[Jonnie13]

Gosh,

Some of the previous posts have me quite paranoid about purchasing a new iMac DV SE! My wife and I had just decided it was going to be a "white" Christmas and then I thought I might be smart to stop by check out the some of the current iMac threads to see if this machine has any issues. From some of the posts it looks like this is the wrong machine!

--Wow, now I'm beginning to wonder if I should buy a new iMac at all. My 233 "B" is alive and well, as is my PowerBook G-3 233.

Do I buy the DV SE?

Hmmm...

Jonnie13, I have the orginal one and besides a dead battery and one dead firewire port it is fine. I have the extended warrenty so I just have to take it in to have them both fixed. But seeing as how firewire is hot swappable and you can daisy chain like 68 firewire things together I"m not too worried about getting it taken care of any time soon.

I'd just wait til after the MacWorld Expo in Jan. I doubt the iMac gets an update but you never know w/ Steve.

Eric

from my experience, i wouldnt recommend it(DV SE). 2 months after getting it, the video/analog/whatever, started giving me problems, and lots of other peple seem to be having problems with it as well. Id recommend the G4-400 if youre looking for something in a similar price range.

[Chimpmaster]

I just bought an indigo ibook and im really happy with it!

Ive just moved over from pc - a celeron 566 i had.

I program in java and am into gaming - i thought that i was making a mistake not getting the se model, but this notebook is fast and stable even with only 64mb ram im playing q3arena and getting close to 30fps! Im installing an extra 128mb of ram this week and cant wait for that. Sorry to ramble but Im a little excited...

A friend of min e bought a graphite imac dvse 3 months ago and he is absolutely delighted with it. He hasnt had a day of trouble and raves about it all the time. in fact he helped me in my final decision to get a mac. Im sure your purchase will be fine - you do hear some horror stories about macs, but I believe in most cases they are machines of the best quality.

Regards

Chimp

[kaceygones]

I've had my 400 DV SE since June of 2000. And (knock-on-wood) haven't had any problems with it at all.

Something I did caused it to really crash once, but a friend of mine fixed it in about 20 minutes and the only thing I lost in the process was my Remote Access Control Strip. I would consider that an extreme success.

I love this machine so much I can't wait to get my next one. (One day, when they come out with a 17" monitor and the CD RW thing.) I would recommend this baby to anyone. I think it was well worth the money I spent and would do it again in a heart beat.

Remember, for every ONE problem you do hear about, there are thousands of happy iMac users that have no need to come here and complain and you may never know about.

Pleased, Satisfied and Content.
kaceygones

[Mizuymikal]

I can�t recommend the iMac either. True most users love theirs. Mine however has managed to go through 4 analog boards and 2 video boards. Apple just won�t swap it out for a new one. Not to sound bitter but after 16 years of being a satisfied Apple user this will be the last Apple product that I will ever own. Whatever your decision is I wish you luck.

Hello!

I have owned an iMac DV SE 400 for exactly a year now, and the only problem I had was a Maxtor hard-drive that got whiny. I am the admin of a university learning center LAN, and we got DV SE 500s (3 of em) about 3 months ago. No trouble at all!

I would highly recommend the DV SEs, but would make sure the HD is a Quantum Fireball lct. Apple ships iMacs with all sorts of drives, and the lct is by far the quietest, runs up to 7200 rpm (the others only run at 5400), and Quantum has a far better track-record than Maxtor... not insignificant when trusting a disk with 30 Gigs and possibly no backup.

On the other hand, I would wait until after the MacWorld Keynote on Jan 9. Apple has spent a significant amount more on R&D this year compared to the year before. Seems to me that we'll see quite an impressive line-up of new products soon.

My $ .02

My brother had one and he had to go through hell to get it fixed. They had to replace everything on the summer iMac DV until they FINALLY after more than a month gave him a new one.
Just ask about the return policy if you buy one. I'd get a cube or G4 with the rebates if I were you.

[Kozmik]

As of tomorrow I will have had my iMac DV SE/400 for one year. I have encountered no problems that were not easily fixable. It's a great machine.

[Fredo]

I purchased my DV SE 400 in Nov 1999. I added 128 MB RAM, and have an iSub, printer, scanner, hub, floppy drive, weecam, optical mouse, pro keyboard, firewire CDRW, and firewire 30GB harddrive all attached. It has given me absolutely no problems, and is a joy to use. I very enthusiastically recommend it.

