Why the new iMac sucks so much!

[Lifequest]

if you are paying US prices, i understand you see no problem.. but having EU prices, reasonable iMac is too expensive, with all respect to the technology used... and entry one is simply downgrade to the previous generation

Actually paying AUD. Only recently on par with US though we still have tax. Regardless, for cars, we don't whinge.

USA BMW car 35k
AUD BMW car 68k-75k

I couldn't afford one, so I bought a 40k Toyota. Our dollar is stronger. No, I don't whinge. I simply couldn't afford the BMW and went with something that I could.

If you want cheap upgrades etc. get a Dell.

 

[fig]

The majority of you don't need an i7 CPU. I don't think you guys realise how powerful desktop CPUs are these days, even the i5 variants. Soldered RAM is only on the 21.5" model. Apple has never been keen on having user-serviceable computers so there is nothing new there.

As someone who designs and animates professionally, I continue to be amazed at what people are convinced they NEED in a home computer. And if the answer is "playing games" you're probably on the wrong platform to start with.

there are the occasional pro users in audio or graphics and if that's the case either load up an iMac (which does in fact have an i7 available) or look at a Mac Pro.

this is some fanboy rubish... 7200 rpm is much slover than any SSd and it is bottleneck for my 2011 imac... so please, dont tell me about being superfast with 5400 hdd

Sooo...upgrade it?

 

[Hoo Doo Dude]

I see the 21.5" model has a drive upgrade ...

to the 1 TB Fusion drive. Given that it is a $250 upgrade on the Mini this seems like a good deal and the answer to anyone agonizing over drive speed. Yeah, they could have offered a 1 TB 7200 rpm drive but given the size of enclosure they're no doubt using 2.5" drives. The up charge would have to be around $200 for that option. Given the Fusion is only $50 more it makes sense to use that as the upgrade. The entire reason for the 5400 rpm base drive is to achieve as low a price as possible.

If you want the 21.5" model you can easily pop for the Fusion and i7 upgrades and have your more powerful, speedy machine. And it helps keep overlap of the 21.5" and 27" to a minimum. Any limitation to upgrade path on the 21.5" is dictated by the smaller enclosure and not any nefarious scheme by Apple to make 21.5" iMac owners 2nd class citizens.

 

[Mr Rogers]

Both the 21.5" and the 27" models have i7 options, as before

21.5" options:

2.9GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz) with 6MB L3 cache

Configurable to 3.1GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz).

The 3.1 GHz in the 21.5" is the i7 3770s. It supports hyperthreading

http://ark.intel.com/products/65524/Intel-Core-i7-3770S-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz

Do you need to sit down in the naughty corner for a bit to calm down and start this discussion again? This looks like the exact same line-up as before, with Ivy Bridge CPUs that are slightly faster. I am not following your posts, because you're raving like an uninformed lunatic that has not even bothered to actually look at the specifications.

To be perfectly honest I think it is you and the 6 mugs who have up voted you who are lunatics - evidently, you have more money than sense and little knowledge of what the OP was getting at - basically, he's saying the new design far from being a step forward is a step back, further, in terms of user upgrading this seems all but impossible now on the 21.5in iMac - REALLY ARE YOU GOING TO PAY APPLE TO MAX IT OUT WITH 32G RAM?

Have you actually figured out how much the top end BTO will actually cost you - you are paying for design over utility, less meaning more in Apple's book and being price gouged period.

Lets look at it this way, the top end 27in iMac from May 2011 could be upgraded at a reasonable cost to i7 - the SSD cost was huge and I'm not a fan of SSD, but the GPU upgrade was good as was the option of 2G VRAM - for all the complaints, the 27in was upgradable by the owner - hence not an issue to upgrade to 32G RAM, add SSD or add bigger HDD and SSD at a fraction of what Apple want - to top it all it had a Optic's to play/burn DVD's and many professional users of the iMac do this - I should know I sold my top end i7 for US$2000 in early June expecting a refresh and move to better graphics/Ivy Bridge.

Now, do you honestly think we should pay a US$1000 premium on top of the high end 21.5in or 27in iMac to have a decent machine that can last 3 years - a very important issue for business I can assure you.

So, whilst it looks nice, its lost a great deal - no doubt ideal for you, but as someone with a small business who likes the iMac, the prices and what you get are now crazy - indeed, its come to the point to build a hackintosh and link it up to a 30in Dell all for the cost of the top end 27in without any BTO options.

I say this as a Mac user of 20 years - I loved my iMac's, but not at this price and with so much removed/changed to make it appear slim - its a bloody desktop PC for gods sake and not a iOS toy!!!!!!!

 

[fa8362]

As someone who designs and animates professionally, I continue to be amazed at what people are convinced they NEED in a home computer.

They can't distinguish between needs and wants, and seem to lose all reasoning ability when it's time to buy a new computer. There are guys in the Mac Mini forum asking if they need a quad core and 16 GB of RAM to watch movies and surf the web...

