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I just bought a 27 iMac

piatti

piatti

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 9, 2010
819
0
USA
The problem is. How do I adjust the height of it? (what do I place below it. Some stacks of books?)

Also, I would rather want the trackpad instead of the magic mouse. Should I have specified that before purchasing it? Or is that the only option that comes with the iMac.
 
If you can adjust your chair, then you do not have to adjust the height of the iMac.
If you do need to adjust the height of the iMac, you may find stands for it at online stores such as "http://www.macsales.com".
You could get the trackpad option through BTO at the Apple Online Store. Or you can separately get the trackpad from the online store or from any local retail store. I use both the mouse and the trackpad.
 
What's BTO? Would they replace it for me with the magic mouse?
 
piatti said:
The problem is. How do I adjust the height of it? (what do I place below it. Some stacks of books?)

Also, I would rather want the trackpad instead of the magic mouse. Should I have specified that before purchasing it? Or is that the only option that comes with the iMac.
Click to expand...

Yes, you should have told them you wanted the pad....They should have given you the option...Apple will swap it foe you though.

Get a decent new chair to correct the height of your new iMac, the 27" screen takes a little getting used to, but you will get accustomed to it after a while.

Enjoy your new iMac!
 
I actually got it from Best Buy...Which chair and desk do you recommend? The keyboard needs to be placed lower for optimal comfort. I need the keyboard drawers.
 
Personally I think you should look at a few different desks at an office store like Staples or OfficeMax and decide on your own. Everyone is built differently. Everyone has different tastes. Everyone has different uses that they need. What is good for me likely will not be good for you.
 
Things I don't like about the iMac is that it is large. I would want two 2 screens angled towards me rather. I think that would be more productive. It seems the very large screen is geared towards better movie watching than anything else.

Maybe because I have bad eyes, and don't like to wear glasses (as that makes my eyes uncomfortable), so I have to get close to the screen to view it. When I'm multitasking and have two windows showing—one on the left and one on the right side—I have to move my head towards the left and right side of the screen, or else I'm looking at it from an angle and it doesn't feel right.
 
piatti said:
Things I don't like about the iMac is that it is large. I would want two 2 screens angled towards me rather. I think that would be more productive. It seems the very large screen is geared towards better movie watching than anything else.

Maybe because I have bad eyes, and don't like to wear glasses (as that makes my eyes uncomfortable).
Click to expand...

Angled toward each other? *cringe* If your eyes become uncomfortable when viewing the computer screen through glasses there are a couple possibilities. One is that the prescription is too strong relative to the viewing distance. I wear weaker ones when at the computer. I decided long ago not to switch to contacts because I have to be at the computer a fair amount, and it's absolutely awful with contacts in (at least the type I required). One large display can be great. Two displays tends to work when you're primarily focusing on one and glancing over at the other, or when you have a large display and it's still not enough. If you try it you'll see what I mean.
 
piatti said:
Things I don't like about the iMac is that it is large. I would want two 2 screens angled towards me rather. I think that would be more productive. It seems the very large screen is geared towards better movie watching than anything else.

Maybe because I have bad eyes, and don't like to wear glasses (as that makes my eyes uncomfortable), so I have to get close to the screen to view it. When I'm multitasking and have two windows showing—one on the left and one on the right side—I have to move my head towards the left and right side of the screen, or else I'm looking at it from an angle and it doesn't feel right.
Click to expand...

you could probably return it for the 21"
then use the money saved on a nice additional display.
 
Which extra display would you recommend? Perhaps I should have bought the Mac Mini and that would have been a better deal because I could choose my own display set up like 4 displays and 3 displays etc? My ideal set up is probably having one screen playing movie while having two other screens for multitasking.

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thekev said:
Angled toward each other? *cringe* If your eyes become uncomfortable when viewing the computer screen through glasses there are a couple possibilities. One is that the prescription is too strong relative to the viewing distance. I wear weaker ones when at the computer. I decided long ago not to switch to contacts because I have to be at the computer a fair amount, and it's absolutely awful with contacts in (at least the type I required). One large display can be great. Two displays tends to work when you're primarily focusing on one and glancing over at the other, or when you have a large display and it's still not enough. If you try it you'll see what I mean.
Click to expand...

Angled towards me. Kind of like this:
imgres

I guess I should buy a weaker glasses. How much weaker should they be compared to your normal glasses?
 
