Apple Releases Updated iMac Models With 21.5- and 27-Inch LED Screens

[Thunderbird]

if only there was an option to get the matte display...

Agreed, there would be more people buying them or switching.

Basic question....are the screens still Glossy?

Yes. There is a 21.5" mirror, and a 27" mirror.

why no matte option?

Because Steve prefers glossy.

I can't believe there are no matte, anti-glare screens. I feel sick. Apple's just not listening. A message to matte-supporters. There is a great need to increase the number of petition comments at http://macmatte.wordpress.com - so far there's close to 600 petition comments but we need to get this into the 1000's to get Apple's attention.

Not sure a petition will work on a company that historically hasn't listened to its customers.

Do you sit outside often with your desktop? Just curious. This complaint is pretty valid on a laptop, but on a desktop I don't see the problem, personally.

Do you sit in front of your desktop with lights in the room? Then you should see the problem. If not, good for you, no one is forcing you to buy a matte screen.

uh, apple just sold 3 million macs in 3 months. your petition has 600 signatures. even if it gets to 10,000 signatures, that is roughly .3%. I'm sure that'll grab apple's attention then.

There were no petitions for 16:9 ratio or 27" screens or last year's video card. Yet we got those. I agree with you, Apple doesn't listen to its customers, which is why the hackintosh community is booming.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Nobody listening...Blu-Ray

Guys.

Some of you are simply not listening to those of us who want Blu-Ray.

We want a way to back up large amounts of data for archival/security of important content.

Additionally, many of us would use it for professionally distributing video and large data files.

There are MANY uses that will be around for a LONG time that have nothing to do with Hollywood Blu-Ray movies.

Why not just a BTO option Apple!???

 

[Eidorian]

Why is the C2D a waste? is i5/i7 that big difference for the money?

Twice the performance. We'll have to see what Core 2 Duo processors Apple is using but the Lynnfield ones should be about the same price.

That's right the Core i5/i7 8xx processors cost as much as the fast Core 2s. Take a look at the Core 2 Quad pricing. Now that's robbery.

 

[Bubba Satori]

for the blu-ray complainers, maybe a you should consider the fact that physical media is dying a slow and painful death

No it's not and saying it thousands of times won't make it. Look we know you feel you have to defend Apple's refusal to offer it even as an option. But other customers want it. Jeebus is it so hard to understand ? Make it a freaking option. You don't have to get it if you don't want it and spend hours downloading junk HD from iTunes.

 

[roland.g]

Your logic is flawed. No one has the amount of storage space required to sustain a library of HD digital downloads. Unless storage space takes over those numbers by a wide margin, you'll still have a healthy chunk that hold on to physical media (ignoring the fact that many are wary of digital ownership only). Apple is simply leveraging their HUGE online marketplace presence due to the fact that not having Blu Ray likely will not hurt them that much.

Not my logic. Read up. It's all over the tech articles. Probably one reason BR won't end up in an Apple product. They know.

 

[polaris20]

Do you sit in front of your desktop with lights in the room? Then you should see the problem. If not, good for you, no one is forcing you to buy a matte screen.

Yeah I do. Works fine, because my screen is turned on, not black.

 

[redgaz26]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

Love the 27". But I just bought my 24" 6 months ago !!!
I'll wait for the itab!!!!!

 

[chrmjenkins]

are you seriously kidding me? people said the EXACT SAME THING about .mp3 downloads/storage in 2000.

A mp3 is around 3 to 4 Megabytes. Back in 2000, we had 100 Gig hard drives. An uncompressed Blu Ray is 27 Gigabytes. Today, we have 2 TB hard drives. That's a multiple of 6000:1 versus a multiple of 20:1. It does not compare. If you wanted a valid comparison, you'd be talking about DVDs, but back then, no one was serious about having tons of DVD quality videos stored, just like no one is serious about doing the same with Blu Ray right now.

 

[saltcured]

Think about it. You're already sitting at the top, with the most beautiful and largest LED display Apple has ever created, at 27" with the resolution supporting up to 2560 x 1440 and they decide to yet again, opt out on the very medium that too, is at the very top of the consumer HD food chain, aka, blu-ray.

Without knocking the blu-ray folks for once, if those nay sayers could just try once, to have an imagination, and envision how picture perfect 1080p blu-ray content would look on a display like that. And no don't even bring up iTunes HD movies into this. It's.Not.The.Same.

