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Personally, I've never liked the styling on these i-macs. They look too much like a prop from Space 1999, UFO or some other B-grade sci-fi series.

I wonder if these have updated screens as well, since they had been using inferior TN screens.

consumerist.com/.../apple-sued-new-20-imac-screens-display-260k-colors-not-millions

Humm...Space 1999 everything was white plastic and CRT, worse the CRTs were black and white.  The only thing on any sort of pedestal was the plastic white lights.   UFO was even worse with Atari looking screens and lots of colored plastic buttons that didn't seem to do very much.  Anyway, not sure how I feel one way or the other on the iMac, it is a nice looking kit when compared to the Dell or Gateway versions, BUT I do know my "B-Grade sci-fi series" and the iMac doesn't look like any of them.

BTW: The screen issue was with the 20" not the 24" which is the focus of this article. Additionally there are other vendors in a similar pickle now so hang on to your monitors!  :-)

Jeffsters, it was a tongue in cheeck comment, not a literal one. But I do stand by the fact that I'm not a fan of the styling of these.

I have been looking forward to maybe buying one of these things at some point.  I like the style, especially with the bluetooth keyboard, but I think I will still wait until Apple puts Blueray in these bad boys.

These are nice machines I guess, but the lack of expandability has always turned me off. If you want an expandable Mac in the form of a traditional tower, you need the Mac Pro. It's a very nice box but overkill and overpriced for the average home user. That's probably why that Mac clone maker Psystar has been getting a lot of press...A cheap expandable tower for the masses, assuming it will work of course, and they're not sued out of existence.   :-)

I already have a very nice 24" LCD so I didn't see the point of being stuck with a built-in display.

Again, nice machines. Just not for everyone.

They're certainly getting better in the sense that they were previously just glorified laptops with a big screen. I'm not sure that's any longer the case.

Expandability for the consumer market is a dead issue.  Almost nobody upgrades their machines beyond RAM and maybe harddrive.  They just buy new machines.

Consumers interested in using an existing monitor can get the mini, though that is a bit of a hole in the Apple offerings.  Bumping the Mini to iMac guts at the same price would be nice, or at least offering the option.

For entusiasts... expanding matters more, but it depends who you're talking about.  Gamers don't (and probably shouldn't) buy macs, so they're out.  They build their own machines anyway.

Content creators would likely buy a Mac Pro (like myself) and not be worried about the workstation-class hardware and price, since it's a machine for work.

The reality is, if you want an affordable desktop with an amazing screen, these iMacs can't be beat.  And while the screen is tied to the machine, both should last you a long long time given the current rate of improvement of desktop hardware.  And when you want a new one?  Sell it!  You'll get a good price on ebay and put the proceeds toward an upgrade.

Gotta love the iMac.

@johnpapola

I have had my Mac Pro for about 10 days and it is just the right machine for me (and you), but for the masses, well those with enough money, this iMac looks and is fantastic.

I am having to use the Mac Pro running XP for a Forensics course and somehow I have rediscovered the joys of gaming that were confined to my Atari STe days.  Even with the upgraded card I wouldn't call it a serious gaming machine, but I am having some fun with it.

Before anyone makes the stupid comment "Yeah, but the screen is tied to the machine!  What If I want a new machine, but want to keep the same screen?"  you should know in advance that macs hold amazinly higher re-sale values than do PCs.  I sold my 5 year old iMac this winter for $600.  And to be honest, I think it was a good deal for both of us.  If all that person was going to do was get on the internet, check email, do word processing and excel... like 90% of the computing population, it would serve them better than ANY $4000 brand new Dell.  I can guarantee you that.

Macs resale values are amazing.  Go ahead and look it up on ebay or craigslist.  You'll see what I mean.  5 year old machines still selling for hundreds upon  hundreds of dollars!  Try that with your 3 year old PC!  Not gonna happen!

@PaulThurott

"Glorified laptops with a big screen."

So, is that supposed to be a bad thing?  What you have to remember is that 90% of consumers care NOTHING about switching out hardware, care NOTHING about a slight hardware bump, care NOTHING about expandability.  

What you need to realize is that the iMac was designed for the average computer customer.  The customer who values things like simplicity, design, noise, space savings, no viruses, big screens, etc.  

