Bluefusion
Into the Breach
Hey everyone. I got my LCD iMac yesterday, so I'm going to write a review of everything. I want this to explain absolutely everything as much as possible, and hopefully it'll work. Enjoy!
First off, the packaging. It's typical Apple grace and style, more so than I was used to with tower Macs. Cables are bundled with cute little white clips; even the phone cable is pure white. It looks great. It was a little odd to take it out, as they always SAY to pick it up by the metal arm but it doesn't feel right, somehow. That said, it looks breathtaking. I think nothing looks better than a brand-new LCD screen... that solid, shiny black rocks.
Taking it out and setting it up was as quick and painless as ever. The first thing I noticed was that the Pro Speakers this thing comes with are REALLY GOOD-- much much better than the old ones. The keyboard definitely feels like a better fit for me than the old Pro Keyboard, and the mouse (although I am not using it) seems to have slightly better tracking (though very slightly). The screen has a small white light on the bottom right corner which remains on at all times as long as the system has power. This light does "breathe" in sleep mode but it's so small that it's (unfortunately) barely noticeable. My only complaint is that they never went back to the huge breathing Apple logo of the Pismo Powerbook, but oh well.
Then I turn it on. It makes the greatest sound! The hard drive sound is actually kind of neat, not that "click click click" you always hear on towers. It sounds... sophisticated. There is a slight "weeeeeemmmmm" sound for a second or so... I assume it's the SuperDrive spinning up. The monitor goes on without any clicking or anything; like a seamless extension of the machine, which it is.
I'll put everyone's fears to rest. The screen is GREAT. The resolution is not as bad as I thought it would be (I was used to 1152x870 and was really worried about losing the extra space) but somehow it just feels like the perfect size. It works great.
This thing, I realized with considerable awe as I watched OS X start up, is friggin' FAST. I was using a 400 G4 (AGP) with Rage 128 and 256 MB of RAM. But this thing honestly kicks the G4 a lot more than the double megahertz rating would make you think. Even though it's only twice as fast, it feels four or times more responsive. OS X runs like a dream; window resizing is literally live. Perfection.
After quickly and easily copying all my apps off of an external drive, I try out the SuperDrive. The ejection system not only looks very cool (the drive itself is black and comes out of the base very smoothly) but makes a kind of neat sound as well. When I put a disk in, I'm treated to a sound like some kind of magic wand. Let me be blunt: the SuperDrive they use in this sounds NOTHING like a normal CD drive. It's as if it's a different beast altogether. I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but it makes a sound like "wreeem, wreeem, wreeem". Kind of the "beam me up, Scotty" sound
The whole machine feels like it's from another planet.
The GeForce 2, from what I've tried with it, is quite impressive. Because it's locked into 1024x768, it has a hell of a lot of power to put on a small screen. 32 MB of RAM can drive even the biggest monitors, and here it's pushing a 15". In a flash of insight, I see what Apple is doing with their small screen/big VRAM deal. Then I forgot what it was.
I started up the iTunes visualizer, with "faster but rougher" turned on. The thing flies by too fast for me to even see. Wow. I turn on "high quality" and it's beautiful.
iDVD looks great, but i haven't burnt a DVD yet...
First off, the packaging. It's typical Apple grace and style, more so than I was used to with tower Macs. Cables are bundled with cute little white clips; even the phone cable is pure white. It looks great. It was a little odd to take it out, as they always SAY to pick it up by the metal arm but it doesn't feel right, somehow. That said, it looks breathtaking. I think nothing looks better than a brand-new LCD screen... that solid, shiny black rocks.
Taking it out and setting it up was as quick and painless as ever. The first thing I noticed was that the Pro Speakers this thing comes with are REALLY GOOD-- much much better than the old ones. The keyboard definitely feels like a better fit for me than the old Pro Keyboard, and the mouse (although I am not using it) seems to have slightly better tracking (though very slightly). The screen has a small white light on the bottom right corner which remains on at all times as long as the system has power. This light does "breathe" in sleep mode but it's so small that it's (unfortunately) barely noticeable. My only complaint is that they never went back to the huge breathing Apple logo of the Pismo Powerbook, but oh well.
Then I turn it on. It makes the greatest sound! The hard drive sound is actually kind of neat, not that "click click click" you always hear on towers. It sounds... sophisticated. There is a slight "weeeeeemmmmm" sound for a second or so... I assume it's the SuperDrive spinning up. The monitor goes on without any clicking or anything; like a seamless extension of the machine, which it is.
I'll put everyone's fears to rest. The screen is GREAT. The resolution is not as bad as I thought it would be (I was used to 1152x870 and was really worried about losing the extra space) but somehow it just feels like the perfect size. It works great.
This thing, I realized with considerable awe as I watched OS X start up, is friggin' FAST. I was using a 400 G4 (AGP) with Rage 128 and 256 MB of RAM. But this thing honestly kicks the G4 a lot more than the double megahertz rating would make you think. Even though it's only twice as fast, it feels four or times more responsive. OS X runs like a dream; window resizing is literally live. Perfection.
After quickly and easily copying all my apps off of an external drive, I try out the SuperDrive. The ejection system not only looks very cool (the drive itself is black and comes out of the base very smoothly) but makes a kind of neat sound as well. When I put a disk in, I'm treated to a sound like some kind of magic wand. Let me be blunt: the SuperDrive they use in this sounds NOTHING like a normal CD drive. It's as if it's a different beast altogether. I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but it makes a sound like "wreeem, wreeem, wreeem". Kind of the "beam me up, Scotty" sound
The whole machine feels like it's from another planet.The GeForce 2, from what I've tried with it, is quite impressive. Because it's locked into 1024x768, it has a hell of a lot of power to put on a small screen. 32 MB of RAM can drive even the biggest monitors, and here it's pushing a 15". In a flash of insight, I see what Apple is doing with their small screen/big VRAM deal. Then I forgot what it was.
I started up the iTunes visualizer, with "faster but rougher" turned on. The thing flies by too fast for me to even see. Wow. I turn on "high quality" and it's beautiful.
iDVD looks great, but i haven't burnt a DVD yet...