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piatti said:
Which extra display would you recommend? Perhaps I should have bought the Mac Mini and that would have been a better deal because I could choose my own display set up like 4 displays and 3 displays etc? My ideal set up is probably having one screen playing movie while having two other screens for multitasking.

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Angled towards me. Kind of like this: Image
I guess I should buy a weaker glasses. How much weaker should they be compared to your normal glasses?
Click to expand...

It depends, and I'm not sure if it works universally. I'm near sighted with minor astigmatism. My normal glasses are around -2.25 although it's slightly different in each eye. The ones I wear for computer use are more like -1.25. They're considerably weaker, and in my case it did help. The eye doctor tested my vision at the approximate display distance I gave them. I think there's something else different with this prescription too, but I don't remember precisely.

Make sure you don't keep your display set to an excessive brightness. If you're used to maximum brightness it will look weird at first, but backlights tend to last longer if not run at maximum anyway (unless of course Apple doesn't dim the backlight to dim the display). Max brightness is a moving target anyway. All displays dim over time, so it makes more sense to use a sustainable luminance (as in you slowly dial up the percentage as the display ages to maintain a relatively consistent brightness over the life of the display). Really bright glaring display whites can be extremely unpleasant if you're looking at that display enough, even if you don't realize it until after you adjust things.

As for the mini vs. imac I'm not sure. Others on here like the imac. I don't like that machine personally.

Edit: oh yeah extra displays... I'm not 100% sure. The top Dells seem to be fairly well reviewed, and the 24" isn't too expensive. I just haven't had enough experience with them to really give a confident recommendation. NEC makes some nice displays, but they're hit and miss. If you get a bad unit, it can suck. If it looks pretty good out of the box, it tends to stay that way. I don't know as much about the less expensive displays. NEC and Eizo are the only brands I use. I use one for a few years, and retire it to secondary display when it comes time to buy a replacement. It's a decent system.
 
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Why do you not like the iMac personally?

Thank you very much for your story on the glasses. Maybe I should buy a cheap one for about 10 dollars from online, as well as the tip for dimming the brightness a little.
 
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It's already lagging when I don't seem to have too much apps running right now. I have running 4 windows of Safari with about 10 tabs total, Mail, FaceTime, Garageband, Skype running on one user and on the other one I have just Safari running, several windows and tabs, and Mail. It lags when I do Mission Control.
 
I use phone books. Your chair should be adjusted to fit you ergonomically - not to fit the level of your computer.
 
I am used to Spaces and Exposes so I don't know how to do the following on the Mission Control: move around different spaces (or desktops on Lion) with shorkeys. Is this just not possible anymore?

In Snow Leopard you could move from one space to another by shorkey such as option+#. option+1 would move to space 1. So I don't know how you move to a certain desktop number # by means of some kind of short key.
 
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You could pick up a movable arm so you could position it higher, lower, angled, more forward or further back from you.

For the 27" you'll need an arm that can hold at least 30lbs and then get the VESA mount from the Apple Store online.
 
A couple points

I have a bit of professional expertise with positioning and ergonomics.

Avoid keyboard drawers. Ideally you should be able to push everything back and rest your forearms on the desk, if you don't have very good armrests on your chair. You want to avoid having to hold your arms up, and avoid keeping your elbows bent.
If you have an office-style chair, it's possible the lift has worn out-- try a new one. I got one I love for $50 from Staples.
You should not need to raise the mac on anything-- it's more ergonomically sound to angle it up and look slightly downward towards it.

As to the eyes-- bump your global screen resolution down to the next notch, which should make it possible to have the mac a bit farther away.
Personally I do dual 21.5" and love it-- but I find that you will want the second monitor to be the same size and quality as the first-- so if you go that route make sure you get an IPS monitor.

Regardless of how much 4 GB seemed to be on past macs, on this one 4 GB will give you spinning beachballs. Spend $50 and add 8 GB to a total of 12 before giving any bit of additional thought to the "lagging."

In regard to the Magic Track Pad-- I absolutely love mine and want no more mice in my life. When you order a new mac from Apple you get to choose (it's just a choice, not really a BTO (build to order) option); this option was added the day the 2011 iMacs went up on the Apple site; with refurbs or 3rd party vendors apparently you get the mouse. I've forced myself to learn to use the MTP with my non-dominant hand, and it's peachy, so consider a MTP on the left and a mouse on the right.
 