I've always found it hilarious how computer geeks compare a mac and a pc based on .1 ghz and an extra 80 gb HD.  Its like going out and buying one 500,000 house over another 500,000 house because it has nice carpet in the living room... when you should be focused on school district, location, neighbors, neighborhood, builder dependability, etc.

It's the OS (and complete ecosystem), stupid!

"What you have to remember is that 90% of consumers care NOTHING about switching out hardware, care NOTHING about a slight hardware bump, care NOTHING about expandability."

what they care about is performance and value for the dollar.  they should look elsewhere from Apple.

fivepoint .. Yeah, it was a bad thing. But the iMac has progressed to the point now where it finally has decent desktop PC-quality graphics, which makes a big difference for anyone who wishes to play games, use Photoshop, or otherwise push the machine in ways that just weren't possible in previous-gen iMacs.

Waethorn: Arguably, consumers are also looking for style, and certainly the iMac has that in spades.

"Arguably, consumers are also looking for style, and certainly the iMac has that in spades."

when it comes down to the almighty dollar, you can see through their marketshare that the majority of potential customers (PC shoppers in general) don't care about how a PC *looks*....

Waethorn,

Let's see performance for the dollar.

I buy a mac, sell it FIVE years later for 600.00, or I buy a Dell and give it away five years later.  Yeah, let's talk about value.

The value of virus free.

The value of malware free.

The value of a more consistent user interface.

The value of a machine that you don't have to hide under a desk.

The value of a machine that people actually say, things like, "sleek, beautiful."

The value of a machine that you can let your kid use without worry.

The value of a machine that you don't have to tinker with.

The value of a machine that works.

Yeah, let's talk about value.

You and all your windows minions know the price of everything and VALUE of nothing.

Regards

Joe Dokes

Photoshop needs a 3D gaming GPU to run well?  I would disagree with that a bit.

The dedicated GPU in this iMac is for games.  Games on OS X or games in bootcamp XP....cuz games blow chunks in Vista.

If you dont game (90% of Mac users) then who cares.  I speciafically own a Macbook over a Macbook Pro for two reasons, NO battery sucking, heat generating meant for games GPU, and size.

Lindy, games blow chunks in Vista? really? prove it.

I've never seen a problem running games on vista, and performance is on a par with XP.

"If you dont game (90% of Mac users) then who cares"

that's a loaded statement - 90% of Mac users know that they don't even make games for Mac!

"You and all your windows minions know the price of everything and VALUE of nothing."

we know the value that the Mac makes in worldwide marketshare ~3%.

@Joe-Dokes,

Don't waste your time with Waethorn.  His business is building white-box PCs so he has a personal financial motivation for bashing Apple and the mac.  He also argues like a child, ignores reason and logical points and fires back with one-liners.  Look at how he can't even tolerate Paul's compliment of the iMac's design and points to marketshare... except that Apple has as much as 20% consumer share in US and Canada (and the consumer market is what the iMac targets).  So based on market share, the iMac is a smash hit.  

But don't bother using a completely valid argument like that with Waethorn.  He's not capable of acknowledging anything that contradicts his black-and-white worldview.

Regardless of what apple throws to the market, unless they get behind the enterprise market, I'll never recommend it to my bosses.......never.  One look into the Windows based infrastructure support by MS and third parties says it all.......and THAT even incorporates support for the linux base too.

Sure, I'll support the onsey-twosey installations, but an overall deployment, FORGET IT!!

Anyone that buys a computer based on a meaningless metric like worldwide marketshare and not on their own needs and wants is a complete and utter tool.

dougxd,

Not to worry.  Apple doesn't market to the enterprise is really isn't interested in it.  There's more than enough market for macs in the consumer space, the content creation market (which is growing HUGE with internet video), education, bio-tech and life sciences.

So stick with MS for your enterprise deployments.  They clearly are working hard to support that environment.

Plus,

Has anyone noticed that these specs are a bit special?  This machine has a 1066mhz front side bus and a max clock of 3ghz.  That's no standard santa rosa chipset with it's 800mhz system bus.  

It looks like Intel has either given Apple pretty early access to the "montevina" chipset, or they've delivered a special-run over-clocked santa rosa.   Either way, I think for this very moment, this iMac is running the fastest bus of any consumer PC (Mac Pro's use Xeon's with a 1600mhz bus).

