Last night I picked up a 27" dual core 2 iMac from the only Apple store that I could find in the Dallas area that had stock... My impressions, for those who are interested:
1. The 27" screen is surprisingly beautiful. The pixel density is higher than my 24" iMac I'm replacing, and the LED backlight really makes everything brighter and less yellow. Once you spend any time with this screen, everything else seems technologically ancient.
2. I'm very critical/fussy about what mouse I use. The new Magic Mouse looked uncomfortable, and I didn't know if gesturing on the face made much sense. Well, as I played with the included Magic Mouse, I'm starting to feel this is the best mouse I've ever owned. The right/left clicking, scrolling, tracking is superb, and the lack of buttons and scroll wheels actually is an improvement -- this mouse is forgiving over finger placement and more natural to use. It has just the right amount of weight to it as well, it's not a cheap/hollow feeling mouse.
3. I was surprised to discover the wireless keyboard and mouse come pre-sync'd to the computer, with batteries already installed. It's just a matter of turning the iMac on, and then turning on the power of the mouse and keyboard and you're set.
4. This was the first time I used Time Machine to move information over to the new iMac. Took about 45 minutes and worked pretty much flawlessly. Some settings for web programming, like the php.ini config file, didn't make it for some reason. Some settings in preferences were turned off. But other than that, it was exceptionally easy to import my large, specifically configured environment to the new iMac.
5. The keyboard looks the same as the previous wireless keyboard, BUT IT'S NOT. I played around with syncing some identical-looking Apple wireless keyboards, and there is extra visual queues when sync'ing the new keyboard vs. the old; Basically, there's something different with the new keyboards that allows simpler syncing with bluetooth than previous (identical looking) wireless keyboards.
6. Running Windows 7 in Parallels (64-bit) is noticeably faster, seems like 30% faster, on my 27" 3 gig iMac, compared to my 24" 2.4 gig.
7. It's cheaper to get these iMacs to 8 gigs of ram, as there is now four slots of memory. 4x2 gig chips is dramatically cheaper than 2x4 gig chips.
Criticisms:
1. The pixel density and size of screen make window menus look tiny, and there's no way to increase that without sacrificing baseline resolution. I keep finding myself increasing font size in programs like Safari and iTunes to make the text larger and easier to read against my 39 year old eyes.
2. Even though the mouse travels easily across my desk, it's noisier than most mice when moving it. My desk is wood with leather inlay, so moving the mouse across the leather is about twice as loud as the bluetooth Microsoft mouse it's replacing.
Other tidbits:
- The iMac came installed with OSX 10.6.1
- The special software for the Magic Mouse was pre-installed
- The power cord make a "click" when it's in place in the back of the iMac. My old iMac didn't have that.
- These iMacs use 1067 DDR3 ram, same as current generation MacBook Pros.
I hope some of you find this information interesting. If you've been waiting for the next big revision, this is it.
1. The 27" screen is surprisingly beautiful. The pixel density is higher than my 24" iMac I'm replacing, and the LED backlight really makes everything brighter and less yellow. Once you spend any time with this screen, everything else seems technologically ancient.
2. I'm very critical/fussy about what mouse I use. The new Magic Mouse looked uncomfortable, and I didn't know if gesturing on the face made much sense. Well, as I played with the included Magic Mouse, I'm starting to feel this is the best mouse I've ever owned. The right/left clicking, scrolling, tracking is superb, and the lack of buttons and scroll wheels actually is an improvement -- this mouse is forgiving over finger placement and more natural to use. It has just the right amount of weight to it as well, it's not a cheap/hollow feeling mouse.
3. I was surprised to discover the wireless keyboard and mouse come pre-sync'd to the computer, with batteries already installed. It's just a matter of turning the iMac on, and then turning on the power of the mouse and keyboard and you're set.
4. This was the first time I used Time Machine to move information over to the new iMac. Took about 45 minutes and worked pretty much flawlessly. Some settings for web programming, like the php.ini config file, didn't make it for some reason. Some settings in preferences were turned off. But other than that, it was exceptionally easy to import my large, specifically configured environment to the new iMac.
5. The keyboard looks the same as the previous wireless keyboard, BUT IT'S NOT. I played around with syncing some identical-looking Apple wireless keyboards, and there is extra visual queues when sync'ing the new keyboard vs. the old; Basically, there's something different with the new keyboards that allows simpler syncing with bluetooth than previous (identical looking) wireless keyboards.
6. Running Windows 7 in Parallels (64-bit) is noticeably faster, seems like 30% faster, on my 27" 3 gig iMac, compared to my 24" 2.4 gig.
7. It's cheaper to get these iMacs to 8 gigs of ram, as there is now four slots of memory. 4x2 gig chips is dramatically cheaper than 2x4 gig chips.
Criticisms:
1. The pixel density and size of screen make window menus look tiny, and there's no way to increase that without sacrificing baseline resolution. I keep finding myself increasing font size in programs like Safari and iTunes to make the text larger and easier to read against my 39 year old eyes.
2. Even though the mouse travels easily across my desk, it's noisier than most mice when moving it. My desk is wood with leather inlay, so moving the mouse across the leather is about twice as loud as the bluetooth Microsoft mouse it's replacing.
Other tidbits:
- The iMac came installed with OSX 10.6.1
- The special software for the Magic Mouse was pre-installed
- The power cord make a "click" when it's in place in the back of the iMac. My old iMac didn't have that.
- These iMacs use 1067 DDR3 ram, same as current generation MacBook Pros.
I hope some of you find this information interesting. If you've been waiting for the next big revision, this is it.
