Early iMac Reviews Praise Design and Display Enhancements

[AppleScruff1]

Originally Posted by faroZ06

Definitely not. A touchscreen laptop might work, but anything with a big screen is annoying by definition if it is a touch screen. Even if the touch screen is perfect and always does what you want it to, you can move your mouse cursor with only your wrist. It's like a Wii vs a Gamecube.

I think the only way a touchscreen monitor can work comfortably is like the pic that Renzatic posted. It would like a book laying on a table with the top slightly elevated, like using an ipad with the smart cover.

[mw360]

Originally Posted by gpat

Well, 10% is 100€ on a 1000€ purchase or 200€ on a 2000€ one. That's relevant to a lot of people.
And overcharging in order to protect margins from eventual exchange rate shifting does not feel like a very customer-friendly policy to me.
Also, Apple did not hesitate to increase 120-150€ on the prices of Macs when they were forced by the UE to provide a 2-yr warranty for their products, like everybody else does.

Ah yes the warrany thing. So EU VAT and EU warrany laws explain pretty much the entire difference in price?

[Renzatic]

Originally Posted by AppleScruff1

Most will choose to ignore that.

Hey, ain't no one gonna complain about a little junk in the trunk. :P

:runs of singing Sir Mixalot:

[manu chao]

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer

Apple is now pricing with the VAT and that varies with the country on top of the European Union taxes.

Everything in Europe is priced with VAT. But I am really curious what those European Union taxes are. What shape or form do they have? On what are they levied? And at what rate?

[Lone Deranger]

Originally Posted by Renzatic

I sorta agree. I don't ever see touch taking off for the desktops in the consumer market....at least not anytime in the immediate future. It'd be a nice thing to have, but it's not exactly necessary for anyone except graphics artists, drafters, ect. ect.

Actually, you’d be surprised how few of us CG-artists are actually using Wacom Cintiq devices as shown in your photograph. Many like the idea of using a Cintiq/Touch screen, it’s true, but they rarely live up to artists' expectations. Problems most commonly experienced are:
•Cursor lag (onscreen feedback is unable to keep up with quick gestural strokes).
•Cursor misalignment (the onscreen cursor is not precisely aligned beneath the tip of the stylus, especially in the corners of the tablet).
•Heat radiated by the display makes long drawing sessions uncomfortable.
•Poor display quality. Narrow colour gamut, inability to be properly colour calibrated, etc.
•No driver support under Linux.
•Uncomfortable surface grip. “Painting” on a display front made of glass (or some other highly smooth surface), with a plastic tipped stylus is slippery and not particularly pleasant.
•Uncomfortable to use in combination with a keyboard that offers hotkeys, marking menus, pie-menus, hotboxes, etc. Using one with a 3D application, while certainly possible, is often experienced as awkward and limiting. The Cintiqs have a few controls on the side that the user can program to function as hotkeys. And that works… kind of. I can’t see Apple designing a Touchscreen/Stylus Mac with controls like that on the side.

Now these problems may eventually be eradicated by better hardware and designs but there are other problems that are harder, maybe impossible to solve, like:
•Ergonomics. It’s hardly the best posture to maintain for 9-10 hours a day.
•Dirt/grease on the screen. You’d be surprised how often I’ve mistaken a grease smear on my display for a very light grey brush stroke on a white canvas in Photoshop.
•A touch screen would have to have a coating with low porosity to make sure it cleans properly. Matte coatings are problematic here. So this poses a problem with reflections of ceiling mounted lighting on that glossy surface, which after all needs to be orientated more or less horizontally to avoid further fatigue. Working on dark/black canvasses in such a situation would be horrendous. Forget about drawing anything subtle in shadows and expect it to come out correctly.
•Hands are in the way of the artwork. And this is a big one. Lots of artists don’t want to go back to having their own hands obscure the piece as they are working. Having a regular Wacom tablet in front of a normal display is actually favored by most, myself included. One hand on the tablet, holding the stylus, the other on the keyboard controlling hotkeys.

There are exceptions of course. Search and you will find artists that love their Cintiqs and would never go back to more, shall we say, conservative input devices. But they are in the vast minority, despite Cintiqs having already been out there for quite a few years.


I’m not saying things won’t ever change, just telling you what the current lay of the land is as I far as I can see.

[skystuntz]

Originally Posted by shiseiryu1

I'd still prefer to have a slightly bigger machine with desktop-level graphics instead of a mobile GPU.

