would be much apreciated.
Re:Freshend? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:looks like the end of the PowerMac (Score:1, Interesting)
Athlon64 PC $1,095.00
And... You can upgrade the video card!
This is not news (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes I care. I'm an apple user and my powerbook is the item I own that gets the most use each day, but apple doing a routine feature bump (hint: every product line gets one every nine months) is the stuff of thinksecret and macrumours, not slashdot.
Is this really 1/12 of the interesting news for the day? Is there no other article of value that could have been posted? Come on.
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple may have upgraded the bundled videocard just on the basis of component availability/price point, but I doubt this is a significant selling feature.
Re:looks like the end of the PowerMac (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean it's one generation behind the latest, which most people haven't adopted yet. As for bottom of the line, that's simply untrue--what's a Radeon 9200? This card isn't going to play Doom 3, but it's fine for what most computer users will be doing, and it certainly a welcome upgrade over the GeForce 5200 FX.
Must find a way... (Score:5, Interesting)
We have two matching 17" LCD, 800 MHz iMacs, purchased in November, 2002. They have run 24x7 since we purchased them, with the exception of the power outages caused by the hurricanes in September of 2004.
Re:game (Score:5, Interesting)
Who mods this shit informative? (Score:2, Interesting)
All it informs me about is that "peetoose" is a pig ignorant loser living in his parent's crawlspace, and cannot comprehend anything beyond his own foreskin. He's just another living atrocity that views the word as WhatILike=Good and EverythingElse=Stooopid.
Are mod points only given to the trolls these days so they can mod up other trolls?
Re:BULLSHIT (Score:3, Interesting)
"What can you POSSIBLY do that you CANNOT do on a regular PC?" Many things. I'll tell you.
I guess I'm using my computer for different things than you are using your computer for.
There is no way to get anything even remotely approaching the functionality, power and ease of use of GarageBand 2.0.1 on a PC, at any price. If composing and recording music is a priority for you, and it's the main reason I'm buying a new computer, an iMac is a huge value. GarageBand 2.0.1 is FREE.
Not to mention iMovie and iPhoto. How much extra money would you have to pay to add a program as good as iMovie HD to your PC? It's free on the Mac. Would your PC come stock with a FireWire port (the big-plug kind) with power-over-FireWire? That would cost you extra money. All models of Mac have them stock.
Then there's the little fact that you don't have to worry about viruses or spyware on a Mac. They don't exist. Besides, the OS is secure enough to keep such threats away. How much money and time and grief do you spend defending your Windows PC from these scourges? I don't give them a single thought.
The operating system of the Mac has much better and more readable on-screen display of fonts, and better scalability when you want to zoom in. I consider the ease on my eyes and lack of fatigue, and more precise display, as big plusses. There is no way to get these on a Windows computer regardless of the graphics hardware or monitor being used.
I could go on, but you're an inarticulate troll who can't use decent language to discuss something you obviously have no clear concept of in your clouded little mind.
Go ahead, buy a Mac for once in your computing career. You'll enjoy it. You might actually get some work done. We won't tell your friends at the bowling alley. We won't call you a sissy, or tell your mother. We promise.
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, imagine that you just bought a brand new iMac a few weeks ago just before Tiger came out. You are all excited about buying and installing the latest version tiger, however the video card that came with your few weeks old iMac will not be able to take advantage of Quartz 2D extreme GUI acceleration in Tiger. Oh, well you can either throw away your iMac, sell it on eBay or live with not being able to take advantage of newer features in Tiger. (This just happened to my brother-in-law who purchased a 17" iMac in January. A little more than 3 months old and it is outdated and can't take advantage of some features of Tiger!)
There is really no reason for Apple to not allow a few basic upgrades in their computer line. Video card, hard drive and memory is all that Apple needs to make upgradeable and then a Mac would be a good purchase IMO. However, as it is with most of the Apple computer line, you will be locked into a video card that will be outdated in 1 - 2 years and you will run into a wall when you find out that your video card cannot take advantage of newer features in Mac OS X. Simply allowing the video card and hard drive to be upgradable would stop your Mac from becoming obsolete to soon, however that would mean less hardware sales for Apple. I will stick to my basic build-it-myself-PC that I can upgrade at my pace and not the pace of Apple.
