I've had my new 1ghz 17" Imac with internal bluetooth, and internal slot filled with apple 512mb ram for nearly six weeks now.
The novelty has worn off a little bit, but the pleasure of daily use has only grown.
If you look at some of the posts, you'll see that myself and others debated in quite some depth about the pros and cons of the Imac, re reported problems, rumours of updates, and imac v's tower etc.
As a switcher, there was a certain amount of apprehension in making the move, and more at making a substantial 'investment' in a so called all in one disposable machine as some like to refer to the Imac.
But Apple are right on the money when it comes to designing a computer for the home. Johnathon Ives hasn't won design awards for nothing. Takes up very little space. Has stunning display. It's very quiet. It looks very nice, and blends in well with other furniture regardless of where you want to put it - bedroom, kitchen, lounge etc, - the home office look is no longer obligatory, and thank goodness IMV.
On a performance basis, I'm well impressed. It's not THE fastest machine I've ever used, but is very snappy and responsive, certainly the apparent equal of the 1ghz tower, and I should imagine would only start to show it's limitations when you really start to push it re intensive image rendering etc, and in a few years as the demands of software continue to increase.
I also debated about 'waiting' for the next best thing, ie the rumoured/long awaited 970 next generation chip. But from announced release, to being available in machines you can buy, could still be up to 6 mnths away, if you are happy to wait that long.
And I would doubt that Apple would put that high end chip in their so called consumer models at the outset. Maybe in a year or twos time, but initially it's likely to be in the towers only.
Of course, the Imac will be 'refresehed' and most likely in July with speed bumps to the CPU, more ram etc. However, I was very keen on the Imac, but found the 800mhz models just that little bit 'sluggish' for my first mac, and the towers a bit noisy and not so good 'bang for your buck' value as the Imac.
Hence, when the 1ghz models came in Feb, I waited till they were in stock, and evaluated them, and eventually, after much debating here on MacNN, I bought at long last :-)
The point is, that I felt the performance NOW to be a decent step up from what I had (PC) and enough to be more than useful for my conceivable needs in the future, and more than enough for the present.
Consequently, the next revision or two, or even three of the Imac wont be of concern performance wise. However, in maybe 3 or 4 yrs, when it starts to struggle a bit with the demands made upon it by the then even more bloated software, THEN I'll worry about it and buy either another Imac, or maybe a new tower if my knowledge/needs have advanced enough to require or make that power desirable.
Meantime, my comment/advice is to buy the computer you need TODAY, and let the future look after itself. At whatever point/time you buy, it's going to be 'outdated' within six months, or the next upgrade regardless anyway, so waiting for the next big thing, if you need/require/want a computer now, is something of a fruitless excercise IMHO.
I went with 512mb Ram to save $$, and also by having the internal slot filled with Ram at the outset, eliminating the need to have the machine disassembled at a later date by a reseller to have that ram slot filled when upgrading. It definitely has made the machine a little 'snappier' compared to the instore models all with the base 256ram.
If you were doing a lot of multi-tasking, I should think more would always be nice/better re general system responsiveness. I intend to upgrade the extra slot with 512mb Ram, later on as funds permit, and maybe needs require it, but at the moment it is nice and snappy and responsive indeed - I'm very pleased/impressed as you can tell!
Sorry about the rant - hey I can type even faster on this new Apple pro keyboard
Hope this helps
Cheers
Johnboi..
Has anyone out there got one? What's it like? Is the 1Gig memory 'Ultimate' worth the extra cash? Any opinions welcome.
Top