Wow, thank you, Chorny

For the eyes -- that would compromise screen resolution though. Is there a way to automatically increase the font size for everything so that I can be away from the screen while not wearing glasses?

Thank you, I'll remember to buy the 12 GB.

But one thing I heard is that iMac is very prone to overheating, so that it might actually be better to buy Mac mini?

Why is it lagging in this new lineup? Is it because of Lion?
 
piatti said:
For the eyes -- that would compromise screen resolution though. Is there a way to automatically increase the font size for everything so that I can be away from the screen while not wearing glasses?

Thank you, I'll remember to buy the 12 GB.

But one thing I heard is that iMac is very prone to overheating, so that it might actually be better to buy Mac mini?

Why is it lagging in this new lineup? Is it because of Lion?
Click to expand...

Yes, you can globally increase font size. You should take a bit of time and familiarize yourself with the options-- there are times when getting all of your info by asking people on a forum can hold you back.

I'll try again: It's lagging because 4 GB of RAM is not enough.
I did not recommend that you buy 12 GB. I recommended that you buy 2 4-GB chips to add to the two 2-GB chips that you already have, for a total of 12 GB.
To be fair, you should remove the note about the lagging from your signature as long as you're trying to run on only 4 GB. That's the reason, period.
 
How do you globally change the font size? I searched but didn't get an answer. One answer was from 2006 and didn't work anymore.

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What would be the price difference if I installed for a total of 16 as opposed to 12?
 
piatti said:
For the eyes -- that would compromise screen resolution though. Is there a way to automatically increase the font size for everything so that I can be away from the screen while not wearing glasses?

Thank you, I'll remember to buy the 12 GB.

But one thing I heard is that iMac is very prone to overheating, so that it might actually be better to buy Mac mini?

Why is it lagging in this new lineup? Is it because of Lion?
Click to expand...

Regarding viewing the web pages etc, I don't know if you know about pressing cmd + (or is it ctrl +?) but it zooms your pages quite nicely. I do it all the time when I am on internet. If I am working on something less frivolous, I usually am close enough to see the print.

iMac is not prone to overheating. I have one and game like a beast. For heavy graphics usage, I do put a small fan behind my computer, not because I don't think it can take it, but because generally, cooler is better. There are also fan control (smc) apps that you can use and just bump up the fan if you feel you need to.

As far as lagging, sometimes Safari can be a resource hog and if you have more than one of it up, I can see where this might be an issue with the RAM you have.
 
As for CMD +, it is inefficient to do that for every new tab. I wish the fonts were all automatically big enough to be easily read while being far away especially because I'm nearsighted and don't want to wear glasses, as they bother my eyes when I wear them so I keep wanting to take them off.

Do you know how to universally change the font size for the bigger without having to sacrifice the resolution?
 
Chorny said:
I have a bit of professional expertise with positioning and ergonomics.

Avoid keyboard drawers. Ideally you should be able to push everything back and rest your forearms on the desk, if you don't have very good armrests on your chair. You want to avoid having to hold your arms up, and avoid keeping your elbows bent.
Click to expand...
Could you demonstrate this by a drawing? It's hard to imagine it.
If you have an office-style chair, it's possible the lift has worn out-- try a new one. I got one I love for $50 from Staples.
Click to expand...
Could you link to the one you bought? I've tried lots of office chairs and always get back/neck pain.

You should not need to raise the mac on anything-- it's more ergonomically sound to angle it up and look slightly downward towards it.
Click to expand...

I see. Thanks.
As to the eyes-- bump your global screen resolution down to the next notch, which should make it possible to have the mac a bit farther away.
Personally I do dual 21.5" and love it-- but I find that you will want the second monitor to be the same size and quality as the first-- so if you go that route make sure you get an IPS monitor.
Click to expand...
Hmm, maybe I should just buy two cheap IPS monitor and use it with my old MacBook the harddrive of which is dead. Should I replace that with a new harddrive or with a SSD?

Regardless of how much 4 GB seemed to be on past macs, on this one 4 GB will give you spinning beachballs. Spend $50 and add 8 GB to a total of 12 before giving any bit of additional thought to the "lagging."
Click to expand...

Why does this one give the spinning beachball?
 
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