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Teardown of New 21.5-inch iMac Reveals Glued Down LCD and Dual Microphones

Renzatic said:
If swapping out an HDD was similar to replacing their brake system with one you built in your garage, I'd agree with you. Really, it's more like swapping out your headlights. They're designed to be modular.
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Not for Macs, seemingly! The point I was really making was one of general 'entitlement' the average person has when they walk to a Genius Bar. So, poke around at your hearts content but don't expect Apple to bail you out if it goes wrong. The caricature to that argument is essentially a hackintosh
 
Renzatic said:
If swapping out an HDD was similar to replacing their brake system with one you built in your garage, I'd agree with you. Really, it's more like swapping out your headlights. They're designed to be modular.
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Except for on the iMac. They have tried to make the HDD not compatible with off the shelf hard drives.
 
G51989 said:
And I feel your pain, besides my macs, I typically build my own machines, when I bought my Gaming power from GAMEPC, it was so strange to open a box containing a PC, and just open it it and set it up...strange...
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Us gearhead tech geeks have it rough these days, don't we? It'd suck watching something blow up, thinking "I could fix that in 10 seconds", but realizing you have to RMA the entire thing to the manufacturer because they welded the front shut.

I think we need to start up a support group. :(
 
Renzatic said:
Us gearhead tech geeks have it rough these days, don't we? It'd suck watching something blow up, thinking "I could fix that in 10 seconds", but realizing you have to RMA the entire thing to the manufacturer because they welded the front shut.

I think we need to start up a support group. :(
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You are describing a hobby. A noble and well deserving hobby but a hobby nonetheless. Most power users have no interest what's under the bonnet.
 
I don't care that the iMac isn't repairable, but I do care that it could have been a better computer if Apple didn't try so hard to make it as thin as possible. On a laptop, go for it. Thin matters. On a desktop, thin makes absolutely no difference to anything. So why sacrifice for it?
 
Renzatic said:
Us gearhead tech geeks have it rough these days, don't we? It'd suck watching something blow up, thinking "I could fix that in 10 seconds", but realizing you have to RMA the entire thing to the manufacturer because they welded the front shut.

I think we need to start up a support group. :(
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Pretty much.

I love to be able to build a Machine better than Apple, or Dell, or HP, or most OEMs can do, do it cheaper, do it better, and do it faster ( for myself ).

Lets hope these days stick around.
 
Confuzzzed said:
You are describing a hobby. A noble and well deserving hobby but a hobby nonetheless. Most power users have no interest what's under the bonnet.
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It's a hobby and a skill. Something I learned so I don't have to spend beaucoup bucks and X amount of time sending my stuff off for to someone else to fix.

Truthfully, it's a hobby I'm not into all that much anymore. Like most people here, I've kinda grown a little tired of building and tweaking my computers. I want something that...oh god, I can't believe I'm gonna say it...just works. Hence the reason why I'm even considering an iMac.

But no matter how well built the computer, how high quality you think it is, chances are good something is gonna mess up during your time with it. And when that happens, I don't want to have to spend beaucoup bucks and X amount of time sending my stuff off for someone else to fix.

It's not so bad right now. Pain in the ass though it may be, you can still fix an iMac to a point. But if things continue the way they are, it might eventually come to the point no one can just pop open their machines at their house to do their own upgrades or fix any problems. You'll have to rely solely on the manufacturer to do it.

...and I should mention that I've had notoriously bad luck with harddrives in the past.
 
Confuzzzed said:
You are describing a hobby. A noble and well deserving hobby but a hobby nonetheless. Most power users have no interest what's under the bonnet.
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A hobby? Maybe, but I know tons of people who still build their own machines.

And Lots of power users care about whats under the hood, most power users understand their systems very closely, want upgrades, what repairableness ( new word! ), and the ability to do any of this work in their home, and not half to deal with Apples crap.

And yes, Apples support is garbage. Sure, its better than lots of other companies, but that doesn't mean its good....3 weeks to replace a hard drive on my iMac 2011? Thanks *******s. On any of my PCs I could have a drive swapped out and Windows or Linux reinstalled in under an hour.

So, power users do care about whats under the hood in their system

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deannnnn said:
I don't care that the iMac isn't repairable, but I do care that it could have been a better computer if Apple didn't try so hard to make it as thin as possible. On a laptop, go for it. Thin matters. On a desktop, thin makes absolutely no difference to anything. So why sacrifice for it?
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Exactly, what was wrong with the 2011 imac form factor?
 
And there is nothing wrong with building your own PC, I do it all the time, my GAMEPC is the first pre built rig I've bought since my Dell P3 tower in college. I'll be building the next one, I just perfer...

1: Knowing every part of my PC
2: Knowing how to repair my PC
3: Knowing exactly how my PC is put together
4: Knowing that I have the best parts money can buy.

