[sledsbehave]

am i the only one that finds the G4 imac more pleasing than the imac G5. i love the floating screen, and seeing the enormous size of the G5 20", made me laugh out loud.

i was seriously thinking of getting the new G5 imac, but i think i like the old style so much better, i'm gonna search out an imac 20" even though i'll have to give up some power, the the screen adjustment alone should make up for it.

anyone agree?

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Specs wise the new one is better in every way, if you like the look of the old one and can handle the lower specs go for it.

[Romeo]

Originally posted by sledsbehave:
am i the only one that finds the G4 imac more pleasing than the imac G5. i love the floating screen, and seeing the enormous size of the G5 20", made me laugh out loud.

i was seriously thinking of getting the new G5 imac, but i think i like the old style so much better, i'm gonna search out an imac 20" even though i'll have to give up some power, the the screen adjustment alone should make up for it.

anyone agree?

Maybe you can keep the old iMac case, and work-in anew iMac into it (minus the new case, of course). This way you would get the best of both, and the new creation (more room inside) should keep the innards cooler.

Just kidding!

[Randman]

Whatever floats your boat.

[PBG4 User]

Originally posted by sledsbehave:
am i the only one that finds the G4 imac more pleasing than the imac G5. i love the floating screen, and seeing the enormous size of the G5 20", made me laugh out loud.

i was seriously thinking of getting the new G5 imac, but i think i like the old style so much better, i'm gonna search out an imac 20" even though i'll have to give up some power, the the screen adjustment alone should make up for it.

anyone agree?

I like the look of the iMac G4 more too, but I have an iMac G5 20" at home and absolutely love it. While the monitor adjusting ability isn't as cool as the iMac G4, it's just as easy to adjust both vertically and horizontally.

[deboerjo]

If you're just talking about case design, I wholeheartedly agree.

[sledsbehave]

Originally posted by deboerjo:
If you're just talking about case design, I wholeheartedly agree.

yeah, i wish they had been able to keep the same design, but i suspect heat issues with the G5 were a problem.

i wish we could've gotten at least one more upgrade though, G4 1.5ghz --

or if it were upgradeable like the cube is on the cpu.

[Romeo]

Originally posted by sledsbehave:
yeah, i wish they had been able to keep the same design, but i suspect heat issues with the G5 were a problem.

i wish we could've gotten at least one more upgrade though, G4 1.5ghz --

or if it were upgradeable like the cube is on the cpu.

Just imagine the possibilities if Apple had created the iMac with slots for the CPU, and for the video card! Sonnet and others would provide us with some upgrades.

For example, even though I have a new iMac, my 7300/180MHz has been working with a Sonnet G3/400Mhz CPU for a few years now, and the computer works just fine. I have always kept the 7300 cool by adding more fans where needed. That's very difficult to do with the iMac G5. I can add and external fan to it's back cover, but I think I will wait until the warranty expires.

[jmonty12]

Originally posted by PBG4 User:
I like the look of the iMac G4 more too, but I have an iMac G5 20" at home and absolutely love it. While the monitor adjusting ability isn't as cool as the iMac G4, it's just as easy to adjust both vertically and horizontally.

As sold, the iMac G5 screen is not as adjustable as the G4 when it comes to being able to move the whole screen up and down. Of course without having the interals of the computer as part of the screen, the G4 is just more capable of being moved around more easily and freely.

But don't forget that Apple put a VESA-compatible mount on the back of the iMac G5. You can purchase a plethora of different mounts that will allow your G5 to float however you want. Of course these mounts aren't cheap, but do you want your G5 hanging there on something that will fall apart? Anyway a quick Google on mounts turned up this site:

http://www.ergotron.com/

I don't know anything about this company, but they appear to have a decent selection of flat panel mounting arms to choose from.

[funkboy]

Originally posted by jmonty12:
As sold, the iMac G5 screen is not as adjustable as the G4 when it comes to being able to move the whole screen up and down.
...
But don't forget that Apple put a VESA-compatible mount on the back of the iMac G5.

A great point, but I can't say I've found a mount that's as pleasant as the iMac G4's small base and pivot design. And especially the fact that no mounting screws were required on the G4.

I'm extremely surprised that Apple hasn't released VESA mounts... when will it happen?

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by funkboy:
A great point, but I can't say I've found a mount that's as pleasant as the iMac G4's small base and pivot design. And especially the fact that no mounting screws were required on the G4.

I'm extremely surprised that Apple hasn't released VESA mounts... when will it happen?

I find it amazing that they haven't offered VESA mounts... considering the crap out there.

[Mohammed Al-Sabah]

i havent seen the new imac in person, saw alot of pics, its not bad at all i might get one one day

[vandelay]

I got a new 20'' iMac G4 on ebay in December, because i felt, while i like the G5 design, that the G4 has a bit more "personality" and a more unique design.
At some point i'm probably going to get a G5 too (if i figure out how to justify buying another computer, got the funds and can decide where to put it,...wallmounted maybe?)

[dru]

The G5 iMac is an ugly, styleless exploded iPod in comparison.

The iMac G4 flatpanel design rocks!

[banninated68]

I really don't like the g5 much at all... the specs are tempting...but man, I really LOVE the display on g4 imacs. It's incredible. Too bad apple took a step backwards, but it seems they're known for that.

[FLYBOi]

[NO SPAM]

[barang]

I've always loved the G4 iMac, esp. since I bought mine.

There are some cool things about the G5, though.

As far as looks and functionality go, I think I'd go with the G4. I'd love to by another one to put on a corner table in my living room to run my sound system. It's so stylish.