Anyone know what the Intel roadmap is for broader roll out of the 1066mhz bus chipset?

I have had an amdx2 3.2 ghz for a long time now. (about a year and a half) so this product isnt net. Its just the gay computer market takes to long to update its components.

John, not exactly, if we are to believe TG Daily.

www.tgdaily.com/.../135

"Intel told us Monday afternoon that this new processor in fact is not the X9100, but rather a "special" SKU of the 45 nm Penryn processor for the company's Santa Rosa platform."

"He also argues like a child, ignores reason and logical points and fires back with one-liners."

yet your comments drone on and on about nothing in particular.

"Look at how he can't even tolerate Paul's compliment of the iMac's design and points to marketshare"

yet when Paul does it to shut you up, you just take it in strides.

"except that Apple has as much as 20% consumer share in US and Canada"

stats, please!

"So based on market share, the iMac is a smash hit."

"Think 3% is low?  Think Different!....BOOM!  The new iMath(TM)" - Steve Jobs

"Anyone that buys a computer based on a meaningless metric like worldwide marketshare and not on their own needs and wants is a complete and utter tool."

and anybody that buys a computer just based on shiny white plastic or brushed aluminum casings and thinks that's it's "cool" to be in some sort of miniscule elitist club should have their head examined.

"this iMac is running the fastest bus of any consumer PC"

sorry but you are SO. DEAD. WRONG.

1066MHz FSB is what the old Core 2 Duo desktop chips have used when they were first released, and we're moving to the 3rd FSB speed very soon - 1600MHz, which is in line with what newer Xeon's use, so that puts PC's at a huge performance advantage over any consumer PC coming out of Poopertino (as always).  Right now, desktop Core 2 processors are 1333MHz (and there are consumer quad-core options too - fancy that!).

My bad on the desktop FSB vs. the mobile FSB used in the iMac.  It still manages to spank the Dell XPS One in actual application benches, so, whatever.

This is obviously anecdotal, but we had a 24" iMac in our office for a few weeks while we were building it for a user.  People (all PC users) absolutely LOVED the thing.  It literally stopped people in their tracks.  They'd look at it and talk about what a great monitor it was.  When we told them it was the whole computer, they were just astounded.  I've never seen reactions like that to a computer.  There is a reason Macs have increased in sales so much.

@ PaulThurott

"But the iMac has progressed to the point now where it finally has decent desktop PC-quality graphics, which makes a big difference for anyone who wishes to play games, use Photoshop, or otherwise push the machine in ways that just weren't possible in previous-gen iMacs."

That is exactly my point!  What percentage of computer owners consider themselves "gamers?"  What percentage of computer owners consider themselves "Photoshop Users?"  Let me break it to you... it isn't over 5% in either category.  

The iMac is the ultimate desktop computer for the average computer consumer.  There is no denying it...

@ Paul

I'm not aware of any advantage Photoshop gains from a bumping a Radeon 2600 up to a faster graphics card.  Photoshop's rendering is all CPU-based.   in fact, for Core-image based GPU rendering such as Aperture's non-destructive image editing, or Motion and Final Cut's realtime FX... the Radeon 2600HD is actually FASTER than the Nvidia 8800 series.

Search on barefeats.com to see for yourself.

The GPU's on the iMac have always been perfectly fine for everything but serious gaming.  So back to fivepoint's original statement, the iMac's use of laptop parts has not been a bad thing for anyone except gamers, who'd never buy an iMac anyway.  

But now, with this top end iMac, you could get one as an occasional gamer and enjoy great performance in bootcamp for games and general performance for OSX doing everything else.

or just buy a damn 360 and save yourself the money and headache of PC gaming all together.

@Waethorn

"and anybody that buys a computer just based on shiny white plastic or brushed aluminum casings and thinks that's it's "cool" to be in some sort of miniscule elitist club should have their head examined."

