We Wait 2yrs for this?
I see why Jobs didn't introduce this at the WWDC , americans would have let him have it after seeing those crappy specs, maybe the French will be a little more merciful to him.
i'm sorry i can't look at this and say i'm excited because i'm not at all. this is way below my expectations especially when compared to the Dell Opti-plex which is state of the art compared to this mess. here are some points.
New G5 iMac
G5 CPU 1.6-1.8 whle i realize that apple has to keep the chips slower to protect sales of Power macs would asking for a single 2.0ghz chip on the top end really have affected sales much? It's still just one chip compared to 2 for the lowend power mac. Dual 1.8's will still kick the crap out of a single 2.0ghz so what's the deal apple.
Video cards GF 4MX/GF FX 5200
now this is where i really have a problem. I know the imac is for consumers only but does that mean we can't play any games at all. why should we need to spend $2-3K on a power mac for the privlage of playing Halo when i can do so on $700 PC. does any one realize that the GF 4MX came out in 2002 , the same year the last gen iMac was released. the GF FX5200 is almost as old (2003)
would it really have been unreasonable apple to include a Radeon 9600XT I mean they are kinda old now they should be cheap. although the new Readon X600 would have been perffered. (64mb video cards u gotta be kidding).
80-160GB Serial ATA hard drives
well the SATA part is good but the capacity is a realy bummer. is this not mid-2004 cuz i can't remember with these spec's 120GB drives should be standard no if's and but's about it just like 60GB was back in 2002. I hate the fact that apple always has to seriously cripple thier Consumer lines because they are to paranoid about messing with PM sales.
256MB DDR ram
now when i brought my iMac it came with 256MB ram , the problem is that was back in Feb 2002. rev1 2nd gen 15in iMac 800mhz 2x super drive. that was state of the art for a consumer machine this is not. Did Apple miss the memo saying the whole comp industry has moved on to 512 being standard ...even on cheap'o $800 PC's
Slot loading drive
now i really don't like this eyecandy crap, not only are slot drives much more likely to screw up but now i can't even change the optical drive when i want to upgrade to a faster burner. atleast i could have done this with my old iMac. one less thing that is now upgradable, u would have appreciated it more if apple didn't spend so much money on fancy BS like this and could have put that money into the Video card , Ram or bigger HD. a OEM 16X DVD +/-RW burner would have made much more sense since new egg has them. Pioneer has the DVR-108 out now for about $100.
I don't have any beef with the monitors they are beautiful.
other stuff i would have liked
Giga bit Ethernet 10/100/1000
now some will say that this is no needed in a consumer machine but ,i beg to differ in 2yrs 30Mb/5Mb broadband will be out once Fiber Fios takes over DSL. the extra bandwidth would help. besides gigabit ethernet is no longer a pro feature as it somes standard in cheap $75 Asus & Abit mother boards.
Optical Audio in/out
this is also in standard those cheap'o Mother boards i just mentioned. so this was expected.
PCI Express
for the Love of GOD Apple why not include this. as u will need it in the long run. even Dells OptiPlex has this standard w/ open/free slots.
as it stands Dell has really dealt the new iMac a kick in the ass . not that i would buy a freaken Dell but from a technical stand point the OptiPlex has been out for over a month and is already superior to Apples as yet to be Released iMac .
maybe i was expecting a lil too much , but Apple is supposed to be the leader in Innovation. this is not an innovation this was simply the logical next step as G4s are obsolete. all they did wasplay it safe and take the next step rather than blow our socks off. I am very Disappointed in Apples lack of Effort here. this is basically last years mid-low end half ass crippled
power mac G5s squeezed into a pizza box.
Apple I expect better. i was hoping for something more impressive because i need a new comp and dont have $3k for a power mac /monitor combo, but having seen this i will just put together a kick ass AMD Athlon 64 machine that will Murder this imac at 1/2 the price , prob make it dual boot
XP Pro/ Mandrake Linux 10