 

[MarcelEdward]

are u kidding me?? firstly, yes, it difference and secondly, in 2012 SSD is must as default config - and what apple does - instead upgrading 7200 to SSD, it downgrades to 5400 - this is epic fail

I would suspect that the 7200 rpm 500mb drive in for instance the macmini 2011 server is 33% faster thatn the 5400 rpm in the current line up.

I do not know if this is actually true since the rpm is not the only thing determining the actual drive speed.

 

[theSeb]

To be perfectly honest I think it is you and the 6 mugs who have up voted you who are lunatics - evidently, you have more money than sense and little knowledge of what the OP was getting at - basically, he's saying the new design far from being a step forward is a step back, further, in terms of user upgrading this seems all but impossible now on the 21.5in iMac - REALLY ARE YOU GOING TO PAY APPLE TO MAX IT OUT WITH 32G RAM?

Have you actually figured out how much the top end BTO will actually cost you - you are paying for design over utility, less meaning more in Apple's book and being price gouged period.

Lets look at it this way, the top end 27in iMac from May 2011 could be upgraded at a reasonable cost to i7 - the SSD cost was huge and I'm not a fan of SSD, but the GPU upgrade was good as was the option of 2G VRAM - for all the complaints, the 27in was upgradable by the owner - hence not an issue to upgrade to 32G RAM, add SSD or add bigger HDD and SSD at a fraction of what Apple want - to top it all it had a Optic's to play/burn DVD's and many professional users of the iMac do this - I should know I sold my top end i7 for US$2000 in early June expecting a refresh and move to better graphics/Ivy Bridge.

Now, do you honestly think we should pay a US$1000 premium on top of the high end 21.5in or 27in iMac to have a decent machine that can last 3 years - a very important issue for business I can assure you.

So, whilst it looks nice, its lost a great deal - no doubt ideal for you, but as someone with a small business who likes the iMac, the prices and what you get are now crazy - indeed, its come to the point to build a hackintosh and link it up to a 30in Dell all for the cost of the top end 27in without any BTO options.

I say this as a Mac user of 20 years - I loved my iMac's, but not at this price and with so much removed/changed to make it appear slim - its a bloody desktop PC for gods sake and not a iOS toy!!!!!!!

We do not know the BTO prices of the 2012 iMacs so your entire post is pure speculation and the 2012 21.5" iMac can only be upgraded to 16 GBs. If you really need 32 GBs of RAM, then a 21.5" iMac is probably the wrong computer for you in the first place. I own a business too so you don't need to assure me of anything about capital spending on computer equipment.

Apple products are expensive and carry a premium? Well... This is certainly news to me....

 

[mzd]

5400 RPM drives are a joke in 2012. a 7200 RPM drive came with my 2007 iMac.
the only reason i can imagine apple did this is because they are dirt cheap and that way they can charge you even more in BTO upgrades to get a fusion drive.

 

[theSeb]

5400 RPM drives are a joke in 2012. a 7200 RPM drive came with my 2007 iMac.
the only reason i can imagine apple did this is because they are dirt cheap and that way they can charge you even more in BTO upgrades to get a fusion drive.

It depends. A 2012 3 TB 5400 RPM hard drive will probably be faster than a 2007 7200 RPM hard drive. People like to get stuck on numbers.

 

[rcp27]

i5: I grant it for the base model, but the remaining 3 should have i7 BTOs

They do

Give me a break. I'm an audio producer and many professional audio interfaces use FW800, others use it for storage etc. Now one is supposed to buy a converter and lose a TB port, not only that but

You know that T'bolt ports are designed to be daisy chained, right? And you have two of them. Just put your FW800 adapter at the end of the chain, and you lose nothing. BTW, what exactly is it you are intending on doing that needs so many TB ports? External storage perhaps?

(5400 rpm) Hard drives

on the 21.5", 7400 on the 27". Of course if you are using external storage on those TB ports you were getting excited about, what do you care how fast the internal drive spins at? A 7400 drive in a TB enclosure is as fast as a 7400 drive internally.

No optical drive when I expected at least a bump to Blue-ray, today I'm being forced to pay for like 80 bucks just to be able to burn my music sacrificing an USB port as well.

Did you also complain about the removal of the 3.5" drive in the original iMac? Did you notice the DVD drive being dropped from various notebooks and the mini? Did you really expect Apple to keep it in the iMac? Recall the iMac is meant to be the consumer, not pro machine.

No eSATA, Fewer USB ports. All in all no improvements on this field but a major step back.

You know that you can add USB hubs at really minimal price, right? I thought music professionals such as yourself all used FW800 devices. now it's eSATA. Or is it Thunderbolt (that you can't possibly afford to lose for a FW adaptor)?

Why limiting customization and maintenance even more? Soldered RAM, not serviceable hard drive... We yelled at Apple about it!!!

2008 called and wants its whine back.

iMacs are even farther from being "all in one" now, the price to performance ratio is also outrageous, denying entry to professional users who can't afford a Mac Pro and won't spend 3k on a 27" maxed out model.