The GPU has the same amount of cores as the full blown card, just lower clocks, helps with the heat issue.

[skellener]

New iMac looks cool. I really wish you could order them the way you want though. The guts of the 27" (all spec'd out as high as possible) in the 21" iMac with another 21" display would work for me. I'll probably just go with the 27" spec'd out since you can't do it on the 21" and it can't add more RAM either. I can't see having two 27" monitors. It would be overwhelming! Still wonder what they will do as a tower replacement though in 2013.

[12dylan34]

Originally Posted by shiseiryu1

I'd still prefer to have a slightly bigger machine with desktop-level graphics instead of a mobile GPU.

The top GPU in this iMac is the same level of performance as the best desktop GPU money could buy (in terms of gaming and from Nvidia) last year, the GTX 580. Honestly, not that much of a disparity.

[HenryDJP]

Originally Posted by sketchygargoyle

I was about to buy a 27 inch, but noticed its over $100 in sales tax. I was under the impression buying online will void sales tax.

You're not serious I hope?

[Vidd]

Not that I'm even entertaining the idea of upgrading, but what would the difference be like between a 2010 27" i5 and say the new base 27"?

I'm on of those weirdos who uses an iMac for gaming (albeit, in Windows).

[AidenShaw]

Originally Posted by JS3

It's not really as thin as apple made it out to be!

It's got a big bulge in the back. Lmao.

We had the "Luxo Lamp" Imac, and now we have the "Pregnant Imac" with the big bulge. What was Cook thinking of when he approved this design?

"We" of course is figurative - I still have my dependable, expandable Dell Core i7 mini-tower working for me.

----------

Originally Posted by 12dylan34

The top GPU in this iMac is the same level of performance as the best desktop GPU money could buy (in terms of gaming and from Nvidia) last year, the GTX 580. Honestly, not that much of a disparity.

Are you claiming that it's a good thing that the Pregnant Imac is only a year behind the curve?

[Digital Skunk]

Originally Posted by Vidd

Not that I'm even entertaining the idea of upgrading, but what would the difference be like between a 2010 27" i5 and say the new base 27"?

I'm on of those weirdos who uses an iMac for gaming (albeit, in Windows).

Of course there won't be any numbers. I miss the days that Apple and other tech sites would run speed comparisons with the new and improved, and the machine that most users would most likely be coming from (i.e. the model that's 2-3 generations back. Not the previous model.

Although, an improvement of 15-20% from the previous model should give us a good feeling about how much faster it is over the 2010 or earlier models. As the owner of the previous model, this new one makes me a tad jealous, BUT I am grateful for my FW800 port and optical drive; both of which I use every single day including weekends.

[spudwaffle]

Originally Posted by shiseiryu1

I'd still prefer to have a slightly bigger machine with desktop-level graphics instead of a mobile GPU.

The 680M is actually comparable to the Radeon 7870. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
It will play most games on maximum settings.

[nagromme]

Originally Posted by Renzatic

Hold on. I'm gonna quote myself...



...it was like 4 posts back.

I agree (and have posted almost a year ago in praise of Lenovo) that the future of desktops is machines that are flat to the table—and used that way all the time. Macs will be more iPad-like in the end. (Or iPads will go pro? One way or the other.) I also expect them to be very widescreen (3:1 even?) because reaching to the sides is easier than reaching ahead.

I disagree that touch makes sense on a device that is used at ALL frequently with mouse and keyboard: an all-in-one as we know it, and as PC box makers know it. The past and the future don’t mix well in that way. Keyboard and mouse should be niche add-ons (like a stylus), and that’s not where PC makers are.

So I question the ability of PC makers to challenge the iMac today using touch. I don’t question that everyone, in some years down the road, will be using touch. They will.

[longofest]

Originally Posted by charlituna

I know, he goes to the point of showing where the ram is but stops there.m

Not to mention not showing the computer in action, with perhaps less of his face. And using a soured up unit anyway. On a model that isn't shipping. A review of the baseline 21.5 would have been more useful at this point

The ram is only user upgradable in the 27" model. I feel like every review of these new iMacs needs to make that explicitly clear.

[turtlez]

Will using the 2 x 4 (8) RAM from Apple and adding the 16GB PC3-12800 1600MHz SO Kit (2 x 8GB) w/Lifetime Warranty to make 24GB work out?