[sledsbehave]

i am leaning towards buying one especially since the new mac mini just came out, i don't feel like apple will be abandoning the G4 for a few years at least.

you just can't beat the design of the G4 imac's - even if they had to make the base larger for the G4 and all, i wish they had stuck with it.

i do think it was/is more expensive to make the G4 design and this was likely the largest reason for moving onto the G5 design which seems very inexpensive to build with so many less parts and such.

i have thought of getting the mac mini now with an ice 20" display, since i could get both for roughly $1500 with eduction discount, which is a few hundred less than the imac G4 on ebay, and even the G5 imac 20".

[P]

Personally, I prefer the G5 design to the G4 in every way, but I guess it depends on what you're using it for. If you don't need the power of the G5 (and it's a quite considerable boost) then by all means go ahead.

However, there are lots of VESA mounts. Typing "VESA mount" on Google turned up a few hunndred thousand hits, and only the sponsored links got me some way. There has to be one that you can accept.

[Mastrap]

I've just ordered a 20" G5. Personally I never really like the G4 iMac, whereas the G5 just rocks. It's just a screen, containing a computer. Wonderful.

[CharlesS]

I like the G5 iMac for the G5, and for the easy access to its innards. The G4 was a beautiful and functional design, though, and I do miss it.

[ApeInTheShell]

Each model of the iMac had its own sense of style which made it unique to the one before or after it. The sense of style reflects what is going on in their other product lines which is a smart move btw.

I didn't like the iMac G4 because of the floating display. I felt the AIO form factor was temporarily put on hold until they could find a replacement. I thought about getting one until I saw it in person. Just the opposite happened when I saw the iMac G5 online. Thought it was ugly. Went to the Apple Store to get an iPod 4G and the iMac G5 blew me away in size and design. Now that will be the computer I upgrade from the iMac G3

[Eug Wanker]

The iMac G4 is very nice, but there are a couple of things that are much more practical or cool about the iMac G5 in terms of ergonomics etc.

1) Big round footprint on the iMac G4. The iMac G5 actually takes up less room on the desk.
2) Tray load drive on the iMac G4. It was a bit clunky, and it always seemed to get in the way of everything, esp. if it was close to the keyboard.
3) The G5 is wall mountable. That's very cool for the living room computer types.
4) Easy access for iMac G5 upgrades.
5) Integrated speakers on the iMac G5.

Plus of course, that's not mentioning the fact that the iMac G5 blows away the iMac G4 in not only specs all around, but price too.

[hudson1]

Who says the iMac G5 is far more powerful than the iMac G4? According to the extensive tests performed by Macintouch, the G5 at "normal" energy setting is no faster than a 1.2 GHz eMac. The eMac and iMac G4 would have to be pretty similar. It's only when you rest to "high" that the iMac G5 showed its speed but of course you now transformed a quiet machine into something less than quiet.

I have a feeling that the whole G5 line, especially in single processor machines, is much like the first generation of PowerPC. The real world performance of PowerPC didn't mirror the specs but the later generations, the G4s being the latest, progressively extracted the potential that was there. Will the G5s do the same down the road?

[hudson1]

Originally posted by hudson1:
Who says the iMac G5 is far more powerful than the iMac G4? According to the extensive tests performed by Macintouch, the G5 at "normal" energy setting is no faster than a 1.2 GHz eMac. The eMac and iMac G4 would have to be pretty similar. It's only when you reset to "high" that the iMac G5 showed its speed but of course you now transformed a quiet machine into something less than quiet.

I have a feeling that the whole G5 line, especially in single processor machines, is much like the first generation of PowerPC. The real world performance of PowerPC didn't mirror the specs but the later generations, the G4s being the latest, progressively extracted the potential that was there. Will the G5s do the same down the road?

[hudson1]

Sorry, accidental double post.

[barang]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by CharlesS:
I like the G5 iMac for the G5, and for the easy access to its innards. The G4 was a beautiful and functional design, though, and I do miss it. [/QUOTE

Good Point. It was extremely hard to get to the internal hard drive, or anything else inside, for that manner.

[P]

Originally posted by hudson1:
Who says the iMac G5 is far more powerful than the iMac G4? According to the extensive tests performed by Macintouch, the G5 at "normal" energy setting is no faster than a 1.2 GHz eMac. The eMac and iMac G4 would have to be pretty similar. It's only when you rest to "high" that the iMac G5 showed its speed but of course you now transformed a quiet machine into something less than quiet.

I have a feeling that the whole G5 line, especially in single processor machines, is much like the first generation of PowerPC. The real world performance of PowerPC didn't mirror the specs but the later generations, the G4s being the latest, progressively extracted the potential that was there. Will the G5s do the same down the road?

It's far more powerful in many ways, most importantly the FSB (front side bus, AKA system bus) and the regular floating-point units. The FPUs are not a big deal, single-precision stuff can go through Altivec and only scientific apps use double precision to any extent, but the FSB is a killer... The G4s tried to alleviate this with large L3 caches, which works well in some cases and not at all in others. Those L3-caches are expensive, as are the G4s that supports them - note that that the G5 iMacs are cheaper. OpenGL-performance has also improved - the G5s have the same GPU as the old G4 iMacs, and performance improved by a large amount. 212 % or 83 %, it's still a lot for something that ought to be GPU limited.

Panther is optimized for G4s. There is certainly some to gain by using the regular 64bit integer registers instead of Altivec when possible - in fact, deemphasizing Altivec altogether would be a good deal for the G5s. How much this will do in the real world remains to be seen, but I feel memory move operations can gain a large amount. Right now the Achilles heal in my book is the disk performance, but I'm hoping there will be OS and firmware updates to fix this.

Also, the G5 iMacs are fairly quiet even when set to high. They're a little bit louder than my old G3 iMac, but not a problem, and if you'r eplaying some music you don't even hear it. About the same as the G4 iMacs, I'd say.