Unfortunately I can't say I disagree with any part of this new iMac review article. What do you guys think?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/calla-carter/the-new-imac-a-desktop-st_b_2426152.html
Poorly written article, but nevertheless, she's completely right.
It's an unsubstantial review. Yes, the 21" has a 5400 RPM drive but she says nothing about the 27"s 7200 RPM drive. She claims to speak for all of us about the lack of an optical drive, but there are many of us who use it so seldom it's not missed at all. For many of us design is an issue. My iMac sits prominently in my house and I appreciate the incredibly good looking package. Finally, she represents the new design as being totally unserviceable and yet if you read the blog about tearing down the new iMac you'll see comments that this machine is easier to work on than past generations. Yes, Apple holds the screen on with tape instead of magnets. But in order to achieve the screen lamination that cuts down much of the glare they had to. Magnets couldn't take the weight.
I certainly don't think this review is any more than a gloss over by someone who hasn't really done their homework.
You lost me at "For many of us design is an issue. My iMac sits prominently in my house and I appreciate the incredibly good looking package."
I'm paying at least $2000 for this computer, I'm not paying for it to look great, I'm paying for it to RUN great. If I had all the money in the world, fine, maybe I'd consider a the winner of "prettiest desktop" award as a secondary computer, but I want the money I throw into a computer (be it a PC or a Mac) get me proportional performance, not "sleek", "thin", or other such superficial terms. The fact that I can't upgrade or replace a failing hard drive anywhere near as easily on an iMac as I can a non-retina unibody MacBook Pro is downright criminal.
I think that the first paragraph says it all: "This article was originally published on Nemoscope, a blog about technology from a teen's perspective."
Myself, I don't usually seek or consider a teen's perspective when making buying decisionsno offense intended; I look for experience and other qualifications.
Teen's perspective or not, she's completely right, even if she only seems to be talking about the 21.5" model.
Kinda feels like she's hating for popularity. I mean come on, desktop stuck in a laptop body?
Little too similar to "The iMac is just a glorified laptop".
She's completely right, though. Popularity or not, the only part on the new 21.5" iMac that isn't a laptop component is the CPU. Everything else, chipset, RAM, hard drive, GPU, all the very same stuff you find in the 15" MacBook Pros today (both retina and non-retina).
I think it's what many of us have been saying right from the start - form over function. Apple has ruined the 21.5" version of the iMac. Viewed from the front (which is the view most of us have when using the iMac) it is identical to my mid 2011 model and I know which of the two I am pleased I own. I appreciate you are trying to put a brave face on it and justify your purchase but IMO the new iMac is a pile of pants.
Heh...a pile of pants. Might have to start using that in daily vernacular.
"rounds per minute"
I stopped reading there.
Right, because "revolutions" actually implies straight line movements that aren't circular or revolutionary. As though "rounds", while not the correct word, isn't a completely viable verbal replacement.
Poor writing or not, she's completely right.
I do agree with some points and i felt the same way until i actually started using my 27" iMac. After actually using it im very impressed and my previous fears of the smaller chassis causing heating issues have faded away. As for the optical drive, sure it would be convenient to still have it built in but for the amount of times i use it an external is fine. Also my 27" has a 7200rpm drive, actually it has one of the fastest platter drives on the market!!
Even still, the 27" iMac has way too many desktop components in a now-thinner chassis. Hard drive, CPU, chipset, all of thse things being the same that go in a desktop makes it so this thing is still hotter than that space allows. Add the MXM video card and it's only that much more problematic. While the neutered the 21.5" iMac for removing these things, they finally made it reliable. I worry that this isn't the case on the 27" model at all.
Wow lol.
We were not expecting a retina display because we knew the current best in the world GPU couldn't power that size screen.
We do have a primary SSD option.
We have the one of the best GPUs on the market.
I don't think that is nothing. This article is clearly biased and against Apple. Just another ruthless Apple hating sheep.