[magbarn]

Originally Posted by longofest

The ram is only user upgradable in the 27" model. I feel like every review of these new iMacs needs to make that explicitly clear.

It may not be an industry standard form factor, but the picture below of the 2012 21' logic board shows that the ram is removable. (The picture is low res, but it actually may be just 2 standard ddr3 sodimm slots!) Even the cpu is upgradeable!

[tmroper]

Does anyone have any idea how/if it will be serviceable, with the display laminated to the glass? I don't see how the current suction cup method will work, and can't think of any other way (not that I need to know how right now, I just want to).

[offwidafairies]

Originally Posted by Mactendo

Mr. WorldTravelBro, the iPads you ordered for your Chihuahua are ready for pickup.
Apple Store Team

This made me giggle. My little dog has sometimes stepped on my iPhone and called people...

[iZac]

Originally Posted by Renzatic

Or this...

Image

...which is the second time I've posted this picture today, in response to the same tired argument.

Most people griping about monkey arms or whatever are only doing so because Steve Jobs said something back in the day, and now they're regurgitating it nonstop in an attempt to look smart.

You know, he was right...when it comes to vertically standing monitors. But for screens you can slide right in front of you and tilt back? There's no reason not to have them touch enabled. They'll be as comfortable to use as an iPad.

I agree, the Cintiq is a fantastic device, the functions of which I wish Apple would embrace (for pro uses mostly - although it's amazing how "drawing on a computer" is one of the most expensive things you can do :P). Though the reason the Cintiq works is because traditionally it's resistive, has an active stylus, the touch version has tons and tons of palm rejection (I know Apple have the software experience to solve this) and critically it has a sharpish edge that slides of off the desk so you can rest your entire forearms on the table. The point for most windows all-in-ones that flip down is that they still hover a bit (or a lot) off the table and they don't fold flat (or nearly flat) to it. They're screens that try to solve the problem by flipping down, but the Cintiq lives in that orientation. It's also worth noting that the 24 inch Cintiq touch is over $3,500 worth of technology.

If PC manufacturers can solve that, then brilliant but then we still have the problem of the accidental palm / arm touches that screw up the user experience. I'm yet to be convinced.

[MacGeek1987]

Originally Posted by s54flexin

So it looks like RAM can be upgraded in the 27"

It can, thank god. Apple charges $200 to go from 8 GB to 16 GB, when one can get 32 GB from Crucial for $160 with free shipping. Apple charges $600 for 32 GB. I love Apple, I love the new iMac, but that's ridiculous.

[coocooforcocoap]

Originally Posted by tmroper

Does anyone have any idea how/if it will be serviceable, with the display laminated to the glass? I don't see how the current suction cup method will work, and can't think of any other way (not that I need to know how right now, I just want to).

I think this is a great question. We need to see a teardown tut. Perhaps MAGBARN above knows, i.e. where did that pic he posted of the 21" come from? I just bought suction cups for my old iMac - ha!

[Richdmoore]

Originally Posted by tmroper

Does anyone have any idea how/if it will be serviceable, with the display laminated to the glass? I don't see how the current suction cup method will work, and can't think of any other way (not that I need to know how right now, I just want to).

Quick video of 21" tear down. There is no way I would want to attempt to replace the ram myself after watching this, but it is possible after breaking the glue ...

http://blog.macsales.com/15932-what-...2012-imac-21-5

[PeterQVenkman]

Originally Posted by gpat

I'm afraid it can be right.
The price in US$ is tax-free, and Apple always had a thing for screwing non-Americans.

The VAT isn't Apple's fault...

But I think even when taking that into account there is still some foreign market markup going on...

[cycomiko]

Originally Posted by THOPMedia

Touchscreen on a desktop is possibly one of the dumbest ideas ever. No one wants to be lifting their arms at work for hours on end. Talk about soreness and muscle fatigue! It's a novelty gimick only. Its in no way practical. Mouse is still the fastest interface with current OSs and screen positioning. The only way touch screen is practice is when the screen is in your hands or near your hands like on a flat surface directly in front of you. Then you have a head down position which will cause even more back and neck problems.

It's not practical.

Even with a touchscreen, why do you beleive anyone would be using it in a way such as this? DO you really believe that people who have a third method of input will suddenly stop using the other two, and go all out on the touchscreen?

Touchscreen displays have their use, but replacing keyboard and mouse is not it. Adjunct.