new iMacs !!!
Apple announced today refreshments across their iMac, iLife, iWork lines, as well as silently upgrading their loveable Mac Mini’s.
The refreshed iMac line will now come in two sizes : 20" and 24" versions (Bye bye 17" iMacs). The casing for the computer is now a redesigned shiny aluminium enclosure, along with new glass-based LCD displays surrounded by a thin black frame.
Under the hood the new iMacs feature the latest Santa Rosa Intel Core 2 Duo processors (2.0 or 2.4 GHz) or the optional 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme processor, along with 1 GB of memory (upgradeable to 4GB of 667 MHZ DDR2 SDRAM).
With the recent MacBook Pros using nVidia's latest GeForce 8600, I was expecting the iMac (seeing as they share almost everything except the HD) to have it. The Good news is that the ATI card they're using is built a on a smaller 65nm process. This is great as not only can they be clocked higher, but they release less heat. The bad news is that ATI (AMD) has TERRIBLE drivers for linux. For 99% of users this won't be a big deal, as they bought it to use OS X. For the other 1% of us however, this is a pretty big deal.
Apple also has introduced a new ultra-thin keyboard for their iMac line, mimicking the keyboard on the macbook.
The new 20-inch 2.4 GHz iMac (the one most of us are interested in), for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US), includes:
* 20-inch widescreen LCD display (glossy)
* 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
* 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 4GB
* a slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW)
* ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB GDDR3 memory
* built-in iSight video camera
* built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking & Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
* 320GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm
* mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately)
* built-in stereo speakers and microphone and
* the new Apple Keyboard, Mighty Mouse and infrared Apple Remote.
Here's a photo Steve Jobs showed when comparing it to an equivalent Dell
Apple also refreshed their Mac Minis. The new Mac Mini is still a piece of junk, and a complete rip off. I've complained before at the iMac using laptop parts (because Apple require "thinness" more than performance, though they'd argue they require both). But at least the iMac uses a Desktop 3.5" hard drive.
The problem with the mac mini is that if you get the more expensive of the two (the obvious choice, as it had the DVD burner) it's only $400 less than the base 20" iMac. apart from the included screen, the iMac has a much bigger and faster hard-drive, a Santa Rosa CPU, a good dedicated graphics card and other stuff. So, what kind of idiot would buy the mac mini ?
Actually, I know a few.....
As most of you know, I'm a linux user (debian based distros), so I'm not overly fond of OS X. However, given a choice, it's much better than Micro$ucks.
At work, I'm the "mac guy" so guess what I will be getting sometime next week.
The 2.4Ghz 20" iMac (of course, with 2GB of RAM, not the stock 1GB)