I don't know who you're talking about... but personally I bought my iMac for the following reasons:

1)  No viruses.  I don't care if it's because of marketshare or because of a fundamentally better system (which I expect)... the fact is that there has never been a single successful 'in the wild' virus for Mac OS X.  I don't  even care if Paul says that Apple sends more updates for Mac OS X than Microsoft does for XP and VISTA... all that matters is this number:  "O (ZERO)"

2.  Cohesive and Logical OS.  It's not a debate anymore.  Nearly every major techno writer and blogger admits that Mac OS X is superior in almost every way to Vista.  It's not an argument.  I use Windows every day at work, and I LOVE coming home to my Mac.  At the risk of being ridiculed... I will say:  "It just works."

3.  The ecosystem.  My mac works perfectly with my iPhone.  My iPhone works perfectly with iTunes which works perfectly with my wife's iPod and my AppleTV.  Beautiful 'synergy'.  I love it.  No messing with drivers from third parties, no installilng software or removing trial software, just plug it in and it works.  Flawlessly.

Anyway... I could go on  and on.  But, my main point was just that I didn't buy because "shiny white plastic or brushed aluminum casings and thinks that's it's "cool" to be in some sort of miniscule elitist club" and I don't think too many other mac users did either.  

You're living in the past man.  What you need to ask yourself is why you feel the need to defend the inferior windows OS so much against the obviously superior competition.

"better system (which I expect)"

First, I assume you mean "suspect", but no matter.  While it certainly isn't debatable that Windows suffers from this problem, it is the marketshare.  Malware writers work for profit, and given that OS X was owned at the CanSecWest in 10 minutes due to a flaw in Safari (the browser being the most susceptible and used attack vector), I wouldn't count on OS X, or any OS for that matter to protect me.  Software security is hard.  Marketing is easy, however.

BTW, Paul was not the one making the claim about Apple "sending" (whatever that means) more updates.  That was actual research from another party.

"The ecosystem."

And all of those things you mentioned are made by what company?  Yeah, I thought so.  It isn't much of an ecosystem if there is only one player.  And yes, before anyone mentions it, I am aware that more than Apple is involved in the ecosystem, but an Apple supporter has seemingly admitted that the ecosystem is limited.

I should also ask, that if Waethorn (who I admit is not my most favorite poster in the world) is indeed defending the so-called inferior OS, then why do you need to defend the superior option?  Why waste your time, if indeed Waethorn is wasting his time?

"just plug it in and it works.  Flawlessly."

While I don't doubt that you have a good experience, I have to wonder why a site MacFixIt exists then?  I thought everything just "works"?

For example, if you follow this link:

www.macfixit.com/search.php

Such as this text:  "The inability to properly sync iPhones with iTunes remains one of the most pressing issues facing the device. We've received hundreds of reports from users indicating problems on some level."

The main page has solutions for many different issues in different software:

www.macfixit.com/index.php

Or, how about the 564 reply strong forum post on Airport Extreme dropping issues?

discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa

Sounds pretty flawless to me!

And yes, before I hear it, I know that Windows has its own set of problems, and I could find tons of links to back that up, no doubt.  That's not my point.  Rhetoric such as this simply does not make it so and detracts from any kind of argument that you are trying to make.

@fivepoint,

Waethorn is a mac flame-baiter.  He makes ridiculous, insulting, wrong-headed generalizations about the Mac, Mac users and Apple in every post and in response to every comment.  Your effort to engage him is pointless.  He'll just come back with "White shiny plastic blah blah 3% share blah blah buy my whitebox OEM PC".

@Dipsht,

I think the better way to put it is that all computers have issues, but on the spectrum between flaming mini tower of death and flawless coded heaven, Apple is closer to the latter than any other computer maker.  This is born out by every single survey regarding system reliability, stability and user satisfaction.

Yes, it's because Apple controls the whole widget.  Yes that reduces hardware diversity for OSX.  But if you want the most reliable system (not perfect, but better than the rest), the Mac is the way to go.

This is not to say that you can't have a great PC experience.  It just takes WAY more knowledge and work than 90% of consumers are willing to deal with.

This is what's driving Mac sales acceleration.  Great machines + great Word of mouth + the Apple stores.

Again.  Not perfect.  Not perfectly secure (not necessarily any more or less secure than Vista, which seems very solid). Just better for most people people.

Great post Paul. Thanks for the news.

@Dipsht,

What happened in Vancouver was an ubergeek security specialist prepared an infected website for 3 weeks and then spent 2 minutes manipulating the computer into the malware.