Surely, a BTO option would have easily sufficed, don't you agree?

True, there does seem to be enough demand for there to be a BTO.

 

[YoGramMamma]

ok, rreally?

I mean, i know how product cycles work... but lets see for a minute, lets compare the 1,999 imac with the 2,499 Mac Pro.

• iMac - 2.66 Quad | MacPro 2.66Quad. Im not sure if the i7 bests the architecture in the MacPros or not though.
• iMac - 4GB Ram | MacPro 3GB Ram. iMac wins on top of that, because the ram is cheaper and most people would never need to exceed 16GB
• iMac - 1TB HDD | MacPro 640GB. Yeah, iMac again. THough you can put up to 4TB in a MacPro, so depending on your needs this might be a wash.
• iMac - ATI 4850 | MacPro GT120. iMac wins again. And you have to add $200 to get you GFx card on the Pro to best the iMac.
Mac Pro has more ports, more expandability, ability to add faster transfer protocols like eSATA and Fibre etc... BUT

iMac COMES WITH A 27" SCREEN THAT YOU WOULD OTHERWISE HAVE TO BUY ON A MAC PRO. this includes speakers, a mic, a camera, and sd card reader, less power consumption, less spatial footprint, wireless keyboard and mouse and the ability to use that screen for other computers and inputs.

IMO iMac wins again. Sure you can upgrade your MacPro down the line, but you have to spend almost $1000 more to get it to be on par with the iMac out the box and you still don't get a screen. And in 2 years when the upgradability of your macpro will have its most benefit, tech will have leaped so much farther forward, you might as well drop another 2K on a top range iMac again (really another 1K if you factor in the extra 1K youd have spent 2 years prior getting your mac pro up to par with your iMac). AND you'll still have a nice 27" LED screen to use with that computer. Until apps can raeally start to make 8 cores shine, or until they all support GCD, faster 4-cores make way more sense than the 8 core.

iMac is a reeally good deal at this point.

 

[ricosuave]

expose

is there a way to have this new mouse do expose actions?

 

[harodude]

I really want to know if the "Input" capabilities on the 27" will support something like an XBOX 360, going from HDMI TO MDP...
It says "including MBP", so there are other options out there.

If this does work, I know what I'm getting for Christmas.

 

[steve2112]

I've been staring at and drooling over the the new iMacs, and I had a thought. Since the new iMacs have the LED backlit displays, is there a chance these will filter to the ACD? Might we see 21.5" and 27" LED Cinema Displays?

 

[Eidorian]

I mean, i know how product cycles work... but lets see for a minute, lets compare the 1,999 imac with the 2,499 Mac Pro.

• iMac - 2.66 Quad | MacPro 2.66Quad. Im not sure if the i7 bests the architecture in the MacPros or not though.
• iMac - 4GB Ram | MacPro 3GB Ram. iMac wins on top of that, because the ram is cheaper and most people would never need to exceed 16GB
• iMac - 1TB HDD | MacPro 640GB. Yeah, iMac again. THough you can put up to 4TB in a MacPro, so depending on your needs this might be a wash.
• iMac - ATI 4850 | MacPro GT120. iMac wins again. And you have to add $200 to get you GFx card on the Pro to best the iMac.
Mac Pro has more ports, more expandability, ability to add faster transfer protocols like eSATA and Fibre etc... BUT

iMac COMES WITH A 27" SCREEN THAT YOU WOULD OTHERWISE HAVE TO BUY ON A MAC PRO. this includes speakers, a mic, a camera, and sd card reader, less power consumption, less spatial footprint, wireless keyboard and mouse and the ability to use that screen for other computers and inputs.

IMO iMac wins again. Sure you can upgrade your MacPro down the line, but you have to spend almost $1000 more to get it to be on par with the iMac out the box and you still don't get a screen. And in 2 years when the upgradability of your macpro will have its most benefit, tech will have leaped so much farther forward, you might as well drop another 2K on a top range iMac again (really another 1K if you factor in the extra 1K youd have spent 2 years prior getting your mac pro up to par with your iMac). AND you'll still have a nice 27" LED screen to use with that computer. Until apps can raeally start to make 8 cores shine, or until they all support GCD, faster 4-cores make way more sense than the 8 core.

iMac is a reeally good deal at this point.

