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New iMac Unboxing Video and Teardown Photos
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It's essentially a cache drive with a very large cache, where the cache doesn't empty therefore you you can use the cache as part of the storage too. Caching is a technique of using the speed of a faster drive to make the whole system fast. This just takes it to the limit, and dumps all frequently used files on the SSD. Windows has had the ability for you to add your own SSD and use either part of it or all of it as cache. And people have been setting up their own dual SSD and HDD system for a while now. They just didn't have the software to manage it and so manage it themselves by putting media in the HDD and and everything else in the SSD.
I'm not normally motivated enough by the comments macrumor forums to be tempted to weigh in, but seeing as I have been planning to buy an imac for some time, it seemed appropriate.
With regard to the main issues over the new iteration of the iMac:
Thinness - Fantastic, it looks amazing, so make it as thin as you want, provided that it doesn't compromise performance.
Retina - It would have been nice, regardless of the potential price implications for this, but the current resolution is more than sufficient.
User serviceability - this point may now be moot given the teardown, but I would want to be able to upgrade elements. This isn't the same issue as non-replaceable batteries
Optical Drive - It's easy to say 'don't buy it then', that's not the point. Regardless of whether you use it everyday, infrequently or never, it's about having access to the feature. Even if I only used it once every six months, I wouldn't want to have to buy an external drive for that purpose. It's better to have and not need, than need and not have.
Price - this model is already more expensive than the previous version which does irritate. I don't mind paying more for more features, but dislike paying more for the same (or less). If the optical drive was no longer necessary, I'd want that to be reflected in the price.
With regard to the main issues over the new iteration of the iMac:
Thinness - Fantastic, it looks amazing, so make it as thin as you want, provided that it doesn't compromise performance.
Retina - It would have been nice, regardless of the potential price implications for this, but the current resolution is more than sufficient.
User serviceability - this point may now be moot given the teardown, but I would want to be able to upgrade elements. This isn't the same issue as non-replaceable batteries
Optical Drive - It's easy to say 'don't buy it then', that's not the point. Regardless of whether you use it everyday, infrequently or never, it's about having access to the feature. Even if I only used it once every six months, I wouldn't want to have to buy an external drive for that purpose. It's better to have and not need, than need and not have.
Price - this model is already more expensive than the previous version which does irritate. I don't mind paying more for more features, but dislike paying more for the same (or less). If the optical drive was no longer necessary, I'd want that to be reflected in the price.
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Portable is good
Well, this guy will love it!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grantrobertson/3929216152/
Well, this guy will love it!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grantrobertson/3929216152/
You'd save like $15 or so. I'm sure the cost saving has been reflected somewhere, but it's such a small amount, you probably wouldn't notice it.
And man, I love how easy the thing is to hook up. You just take it out, plug it in, and there you go.
Yeah, I know the cost would be negligible, which is the other reason I find it hard to reconcile why it's been removed. But the bigger issue is if something is removed, regardless of the cost, why does the whole imac cost more?
And I hate having to go and find my external drive to connect to my Macbook Air. Let alone if the cable has gone missing. It's a pain but something I put up with for portability, which isn't a factor in an imac.
The Mac Mini could be a better option if...
The Mac Mini could be a better option if...
...it came with a real video card (nVidia, AMD) instead of crappy Intel Graphics Card.
...RAM continues to be user upgradeable.
...Hard Drive remains user upgradeable.
This way, I would purchase the biggest Cinema Display, and upgrade to newer Mac Minis as needed.
The Mac Mini could be a better option if...
...it came with a real video card (nVidia, AMD) instead of crappy Intel Graphics Card.
...RAM continues to be user upgradeable.
...Hard Drive remains user upgradeable.
This way, I would purchase the biggest Cinema Display, and upgrade to newer Mac Minis as needed.
I saw that too. Anyone know?
Ridiculous.
Yes, some people use a Super Drive still. There are external drives around (god forbit anyone's moronic enough to buy one for $80), but it's an added purchase for a desktop computer that has no reason not to have an optical drive of some kind. But whats the trade off for no drive?
8 pounds lighter. It's a desktop computer for god sake. I want my phones and my tabs to be thin and light. Because they go in my pocket; I move them around. A desktop computer sits on the top of a desk. Useless innovation.
Fusion Drive: Yes! Only if you upgrade the top-end iMac to have it.
Point for you, I have no doubt this thing performs quite well.
I love Apple's products, use their phones and tablets, but this thing is just sad. Their quest for "thin and light as prime directive" knows no bounds.