GPUs were not why we don't have retina iMacs. GPUs are plenty powerful today to support such panels. We don't have such iMacs because such panels haven't been invented yet. Also, while it is typically their nature to do this, they'd really be stupid to not stagger out this transition to retina displays as much as possible given how slow developers have been to update software for the two retina machines that ARE on the market.
if you look at her other posts you can see she is extremely anti apple. She uses windows and ubuntu and mocks Apple every article she writes. I think Apple shot her dog.
I'm very pro-Apple, and I agree with everything she said. Nice try.
[lYou know the iMac is outperforming the most recent Mac Pros right? lol[/QUOTE]
Not the 6-12-core machines. Look it up on Geekbench.
You bothered reading her other posts? I see this in two lights. A) She has no money thus whines about iMacs for not having everything or B) she is trying to get more hits for her blog.
Yet, everything she says is right. It is poorly written, and she may be completely anti-Apple, but that doesn't make her any less correct.
Having the display integrated into the system doesn't add anything, said people back in 1998. All-in-ones still aren't the norm with people opting for a separate LCD and ATX case.
I don't currently see all-in-ones all over the place. I don't currently see them in businesses and I don't currently see them in every home. Your point?
Do most people open up the ATX to drop in memory, storage or daughter cards? Probably not.
::facepalm:: THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT TO THE ATX FORM FACTOR!!! And yes, I crack open my case to add all of those as I see fit; that's why I opted for a PC tower to handle my gaming rather than another iMac.
I am glad to see it go for two reasons. One I don't use it anymore
I don't use my gigabit ethernet port all the time, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be there. What ridiculous logic.
and two, it is good to push toward non moving part computer. Less risk for damage.
What are you even talking about?! There's no risk for damage to any other part. Optical drives don't just explode in people's computers causing damage to other components. That's not how they work (or don't work, for that matter)!
One other reason I might add is it will push the tech industry to go to a more digital distribution. I mean we are there already with things like steam and pretty much all movies and music are available digitally. Just some old codgers are still bashing the idea of moving forward and ruin it a bit. Apple pushed to get rid of floppy and that lead to only good things. I only have one dvd which I would actively use for my current day to day (5 days a week) activities and that was copied to my hard drive about 4 years ago. lol
Right because downloading and installing an 11GB game is FASTER than simply popping in the DVD-ROM and installing it the "old codger" way. Because downloading a standard definition iTunes file yields me with something that looks better than a DVD would've. Seriously, are you for real?
long shot here but the new iMac design runs very cool and with no added fan noise. Perhaps making it fat somehow would affect the temperature for the worse.
I'm sorry, do you even know how a computer works?
If I had to guess, heat rises yah? On the old iMac you had much more surface area on the top plane where all the heat condensed to. On this new design with the curved back you get more heat distribution to the whole back plane of the computer therefore dispensing heat a lot faster. Just my thought anyway. I always always told not to whine about something until I have used it and seen for myself. After all Apple have some of the best engineers on the planet, I trust them to get it right and it looks like they have.
Your statement in bold is very wise. Your statement in italics is not.
3 years ago you could upgrade the hard drive, ram, and probably the video card. Some of the really old ones you could even upgrade the CPU on. The newest one is basically a self-contained SoC. In that sense, it is like an iPad, a SoC.
3 years ago, you could only upgrade the RAM. You'd have to crack the machine open to do any other upgrade, and really, even then you were limited due to the firmware limiting what kind of hard drive and video card you could pop in there. On the 21.5" iMac, you can still upgrade the RAM, it just requires removing the logic board. Otherwise, it's the logic board of a MacBook Pro but with a socketed CPU.
If UX is the primary metric, a 2010 iMac would suffice for most people. If speed is your thing, the new iMac isn't it either. It comes with a slow HDD, non-upgradable RAM, really it's a poor excuse for a $1200 computer.
True facts.