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Looks very nice....

And the price seems fair too....

But I'm somewhat unsure what drugs they were on when deciding to have the FX5200 as the only option. It must have been some nasty stuff.
I can see having it as a low-end option, but how hard could it be to have, say, a Radeon 9600 as an option, with a jump in the price? I mean, there's plenty of laptops with faster graphic cards...

It seems like a nice machine for, say, my mom. Not me. I'm happy with my PB, but it doesn't seem like I'll be getting a new desktop Mac any time soon.
 
Not that bad of a machine

I hear everyone complaining but I like it overall. But it could be improved upon.

1) The Graphics Card like many have said is ok or sucks but I think it has to be upgradable somehow, its fine for some but some want more so give it to them. They will pay for the better card!!
2) Ethernet needs to be Gigabit. I buy the Gateway Profiles and they have gigabit, it cant' be that hard to put it in and the price should be not much higher.
3) Firewire 800 would be nice since PB have them

What I like:

1) I like the design some say it has been done before but not without and External powersupply. Good job Apple.
2) RAM is 256MB which when I price PC is what I get as the base there as well. Plus for $67 Education Price you can upgrade to 512MB 1 stick!!! PCs usually make you pay this much for 2x256MB=512MB not 1 stick.
3) Price it very competive (even though some not) to the Gateway profiles and others like it.

Overall:

Good machine for Apple but needs a few improvements to be the best.
 
HA - iMac G5 2.0 = tablet mac

Sorry, i saw the new imac this morning and the very first thing i thought, other than wow, this is exactly what i expected it to look like, is: WOW - so when are they gonna make this a full-on tablet?

Touch-screen / wacom/like pen control / battery - suddenly, you've got a computer that sits in your lap and can control your stereo, your tv, and with some x-10 gizmos, everything else in your house.

ok, that's a few years off. But the fact that the display mount is now detachable is a big fat hint that more is to come of this....
 
No pyramid. No floating screen. Just as the rumors had basically predicted.

boring, boring, boring. It looks so similar to their flat panel line up (except, of course, the extra space below the screen.)

Of course, it's more beautiful than the Sony "all in one" - the iMac, along with a wireless mouse and keyboard, is certainly a minimalist statement of functionality.

Am I getting older or are things getting kinda more boring? B&O takes a nose dive and can't crawl back out of the 80's, when their products looked like they were 10 years ahead of time. Apple still has a good look (and beats ugly PC boxes hands down) but I dunno...

*sigh* Well, good for them. It still stands out from the crowd, but it is telling how the front page of Apple introduced the product:

"From the creators of iPod. The new iMac G5."

And there they sit, side by side, on the front page.

Perhaps this was the gig all along - Lord knows how many more iPod owners there are in the world WITHOUT an Apple computer. Will this reel them in?
 
Let us remember, this is the low-end line of apple computers. Most i-mac users don't do much more than aol and word. That's one heck of a unit for doing that.
I don't like it either, but it's not for me... I need the pro line. i-mac is not ment for the pro user.
Truth is.. if they had better G-cards I would get one for my kids.
 
narco said:
Hell, maybe that's why Steve didn't do the keynote -- he was too embarrassed.

.narco

Uh, like he's recovering from a cancer operation...

Anyhoo, 600 MHz front side bus with serial ATA drive! Man, this is one heck of a machine for $1299! Besides photos never do Apple's goods justice. Wait till you see it in person, then go from there. :rolleyes:
 
peccles said:
I like it alot. I wonder if they should have made a 15in one that could sell for $999.
Due to the all-in-one design, the 15" would have a much wider side margin around the display, which might have been seen as being too ugly, as opposed to the older design, where the display was essentially independent of the base.
 
Warbrain said:
It's ugly. There's not much to it. And I really do think it lost it's "cool" factor that the iMac G4 did. It's nothing more than everything crammed into an Apple Display. I don't like it at all. And another thing that makes me angry (and I don't really know why) is that there's no FireWire 800. You think they could've at least put one FW800 port on there, but they didn't. Oh well, maybe in the future.