I can see mSata connector in one of pics (white thing in lower left corner - http://www.melablog.it/galleria/imac-2012-smontato/8). I wonder if you can put your own mSata SSD and how would it work? I'm not into Fusion Drive - prefer to have my two drives visible.
PS. Hey, I'm new!
Apple doesn't use standard mSATA so no, you can't just use any mSATA SSD, afaik only OWC makes one compatible with the rMBP which supposedly uses the same connector.
how do you know that was the "prime directive" and not moving away from optical drives? People complained when Apple removed the floppy drive but that had nothing to do with thin and light. Seems to me Apple thinks optical drives and wired networking are becoming things of the past.
I'm one of those people myself. Yeah, shaving 9 pounds off the 27" model is definitely an improvement, but they did so in a way that's really questionable. I have absolutely no problems with how thick my iMac is, but maybe it would be nice if they eliminated or trimmed away at the "chin" on the computer, or squeezed in the black border around the screen.
Apple could have reduced the size of their computer in other regions that would have been more meaningful to consumers, but instead they improved on something nobody was complaining about... and welded up the RAM inside the 21.5" model. :/
I feel like if you remove something that's obsolete, you replace it with the technology that is responsible for it's obsolecense (in this case, I believe, cloud computing and digital purchases of media, etc). The floppy drive was replaced by the optical drive. The optical drive was not replaced with any hardware, and the computer became thinner and lighter. I agree that the need for an optical drive is drastically decreased from where it was, I was merely disappointed they removed this practicality completely, merely to replace it with nothing and make a computer that is not intended to be moved more mobile.
Absence of an anti-glare matte panel option: FAIL
No ergonomic adjustments: FAIL
Continuation of Apple's form-over-function design ethos: FAIL
There is nothing to see here...
As is this post.
Nonsense - it's drastically non-retina compared to the MBPr. The MBPr weighs in at 213 ppi and the 27" iMac at 108 ppi. For a 27" screen to hit that level it would need to go beyond the 4k UHD standard and probably won't happen for quite a while.
Socketed RAM! Kind of painful to access, but not soldered. I imagine the target audience for the 21.5" isn't generally the sort of folks who disassembled their new computer using suction cups to do a RAM upgrade, but you _could_.
Plus, even though the Apple configuration only allows for 16GB, I'd be surprised if a couple of 16GB DIMMs wouldn't allow for 32GB in the 21.5" models
Folks coming over to visit the little one today, and I'll be convincing them to place an order
Plus, even though the Apple configuration only allows for 16GB, I'd be surprised if a couple of 16GB DIMMs wouldn't allow for 32GB in the 21.5" models
Folks coming over to visit the little one today, and I'll be convincing them to place an order
What hardware does an optical drive need to be replaced with?
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Absence of an anti-glare matte panel option: FAIL
No ergonomic adjustments: FAIL
Continuation of Apple's form-over-function design ethos: FAIL
There is nothing to see here...
Don't buy one then.
The 27" display panel is 2560x1440 which is definitely NOT retina by any means, but it's pretty close. I definitely don't mind using my 27 inch Thunderbolt display after using my RMBP but I definitely do not like using my 24 inch HP monitor at work which is only 1080p.
Would it be nice to have Retina? Yeah. I'm sure Apple will do retina next year when the whole 4K craze comes about, and the cost to make the panels comes down. Meanwhile, they are suckering us all into buying a new iMac, merely for the "anti reflective" display, which is worth its weight in gold if you ask me.
Ur comparing a retina mbp to a non retina mbp. Of course there's gonna be a difference. When u compare a Rmbp to a non retina iMac, sitting at the proper distances, it's hardly a huge difference.
You can install 32gb of ram in the previous iMac, people still use ODDs and they took away more features than they added
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HOW IS THAT A SUPRISE???
THERE WERE UPGRADEABLE CPUS IN THE LAST FEW IMACS!!!
Yes I use the SuperDrive...
No I will not be upgrading to this iMac. Why would I trade for a thinner, lighter desktop (neither of which do anything for me aside from the day I put in on my desktop) and then have to attach a clunky external drive to my new iMac?
https://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-Portable-Rewriter-GP60NB50/dp/B00C2AMK2M
No I will not be upgrading to this iMac. Why would I trade for a thinner, lighter desktop (neither of which do anything for me aside from the day I put in on my desktop) and then have to attach a clunky external drive to my new iMac?
https://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-Portable-Rewriter-GP60NB50/dp/B00C2AMK2M
So I take it no one has noticed the fact that the iMac is in fact glued together? If you look closely at the teardown pics you can see the 1/4 wide (guessing) beed of adhesive around the perimeter of the display... It might still be easy to open however because of the size of the display vs the small amount of glue they used.