If I buy to many pre built PCs, I don't know whats in it exactly. And even my current gaming tower is high quality than anything you can get from Apple or Dell, or HP or whoever.


I understand with Apple, I can't build it myself. But I would prefer is Apple went with design and quality, this machine is neither in my opinion.

I'll stick to my 2011 iMac till they make something better.

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skottichan said:
Do you bitch when most of your car's internals aren't designed to be user repairable?
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No, because the vast majority of cars are user repairable and user upgradeable.
 
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Renzatic said:
I think ole Charlietuna has me on ignore.

Your "not for the power user" argument is lame and unfounded. The fact charges at least $1500 for it, and can be upgraded to an i7 processor with 32GB of ram flies in the face of that.

What "average user" needs an i7 processor with 32GB of ram? It's as much as designer machine as a mom 'n pop email machine. Why claim it's for the lowest common denominator when it's capable of so much more by design?
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No it's not lame and unfounded, it's (upgrades) for those types of people that like shiny and new and can't help it, or for those that know it can't be upgraded, so they go with the highest spec so it will last longer. Sometimes, it will be for the power user, but these are not the majority or else they would be the standard options. Standard options are there for a reason, Apple is just providing the other options because they might squeeze out a few extra dollar bills from us.
 
Everyone is getting butt hurt about Apple and low upgradeability but 90% of customers have no need to upgrade their pc, they will not need a faster computer until they actually need a new one.
 
Another key point that seems have been lost in the standard "outrage" whenever Apple does anything, is that this is not a 2007 iMac.

For almost all, the only reason to open a typical iMac is either to replace/upgrade the disk or replace/ upgrade RAM. On the 27" Memory is covered without opening the machine. On the 21" it's likely due to the low end that consumers will simply stay with the originally configured memory. I see older gen iMacs all the time with no change in memory since original purchase. So for the tinkerers, memory is already covered if that's important to you, just buy the 27".

And to my point above about this being 2012, SATA speeds are now achievable over Thunderbolt. So while not optimum for mobility, an external Thunderbolt drive could easily avoid the need to open a machine. And since this is a desktop, how often are they really moved save for some specific mobile application such as onsite photography, etc.

The machines are plenty expandable as they stand. Again per my previous comment, this is much ado about nothing.
 
hlfway2anywhere said:
a lot of people are about to complain saying that the new iMac isn't repairable. these same people would have never replaced an LCD in their iMac anyway.
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You need to remove the lcd to get to many of the other components. Replacing many of the parts that people do replace on the previous generation also required removing the display. It still does but now its glued in which makes removing it a much more complicated process and risks damging both the display and other components.
 
mad-jamie16 said:
Everyone is getting butt hurt about Apple and low upgradeability but 90% of customers have no need to upgrade their pc, they will not need a faster computer until they actually need a new one.
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So its better to spend 1500 dollars on a new machine when the time comes, than spend 200-300 dollars on upgrades for a older one that could still last?
 
BobCollins said:
Can any of you true-believers tell us why the iMac desktop computer needs an ultra thin display? Packing things in tighter always has tradeoffs and I don't understand what the benefits here are.

Clearly, there are benefits to smaller and lighter with a portable device such as a laptop, but just why would you choose to give up upgradability and repairability for the very minor aesthetic of a thinner profile when looked at from the side?
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So it weighs less for all those times you have to lug it through the mall to have a genius fix whatever broke this time. Duh.
 
Like many here I don't feel the "thinness" was worth the trade offs. I would much rather have a Bluray drive, a proper desktop HDD, user accessible RAM (and HDD?) to avoid the Apple tax and the 680MX in the 21.5" model.

I love OS X and IOS but I am less and less enamored with Apple hardware.
 
auzijs said:
Yeah, but 90% of the population doesn't need a computer more powerful than a macbook air. So - why doesn't Apple just stick a macbook air inside an Imac? It would make it x times thinner and lighter. 90% of the population doesn't need thunderbolt. Why doesn't Apple remove those - 5 grams lighter. There are too many USB ports. Most people only need 2. Remove those.
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Not disagreeing with you either. I for one need an upgradable workstation but it does not change the fact that most people won't upgrade.
 
Aika said:
Like many here I don't feel the "thinness" was worth the trade offs. I would much rather have a Bluray drive, a proper desktop HDD, user accessible RAM (and HDD?) to avoid the Apple tax and the 680MX in the 21.5" model.

I love OS X and IOS but I am less and less enamored with Apple hardware.
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I wish there were more loopholes in the Federal Tax code so that I could avoid the US Tax

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G51989 said:
So its better to spend 1500 dollars on a new machine when the time comes, than spend 200-300 dollars on upgrades for a older one that could still last?
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I know this answer. YES
 
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