Design or Branding? (Score:3, Interesting)
But being a sound, usable design seems to be a minor concern for Apple's product strategy. The big selling point with all iMacs, starting with the original candy iMacs [scienceman.com], is that they look cool. Once familiarity has blunted the coolness factor, an iMac design is discarded -- no matter how good it is.
Pretty sad. When the pedestal iMac came out, I rather hoped that competitors would imitate it. Not its overall appearance -- Apple is notoriously intolerant [windowsitpro.com] of that kind of imitation. But the more general idea of a pedestal computer. Alas, nobody did, and now even Apple has lost interest in the idea. It's all about branding these days, not usability. And though Apple's designers are the best, they only live to serve that purpose.
not in my experience (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple designs throw away computers.
I paid $1800 for a B/W G3 450mhz box in 1998 and used that sucker for desktop publishing and even DV editing until mid 2004. Then I finally bought a G4 powerbook and retired the G3. Mac OS X (everything up through Panther) ran fine for me on that G3 and I never noticed a bottleneck in terms of the video card nor did I upgrade any internal components other than memory and hard drives. Six years on the same computer does not sound like a throw-away product to me.
Re:Design or Branding? (Score:2, Interesting)
Far better design then the previous one, IMHO.
Disagree (Score:1, Interesting)
If you're excited about "minimizing desk footprint", the iMac G5 has the iMac G4 beat, hands down. The new foot sits flat, so you only have a narrow band of metal where it turns up. You can put papers directly *under* the iMac G5. And the iMac G4 had its ports around the outside of the base, at desk level, so they took up even more room on my desk -- the G5 has them on the back, above the desk, pleasantly out of the way.
Ergonomics is improved with the slot-loading drive. I've often reached to put a disc in, remembered the drive isn't "out", then had to reach back to hit "eject" on the keyboard (I've seen many other people do this, too -- or even not know where the eject key *is*). It's also mounted high on the case, so again, you can pile stuff around your iMac G5, where on the G4 you'd have to clear a space around it. Saving a couple seconds may sound trivial, but if you're inserting a lot of CDs (like, say, ripping into iTunes), a couple seconds times a lot is a lot. Also, if you have a cup of coffee in your other hand, it's *much* easier to do.
Oh, and the stereo speakers are built-in now, so it takes up still less desk space than the G4 did. (And if you turn the display, the speakers turn to face the same direction. This makes getting ready to show a movie even easier.)
True, it doesn't swivel quite as much as it used to. But in practice, I never saw anybody move it forward-and-back much in normal usage. If you want to move it left or right, it's not hard to just turn the whole computer. Harder than the iMac G4, true, but still far easier than any CRT. If you need to do this a lot, you can get a standard (VESA) mounting stand for your iMac G5, something the G4 couldn't use at all: if you were in a lab or other place where you required *zero* desk footprint, you were just plain screwed with the iMac G4.
It also has lots of other little benefits: easier to pack and ship, easier to push up against the wall if I want to use my desk for something else, and easier (possible!) to open and replace parts myself.
I consider this the first step on the path to the "ideal" desktop form factor: one that looks pretty much like an Apple Cinema Display -- just a thin display.
It sounds like you're just upset because you think the G5 isn't as pretty as the G4. Can you explain specific problems you think exist with the iMac G5 design? It seems to be better in virtually every way.
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, as a large number of people have pointed out, the low-end Power Mac now costs exactly the same as a midrange iMac, so you really can make a pure tradeoff between expandability and a free monitor.
Re:Memory Prices (somewhat) improved (Score:2, Interesting)
But of course, we still love Apple
Re:One significant thing about the iMac (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:game (Score:3, Interesting)
Shufflepuck Cafe was fun, but actually, I had more fun breaking the copy protection on it, than I did actually playing it. They did some nice tricks that made breaking that one a bit of a puzzle.