20" iMac experiences pls

[Zaid]

I'm on the verge of getting myself one of these, but before I take the plunge I'd like to hear the experiences of those that have bought and or used it.

I'd especially like to know what you think the problems with it are. Little annoyances to major problems.

Ta

Zaid

 

[edesignuk]

1st one: replacement midplane within a week, then a screen problem...demanded a replacement from a reluctant Apple...got it

2nd one: all good so far

 

[jjmaximum]

Worth every penny

Picked up the wife/kids a new 17" SD model last week - perfect in every way. Without a doubt, get the wireless keyboard/mouse (this should be standard). Also, got the 512Mb in one SIMM BTO option and will add my own 1Gb SIMM later.

The styling, design and operation are all flawless. Best computer I've every owned. Good Luck.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Hi-- I'm having the same thoughts on buying an iMac g5, so how is the superdrive? Has anyone had problems burning at a 4x? I burn alot of dvds for my girlfriends dance class so I wish to avoid problems. If not what kind of media does anyone use? This seems to very on another site but most don't own an iMac. One last question 20" worth the price difference? I do some mild photos and just started doing cartoons on my eMac if this helps.
Thanks for any help.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Picked up the wife/kids a new 17" SD model last week - perfect in every way. Without a doubt, get the wireless keyboard/mouse (this should be standard). Also, got the 512Mb in one SIMM BTO option and will add my own 1Gb SIMM later.

The styling, design and operation are all flawless. Best computer I've every owned. Good Luck.

Gosh, you seem out of touch when it comes to RAM. The iMac G5 uses DDR SDRAM, not SIMM technology.

 

[daveL]

I bought the 20" for my wife. The screen went black after a week. Apple sent a replacement and everything is good. It's a sweet machine. Virtually silent.

We use Ritek -R/RW media.

 

[varmit]

Parents have a 17" 1.6, and it seems to work just fine. Only one stuck pixel, but other than that, Perfect. I have heard that there has been a few dead displays and superdrives, but nothing has occured as much as the midplane issue. Which I believe happens more with the 20" than the 17".

edesignuk, we know you had problems, made sure everyone else knew about it. I'm just suprised that Apple though that midplane was something a user can replace, with all those steps and parts to take out. Plus, do you think your screen problem had anything to do with you replacing the midplane. Touched a wrong part with your hand and zapped something with static electricity.

 

[wordmunger]

My wife has a 20-incher in her office. So far, it's been absolutely awesome. Incredibly quiet, nice crisp monitor. She got the BT keyboard and mouse, and the only problem she's had so far is that sometimes the mouse loses its connection to the computer. At first the only way to fix the problem was to plug in her old USB mouse and reconnect, but now I think she's figured out how to do it just with keyboard commands. Even so, I think this happens less than once a week, so not a very big deal. Can't answer the DVD burning question; it's not something she does very often.

 

[bellis1]

20" Experience

I have had the 20" for a couple weeks now. I put in 1 gig of memory because it seemed to struggle a bit with the little amount of memory that it was sent with. Everything is running great without any problems. I am very impressed thus far. I also bought a keyboard from macally (icekey or something) and it is a grat keyboard if you like the feel of keyboards similar to the powerbook. The screen is also beautiful. Any specific questions?

 

[melchior]

silent would not be my impression..... is mine defective? possibly. but the thing is damn hot all the time and constantly got the fan going relatively loudly. so much so that's it is a significant relief to turn it off. (something i rather not to do)

 

[Xtremehkr]

I bought one from a third party retailer because of their excellent hardware replacement warranty ($299 for 5 years, no questions asked, if they can't fix it they will replace it with the equivalent model, even if it is a G6 or 7 in 5 years).

I bought 2Gig of Ram cause I heard that the memory works in tandem so I thought why bother with 1G when eventually I will make the move to 2 anyway. I picked up an Airport Card as well.

The installation of the new parts was simple, and the information that comes with the computer provides all the pictures and info you could need.

I already had a wireless keyboard/mouse set from Logitech and they work flawlessly on the new iMac.

The salesman thought that the computer came with a 6 pin to 6 pin Firewire cable, it didn't though. So I had to make one additional trip to the store.

On my previous iMac I had used FileVault for a while, even though I had stopped using it a long time ago, it still affected the transfer of information from the old one to the new one. So, I had to transfer the files in reverse order, manually. Which was not as easy as letting the setup program do it. But that was fairly minor.

If you do a Firewire transfer, there will be a lot of fan noise. The fans in my 20" went to full speed for the entire time I was doing any sort of Firewire linking. This worried me a little as I had heard about problems that others had with fan noise. But it was just during that time.

The screen is perfect, it is so much brighter than the CRT in my iMac G3. I am still getting used to all of the extra desktop space.

With 2Gig of ram the computer flies, I don't have to wait for anything. The fan noise is barely noticeable in the background and the more I use the computer the less I hear it. Either I am not as focused on it as I was when I was worried about getting a noisy one, or most of the hard work has been done and it is just routine use now.

Overall, I could not be happier. This particular design is getting a lot of attention from friends I have who had no previous interest in Apple computers before as well. My G3 iMac got attention for the unique bubble shape and use of color, but people are amazed when I tell them that they are not just looking at the screen but the entire computer. Before the design was described as being "different", now it's "cool."

 

[daveL]

silent would not be my impression..... is mine defective? possibly. but the thing is damn hot all the time and constantly got the fan going relatively loudly. so much so that's it is a significant relief to turn it off. (something i rather not to do)

Take it in for service; it shouldn't be that load. My wife's machine is folding (Folding@Home) 24x7, so her cpu is pegged all the time. It makes much less noise than the Dell PC sitting next to it; it's virtually silent.

 

[HydroMan]

No problems to date (excellent machine) the only scare I had was when I booted up from the Apple care cd (just curious) the fans went bonkers ,sounded like a vacuum cleaner ,took about 8-10 mins to load ,but apparently this is normal according to Apple discussion forum ,no fan management on the cd ,hmmmm.

 

[davey-nb]

Great Machine!

I have the 20" with BT and 1 GB ram.
It's silent, fast and beautiful.
I had a problem with the monitor dimming out half of the screen but after a few phone calls to Apple and resetting the firmware all is good.
The acrylic and white finish is well crafted and the machine looks and feels like modern art.
It burns cds and dvds as fast as I need them.
It's a pleasure to use everyday.
I feel sooo badly for PC friends who are afraid/annoyed to use their computers because the computer/software dominates their experience.
My iMac is a really good partner.