Equivalent would be building a brick wall for 3 weeks and then driving a car into it.

I don't intend to do either.

He fully admitted that he could have done the same thing with IE and Vista.

Why didn't he?  I am afraid that "Hacker cracks Windows" would grab about as many headlines as 95 year-old woman dies.  ;-)

@johnpapola: "reduces hardware diversity" is something I thought was true, too, but everything I've added to my tower Macs (Hard Drives, DVD burners, RAM, USB2 Card, FireWire Card) and everything I've plugged in through USB and FireWire was bought off the shelf. None of it is Apple-branded. My aging laptop uses a USB2 PC Card, again, bought off the shelf at Staples (hardly the place one would go for "Mac" accessories). I use Microsoft keyboards and mice. There just isn't much 3rd party hardware a normal user (or even an advanced one, for that matter) won't work with a Mac (cue "Waethorn" spouting about video cards, an obvious exception).

I once tried to make the opposite argument, and plugged in a SONY DVD burner that explicitly was NOT supposed to work with the Mac. Much to my surprise (and chagrin, since I'd bought a second burner that was advertised as Mac-compatible), it worked flawlessly. That's when I learned that the myth of "limited hardware and expansion for the Mac" is just that. A myth.

Otra vez un poco de retraso antes de poner las noticias, pero buena ración de las mismas: Microsoft Robotics

"Expandability for the consumer market is a dead issue.  Almost nobody upgrades their machines beyond RAM and maybe harddrive.  They just buy new machines."

Man, have you ever been to a local Fry's Electronics, MicroCenter, Best Buy, or any other PC retailer? Because I seen and know people on a regular basis purchasing PC upgrade way beyond just memory and HDD. People regularly especially on the Windows side of the spectrum regularly upgrade optical drives, sound cards, video cards (PC gaming industry, CAD programs), power supply's, networking cards, RAID, etc. Thats right, some of us PC users actually open and do installation and upgrade work on our machines. Matter of fact, I've spent over $300 dollars in video card and processor upgrades in the last year. So your assertion that its dead really does not hold weight. If that were true, both MicroCenter and Fry's Electronics would be out of business. Infact, I know guys and family members in the IT field who need their PC's at tip top condition and often do work. Regular people simply hire or call guys like Waeth and me to do their upgrading for the.

"His business is building white-box PCs so he has a personal financial motivation for bashing Apple and the mac."

That is complete and utter BS! This shows that you know NOTHING about the IT industry. I worked for several IT companies that offered a multi-prong technical solutions for customers including Windows Desktop, Windows Server, OS-X desktop, Mac OS-X Server, Red Hat Linux, SUSE, Ubuntu, Solaris, and other IT environments. One our biggest customers was none other than the Dallas Independent School District who regularly ordered small numbers of iMac's for the art and design studios. But we also sold Dell PowerEdge servers for simulating aerodyamic, space, underwater, and other environment for magnet schools. Since we sold HP, Dell, and other PC manufactuers to all of our customers, NOT A SINGLE PC CAME IN A WHITE CASE! Only Mac's were sold in white. Infact, my home PC is black with grey trim and an AMD logo. Many of our executive clients custom ordered specialty cases and colors. Multicolor and clear cases have been around for years and your assertion that we only deal in "white" cases is 10 years out of date. The majority of Macs lately come in white and black, with white being the most popular color. Most of the PC's we retired were white cases and almost every Mac we installed was "white."

I really think some of you Mac guys have got it twisted. Some of us Windows users both enthusiasts and IT side are some really creative and talented people. Just because we reject your Mac-Religion, is no reason to put any of us down. Its really funny that you guys call us the "white" box owners, when you guys have one company that does everything for you. No freedom of choice, no other hardware configurations other than what Culpertino makes for you guys, and no other options except what Steve Jobs approves of. To me, thats proof that the Jobs distiortion field does really work. Now I know some of you Mac users do crack open your cases and custom configure. But please.... we have way more PC manufactuers, hardware manufactuers, software vendors, etc than those on the Apple side. We have more ways to customise, switch up, decorate, and configure our machines. But the Mac is a piece of art and God forbid we'd actually want a different style or vision of what our machines can do.

Jesus H. Christ, give me a freaking break.