Take a look at the Core i5 750 and i7 860 vs. the i7 920.

 

[WillMak]

Can the new 27 inch iMac be used as a display pretty much? Can a person hook up a PS3 to it for example?

 

[mattcube64]

Come on now, they have to have something to put in for the Spring 2010 refresh. 5800 series video card and maybe finally blu-ray would be high on the likely list.

Oh, I agree. I'm not trying to be "one of those whiners".

I think it's a great update. The lack of BluRay doesn't bother me because I have an external drive for use with Boot Camp. And, I really don't have the money to drop on $25 movies very often, anyway.

I, personally, think this is a FANTASTIC update. Very happy to see that the 27" screen isn't just bigger, but it actually has a higher resolution.

I love that you can now use the monitor with external sources.

i5 is a HUGE upgrade, and for the people that need it, I'm glad they put i7 in there as a BTO. Although, honestly, most reviewers say the i5 is about 90% as fast as the i7, anyway.

So yeah, being that I like computer games (and I don't care to have a windows computer AND a Mac when I can instead just bootcamp), I'm pretty disappointed at the video card. If it had a 5850 or better, I would have pulled the trigger today.

 

[bleimone]

Apple Stores?

Anyone know when these new iMacs will be available at the Apple Stores for viewing pleasure?

 

[Thunderbird]

Yeah I do. Works fine, because my screen is turned on, not black.

Look closely...

 

[mattcube64]

Can the new 27 inch iMac be used as a display pretty much? Can a person hook up a PS3 to it for example?

With an adapter, apparently. But I can't seem to find them on their site.

 

[RebootD]

This is the first time in probably 5 years that I have not been let down by a sweeping product update!!!!!

AWESOME AWESOME NEWS TODAY!!!!!

Apple has officially made the iMac a TRUE Professional Creative Design computer that will kill Mac Pro sales, at least until Adobe's Creative Suite can fully handle all 8 cores of a Mac Pro and you can see a noticeable difference in performance between the two models.

The prices are GREAT too!
A 27" iMac with 2.8GHz Quad-Core i7, 2TB HDD AND Apple Care is only $2618.00!!!! Holy crap!

Jesus... 27 M*ther F*cking inches baby!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah but you can't put multiple HDDs in there for RAID, missing one FW800 port and it has a larger mirror screen (matte 4 life!).

 

[Bubba Satori]

is the ATI Radeon HD 4670 a good video card???

It was a midrange card last year.

 

[QuantumLo0p]

Apple Gaping Lineup Hole

Not a bad upgrade but, come on Apple, get with the program. A quad option only available on the top model?! I see the design mistake of the thick bezel at the bottom of the screen is still a melanoma on an otherwise ample design.

Well, thanks for dropping the ball again, Apple. The infamous Apple Gaping Lineup Hole still remains, larger than ever.

I had most of the components gathered to build a Windows CAD/CAM/gaming rig but since the Lineup Hole is larger than ever I may change course and try the Hackintosh route.

Shame on Apple for not addressing the Apple Gaping Lineup Hole!!!

 

[WeegieMac]

Nice looking systems, with the smaller "chin" people moaned about ... however, I don't like the way the aluminium and black is so bluntly chopped.

On the (now) old iMac's the black trim round the screen was rounded at the corners and had a thin aluminium trim the full way round.

Now it's like the top 3/4 are black and the bottom 1/4 is aluminium and it looks a little blunt and drastic compared to the rounded edge trim of the old models.

27" though ... wow, and only the top model is Quad Core, which someone on here called last week.

 

[Gloor]

Again the GPUs suck badly. When will Apple get it that if they want iMac to be family computer too then they need to offer better GPU so its really AiO computer.
Other than that its a great update. UK prices are rip off again but we got used to it anyway.
Now, lets hope for ACD refresh with matte option. I would love to get 30" LED ACD and replace this one ))

 

[3460169]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

I should've waited.

My thoughts exactly -- i've had the 24" a couple of weeks now. But Christmas is around the corner & my g/f's iMac is in serious need of replacement so, she will inherit my 24" and there will be a 27" i7 in my future.

Maybe you have someone who can use your iMac, whether for a gift or for your profit!