Thoughts on latest PM G5 upgrades?

[opus66]

It is definitely apple's pattern to cripple the ram slots and pci on the low dual... but it doesn't make it right or fair considering their inability to produce any major innovations...

They did finally stop crippling the front side bus... but should have not limited the specs on the dual 2.0 as a show of good faith... The dual layer superdrive is really nothing as those drives have been in pc's for months now, and can be had for cheap...

The PM's are good machines, but I was pretty disappointed in the revision after nearly 11 months. I don't think there's a huge performance difference among the machines... so I'd like to buy the dual 2.0... but I'm worried the pci and 4 ram slots will come back to bite me in the @ss. I'll be doing high end photoshop while trying to teach myself FCP and some limited animation.. Since I'm a complete novice, a faster machine would help me see my misdeeds quicker, helping my learning curve.

The monitors are still over-priced. Not so much the 20 inch at $799 (even though the Dell is the exact same screen for about $499)... but the 23" is a total rip-off. For crying out loud...$1499 is crazy since you can almost buy 2 20's at that price... and the 23" has been riddled with complaints and quality problems from day one. The 23 should be $1199-1299 max.

I'll probably buy the apple 20... but if I really wanted more screen I'd have to reluctantly jump to the Dell 24" at about $1099.

[Lt Major Burns]

check the prices on the dell/mac 20" thing.... last i looked (last week) mac was cheaper by £10. for a much better version of the same screen - the dell only won reviews as it was cheaper

[opus66]

keep in mind I'm in the US, so our prices may be different... I can tell you that the Dell 20" is sold here for about $499 regularly... and in some cases discounted further with limited promotions. I've heard of people getting them for a little over $400 with certain coupons...
The apple is $799.

I've read a review that was linked from apples display support forum... that basically did reverse engineering to both models only to find the exact same LG screen and many, many more identical parts. The Dell offered more inputs, but the Apple had better build quality... but then again the Dell comes with a 3 year warrantee.

I'm too vain to buy the Dell over the Apple at these price points... but the 23" v. 24" would be another story given the odd troubles with the apple 23.

here's the lengthy review of both 20" screens if you're interested...

http://www.anandtech.com/displays/showdoc.aspx?i=2400

here's the US Dell link for the 20 inch... it's now at $561.75... it must fluctuate weekly... but if you keep your eyes open, you'll see some deals and coupons that drastically reduce the prices...
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...tegory_id=4009

[Lt Major Burns]

what problems with the 23"?

[Pengu]

if you want the extra ram slots, buy a refurb or old-stock 2.0 with PCI-X etc...

[opus66]

Originally Posted by Lt Major Burns

what problems with the 23"?

Many users report really poor color due to pink and or yellow casting at different sides of the screen... unfortunately this has not gone away after numerous returns and refurbs...

I've heard some say that tiger has fixed this problem... but hadn't heard much corroboration.

If you need the screen for color critical work, I'd avoid the 23 until there's a definative track record without these problems... you can check apples support forums for display issues.

Oddly enough the 20" seem to be near defect free and excellent for color.

[applewhore]

Originally Posted by opus66

Many users report really poor color due to pink and or yellow casting at different sides of the screen... unfortunately this has not gone away after numerous returns and refurbs...

I've got a relatively new (4 months) 23" Apple monitor - it's pixel perfect and no problems with colour casting...

It's WAY better than the "old style" 22 and 23" screens I've got... (I was using the 23" in the UK two Summers ago and the perspex got filled up with thunder flies!

The HD QT movies on the Apple site look amazing on it!

[opus66]

that's encouraging news... i hope it's a trend that continues everywhere (especially when the prices come down again)...