Hi,
Forums are great places for getting information on specific problems but they're a poor indicator of the overall quality of any product as the very nature of the medium means that you mainly hear about problem machines - and all brands and models have some problems. I'd consult review articles in appropriate magazines (on- or offline) for a better idea of reliability. The nature of modern electronic products also means that if something does go wrong, its usually time consuming and expensive to fix. Therefore, seriously consider any extended warranties on offer.
For the record, my 3 month old iMac DV SE is fantastic and very well behaved!
Oh, and get a graphite model. All white is too close to biege! They should have gone with a clear casing (like the new keyboard/mouse) with white trimming and called it Ice!

Regards,
Cormac

[joe]

My Summer 2K DV SE has had several components replaced - and finally the entire iMac replaced. There is still a wavy video problem using menus. More apparent in high res and with iSub or certain peripherals attached. However, despite the problems, Apple customer service is excellent and dedicated. Also, I recently saw a new 2K Ruby iMac on display running high res with an iSub attached and no apparent video problems. I made sure to step it through menus to look for the wavy effect - but no problem. So it looks like Apple has found the problem and fixed it. Of course there are quite a few new 2K iMacs waiting on parts for the wavy video (power analog video board???).

My advice - go for it! Apple is serious about customer service and honoring warranty. And 500MHz rulz!.......joe

Hi,
Forums are great places for getting information on specific problems but they're a poor indicator of the overall quality of any product as the very nature of the medium means that you mainly hear about problem machines - and all brands and models have some problems. I'd consult review articles in appropriate magazines (on- or offline) for a better idea of reliability. The nature of modern electronic products also means that if something does go wrong, its usually time consuming and expensive to fix. Therefore, seriously consider any extended warranties on offer.
For the record, my 3 month old iMac DV SE is fantastic and very well behaved!
Oh, and get a graphite model. All white is too close to biege! They should have gone with a clear casing (like the new keyboard/mouse) with white trimming and called it Ice!

Regards,
Cormac

[Storyboy]

I don't know if you can come to a final decision based on the conflicting reports listed here, but, for what it is worth, I have had my DVSE 400 for about a year and, though I did have the Maxtor HD replaced because of that same aforementioned whine, I have had no other lasting trouble to speak of, and I get a bit daring with my software fiddling. I have crashed a few times, but always I have been able to quickly remedy the problem.

Let us know what you decide.


------------------
"The only consistant people I know are dead."

iMac DVSE 400/128/13
OS 9.0.4

One thing you have to remember is that post of the posts here deal with problems and you do not get to see the good side of them often times. I would highly suggest the iMac DVSE.

[sniffer]

I have been following the "Summer 2000 quality issue" - post for a while, and it seem to me that there is a connection between where it's made and quality. Me, I am perfectly happy with my summer 2000 DV+ model. It might happen that Apple have been award of this problem for a good while now, and that they might have fixed the quality issue. I don't know but usually it's the some of the first shipped bundle of a product that gives problems. And that's a common problem these "early" techno days... Give Apple a chance, that is my advise! oki?

[MAlan]

I have had my DV/SE for over a year now. I am very pleased. I had one mishap where a lightning storm caused a shock to go through the phone line and ruined my internal modem. Therefore the whole logic board had to be replaced. The warranty I got from CompUSA covered it for free and I had it back within a week.

On the downside I still have the original whiny hard drive. Which has a big problem right now. After a couple crashes with virtual memory turned on I believe the hard drive was permanently damaged as Disk first aid is not able to fix it. However, I upgraded from 128 MB of ram to 256 and the machine has been awesome ever since. I still have that hard drive problem but I have backed up all my data with my firewire cd writer. I have ordered a 40 GB Lacie firewire hard drive and expect it to arrive sometime in early January. That will make my reformatting task of the original 13 GB drive easy.

Most people I've talked to about the iMac DV/SE have been happy. It seems to me actually that there have been more serious complaints about the older iMacs like the one you have. The noisy hard drive thing is annoying but to me a very minor thing. Buy the iMac if you wish. However, I would wait until after Macworld expo in early January to buy any Mac in order to check out what kinds of new things are coming out.