But yea, to me, the iMac G5 is cheasy and lame. It looks like crap with the big white space with the gray apple on it underneath it (kinda looks like a toy) and the back is just hideous, too, with the huge 'iMac' on the back.

I feel Apple dropped the ball on this one. Let's hope for improvements.

Man, I would hate to have to be a company like Apple, where you can offer the world incredible engineering that is second to none...only to have customers whine because they wanted something different.

Dude, WHAT DO YOU THINK THE POWERMAC LINE IS FOR?!?

Sorry, some of the recurring themes on this site are finally starting to get under my skin.
 
mashinhead said:
if you mount it on a wall how to you get to the ports???

unless you use an arm mount
The wall mount isn't flush. There's about an inch of room between the back of the display/computer and the wall.
 
Pretty nice.
I'll would buy one when the graphics card is better, and G5 is + 2GHZ.
I have a strange feeling both of those are upgradable...

It looks kinda, so so, but there was a picture, of it on a desk that made it look better than those "clean room" pics. I do like no power supply though.
And wall mount!

softwarelifestyle20040831.jpg


Say what you want, but the price is right. For a change.
 
slughead said:
4. Design was stolen. Plain and simple.
Where do you get that from? They stole it from themselves? They had the 20th Anniversary Macintosh in 1997 and developed several dozen prototypes that were small and large variations on that design:

spartacus.gif


Sure it's not identical, but the essence of it is the same.
 
Motion and new imac

Correct me if I am wrong but Motion will not run on this new imac. I just got Motion myself and can't install it on dual 1.25GHZ G4 because I have a 64mb graphics card. Motion will not install on a system without a minimum of 128mb of video ram and 512mb of system ram. :( Is there an option to upgrade the video card? It seems a shame that a brand new system out of the box cant run the latest software that apple offers.
 
savar said:
Man, I would hate to have to be a company like Apple, where you can offer the world incredible engineering that is second to none...only to have customers whine because they wanted something different.

Dude, WHAT DO YOU THINK THE POWERMAC LINE IS FOR?!?

Sorry, some of the recurring themes on this site are finally starting to get under my skin.
Agree 100%. Most of the whining is from people who should just go buy a $150 Xbox or a $600 HP. I enjoy plenty of gaming on my Macs. If I needed more graphics horsepower, I'd probably get a cheap gaming PC.

The iMac form factor is excellent. I'm certain that, within a very short period of time, you'll see fake-art-type wall-mount enclosures for it, allowing it to be completely hidden except while in use (cabinet slides down and front opens for keyboard when in use, slides up and shows only art when not in use). Gamers who just gotta play Doom 3 maxed out won't buy one. But a hell of a lot of women (and men) who admire clean design will. As well as others who see the obvious value.
 
Refurb?

Lord Blackadder said:
For those of you clamoring for a "headless" upgradeable iMac, the answer already exists in the form of a refurb 1.6/1.8 Ghz tower.

And can you PLEASE tell us where we get a refurb if we happen to live outside of the USA? Oh, sorry - only apple.com has a refurb section. I guess the other countries are screwed with your "affordable headless" idea. And that's why we keep complaining.

Give us a headless G5 Mac with a good GPU at the price of the low-end eMac and you'll have millions of switchers. We may hate MS but we're not rich either (PowerMac just so I can play games at decent settings? Some people are nuts).

Also remember that LCDs can't *really* display graphics in anything but their native resolution (it's the same as an image resizing in photoshop) and you'll see why the iMac G5 *needs* a better GPU.

This page (http://tech-report.com/etc/2004q3/doom3-midlow/index.x?pg=3) shows the Radon 9600 Pro 128MB scored 24 fps in 1280x1024 (1,310,720 pixels). I can't give you the number for the FX 5200 Ultra because they didn't even test it ("the game just isn't playable at higher resolutions or detail levels").

Now try to imagine the FX 5200 Ultra 64MB in 1440x900 (1,296,000, a difference of only 14,720 pixels) for the 17" iMac G5 when it can't even give 30 fps in 1024x768 (786,432 pixels) with 128MB. 1440x900 is rougly 65% more pixels than 1024x768, which means you'd get about 16 fps with the FX 5200 Ultra in native resolution for the 17". Would probably be lower since it only has 64MB.