-Mike

[MAlan]

I have been reading these forums for a couple years now and I've never seen so many people talk about the same problem before. It really seems that there is a major manufacturing problem with the Summer 2000 iMacs. It also seems that there might be a correlation as to where those machines were made. I would be careful about buying an iMac DV+ or above right now. If you do buy one go to a store as opposed to buying it online. Tell the sales person you want to see it plugged in and working without the wavy line problem and bring a DVD and CD with you to try out too.

-Mike

I bought my 500 iMac SE in August and am very happy with it. This is my first mac and will certainly not be my last. The Mac OS is easier to use than my experience with Windows, especially when it comes to installing and uninstalling software. This computer is certainly fast enough for me and the kids love the 3D games (Nanosaur and Bugdom) included with it. I recommend this computer.

Derek
Wingham, Ontario

[rjc3]

For what it is worth, I have had my 400 DV SE since October of 99 and have nothing but praise for it. It has performed flawlessly and I would whole heartedly recommend one to anyone. These forums are a poor place to evaluate the quality of products as virtually all posts are regarding problems. There is no reason to start a thread "My iMac works great" so you are likely to see a disproportionate amount of complaints and problems here. I love my DV SE and consider it to be the best computer I have owned.

[Danny DLT]

I am in the same situation as rjc3. I have had my blueberry iMac DV since March 6, 2000 and since day 1 it has performed so great. I love it so much, and the added RAM and Pro Mouse & Keyboard I got for it only makes me enjoy it more. Not to mention the DSL it's hooked up to, it flies online. Never has it given me any problems, and when it does, they are minor ones that end up getting resolved.

This is a tech forum, as well as a forum for just general questions/comments. So, you're sure to hear some bad stuff about iMac's. Despite the complaints you read, that doesn't mean that your iMac will turn out the same. You'll never know until you go out and get one. If it turns out to work great, well then...great. But if it doesn't, there is this forum and many others you can post on to try to get them worked out.

I know my praising of my own iMac might not convince you to buy one, but I just wanted to show that I (like many other people) have had positive experiences with their's.

Let us know what you decide,

--Danny

------------------
Daniel De La Torre
iMac DV/400/192/10/9.0.4



[This message has been edited by Danny DLT (edited 12-18-2000).]

[Kong Kok Ooi]

I've been following this forum for quite a while, including the summer iMac issues. After reading through, I decided to get myself an iMac DV SE. Look at it this way, the forum tell you what problems you would like to look out for when you get an iMac. Of course I mean you should get it from a shop where you can test the iMac and give you extended warranty plus acceptable return policy. I agree that one should wait till after 9/1/2001 in general, but as for me, I just bought it few weeks back. I don't think waiting is a game for me anymore, I waited more than a year before I decided to buy it. No matter what new things that come, this current one is excellent for my day to day use. So, make up your mind and get one.Tell us when you've decided. Merry Christmas.

How about you come to Australia and buy it :-)

I've had my iMac DV SE Summer 2000 since September and it's been on basically 24/7 since and not a problem. Every iMac I've seen in Australia has no (major hardware kind) or problems.

Beautiful machines...

I bought my wife a Blueberry DV SE early this year and she loved it so much that I couldn't ever use it :-( So we bought a Graphite DV SE for me a couple weeks ago:-)
The only problem we have had is a software conflict between the AGFA scanner and the Lexmark laser printer.
Get a good Christmas deal on a new DV SE and don't look back!

[Jonnie13]

I like to say thanks to everyone! I really appreciate your opinions and advice on this matter of "to buy or not to buy, that is the question." I would also like to say that I do realize more often than not the forums are places for people to gripe, ask questions and discus solutions. While the answers here did not make or break the sale for us, they certainly were illuminating.

Here is what we have decided to do:

We are going to wait for any new hardware announcements from Apple at Macworld S.F. in January and then hopefully cash in on even greater savings when the 17 inch G-4 Sub-$1000.00 CD-RW/DVD iMacs are announced and all the DV SE's prices are slashed in half Seriously though, we will go to our local Mac shop and ask to plug in (hopefully, one of many) Snow iMac DV SE in and THOROUGHLY check it out before we take it home We name our computers in our house and this one will be called "Hedwig" (after the Snowy Owl in the Harry Potter book series) and will join with Hal, Dieter and Hans to make one small, happy network! Yikes--4 computers for 4 people, this must be the 21st century!

Thank you all and Happy Holidays!