Which also means the 20" (at 1680x1050) would be even slower. Doom 3 on the iMac G5 in native resolution? No way, not even in low-quality with all details turned off.

World of Warcraft also lists the VRAM minimum spec as 64MB. Which means you'll probably have to play WoW will most of the settings to "low" or even "off".

So, do you people still think the FX 5200 Ultra 64MB is "good enough" for a consumer machine? (keeping in mind that *consumers* play games, not professionnals with their PowerMacs)

The FX 5200 Ultra belongs in the eMac. The iMac G5 deserved better than this.
 
Reality Check

Why are people surprised about the (bad) graphics card. What made you think Apple would use a better card? Even the standard PM comes with the 5200 Ultra. According to Apple's logic, it's impossible that a consumer product has a better card than a pro machine. Secondly, why are people disappointed that there is no headless iMac? The iMac has always been a AIO system, so we'll never ever see a headless iMac. When the iMac was introduced it was marketed towards first time computer buyers. Even today this is the main market for the iMac.

But I totally agree that the iMac should have more RAM and a better GPU. Also, the argument, that more potential switchers would do the switch if they could continue using their monitors. Today they can either buy an iMac (or an eMac for that matter) and put their old monitor away or they can shell out $1999 for a PM which is a great machine but overpowered and too expensive for the average computer user. So Apple where's the PM mini?
 
waxwings said:
I love it!!! I want one now!!!!

Sorry, it's Apple your dealing with. You will need to wait. :0)
At least one month before they ship.
 
Little Endian said:
The 20" imac sure makes the Apple 20" Cinema Display overpriced. $1899 for a 20" G5 imac or $1299 for just a 20" Cinema Display. Hmmm.... The Cinema displays should be cheaper now, hopefully they drop the Price by MWSF Jan. 2005 $999 to at most $1199 for the 20" Cinema Display sounds better in light of the new imacs.

Yes and no. The 20" display is different technology - notice the difference in brightness and contrast ratio. There may be other issues in terms of color consistency, response time, or what have you as well. (I'm hoping to get one in to test for color consistency, but I may just be dreaming at this point.)

But in terms of market perception - that the iMac is only $600 more than the display - Apple may be inclined to lower the price a little bit since most people won't understand/care about the differences.
 
Beautiful!

When the first photos of the Bondi Blue iMac leaked, I was enraptured. I bought one the day they went on sale. Like the original all-in-one Macs, it fairly sang, "I'm cute! I'm non-threatening! Come play with me!"

When Time magazine let slip the first photo of the G4 iMac, I was disheartened. It seemed so - clumsy. Perhaps because the hemisphere was the monitor base, it seemed heavy and massive. It didn't say "I'm cute, come play." It said, "I'm chrome and white and lucite. Don't touch me! You'll leave fingerprints!" I didn't like it, and never warmed to it.

THIS iMac, however, fairly floats. Add a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and Airport Extreme, and you've got your desk back! No clutter, no tangle of wires, just a clean white frame for your brilliant widescreen digital life.

Honey? Look what followed me home. Can I keep it?
 
darylwol said:
Correct me if I am wrong but Motion will not run on this new imac. I just got Motion myself and can't install it on dual 1.25GHZ G4 because I have a 64mb graphics card. Motion will not install on a system without a minimum of 128mb of video ram and 512mb of system ram. :( Is there an option to upgrade the video card?

eek! is that true? I have a 20" iMac and was going to order motion.... thanks for the warning, now I am sad :(
 
darylwol said:
Correct me if I am wrong but Motion will not run on this new imac. I just got Motion myself and can't install it on dual 1.25GHZ G4 because I have a 64mb graphics card. Motion will not install on a system without a minimum of 128mb of video ram and 512mb of system ram. :( Is there an option to upgrade the video card?
No upgrade option. But I don't think Motion was intended as a consumer app anyway. I wish the card could be upgraded to 128MB, but I understand the design constraints - which a lot of posters who use beige box PCs don't seem to.
 
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