Apple has said consistently, since Steve Jobs introduced the first G3 iMac way back when, that the iMac is its consumer model, not its professional model. Complaining that a computer specifically designed for the consumer end of the market is not suitable for the pro market is like complaining that a ferarri doesn't have enough boot space to carry a month's shopping home from the supermarket.

 

[Judas1]

A 5400 rpm drive in a desktop in 2012. Apple, you so funny.

 

[comatory]

A 5400 rpm drive in a desktop in 2012. Apple, you so funny.

Also having dual-core CPUs in retina 13" macbook is very funny, at that price. I mean couldn't they at least offer 4 cores on higher end? They dropped "Pro's" a lot of times during the keynote so who is the laptop really for?

 

[fig]

We do not know the BTO prices of the 2012 iMacs so your entire post is pure speculation and the 2012 21.5" iMac can only be upgraded to 16 GBs. If you really need 32 GBs of RAM, then a 21.5" iMac is probably the wrong computer for you in the first place. I own a business too so you don't need to assure me of anything about capital spending on computer equipment.

Apple products are expensive and carry a premium? Well... This is certainly news to me....

QFT.

And the fact that people are upset about what they can't get in a machine that we don't actually know the specific options on yet is more than humorous.

 

[theSeb]

Also having dual-core CPUs in retina 13" macbook is very funny, at that price. I mean couldn't they at least offer 4 cores on higher end? They dropped "Pro's" a lot of times during the keynote so who is the laptop really for?

Apparently only students buy the 13" MBP so it's ok. That's what a guy in the discussion area was trying to tell me based on his anecdotal evidence and limited life experience being a student in an American university.

 

[forty2j]

\Soldered RAM is only on the 21.5" model.

It looks like it isn't even soldered on the 21.5". There's just no handy way to access it. But if you wanted to dig around and replace the HDD for whatever reason, you could swap the RAM while you were in the there.

 

[theSeb]

It looks like it isn't even soldered on the 21.5". There's just no handy way to access it. But if you wanted to dig around and replace the HDD for whatever reason, you could swap the RAM while you were in the there.

Good point. I fear that the new iMac will be a lot harder to take apart though.

 

[ncaissie]

Everything you say is absolutely true, BUT...

Think how marvelous it is for it to be THINNER.

Thinner is GOD. Too bad about the actual users... THINNER!

So important for a non-portable desktop machine seen from the front.

LMAO That is so funny and my thoughts exactly.

 

[forty2j]

Good point. I fear that the new iMac will be a lot harder to take apart though.

It remains to be seen if a heat gun is involved. iFixit will let us know in a few weeks.

 

[iMacFarlane]

But when your working on the mac, you DON'T SEE the thinness, just the screen. Your argument is flawed, unless you plan on carrying your imac around like its a laptop.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

The majority of you don't need an i7 CPU. I don't think you guys realise how powerful desktop CPUs are these days, even the i5 variants. Soldered RAM is only on the 21.5" model. Apple has never been keen on having user-serviceable computers so there is nothing new there.

This is an excellent point. People waste money on i7 not realizing that a very great deal of software and I believe all current games do not run more than 4 threads of execution concurrently if they even use that many.

There are some professional applications that actually can take advantage of hyperthreading in i7 to simulate an additional 4 cores because they actually will run more than four threads if the cores are available.

Home users in particular can safely save them selves some money for better purposes by sticking to the i5. It's a much better value in many cases.

People assume the more expensive, higher numbered CPUs must be faster and better without understanding the technology costing them more and whether they really get benefit from it.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

i5: it's unethical to make profit from HT benefits when the processors costs about the same and there's no customization due from their part in any way...

No optical drive when I expected at least a bump to Blue-ray...

denying entry to professional users who can't afford a Mac Pro and won't spend 3k on a 27" maxed out model.

Screw Apple, they're evil.

Not a fan of the 21" iMac either and disappointed the mini dropped the discrete graphics even as a CTO. But...

1) Apple is a business. Their raison d'être is to make as much money as possible. There is competition out there. No one is forced to buy any Apple product. No one will die or be irreparably injured because they can't afford an Apple product. Apple will live or die on its pricing.

2) You really expected Blu-Ray from Apple? In 2012. That statement makes me wonder if you really follow Apple b/c Apple divorced itself from BD a ways back, and has been signaling optical is on the way out too.

3) A refurb MP is $1800. A 27" iMac is $2K. For pros that really isn't a lot of money for equipment used day in, day out... assuming it is in constant use making product for clients.

I think your comments are a bit overwrought.

 

[Mr Rogers]

We do not know the BTO prices of the 2012 iMacs so your entire post is pure speculation and the 2012 21.5" iMac can only be upgraded to 16 GBs. If you really need 32 GBs of RAM, then a 21.5" iMac is probably the wrong computer for you in the first place. I own a business too so you don't need to assure me of anything about capital spending on computer equipment.

Apple products are expensive and carry a premium? Well... This is certainly news to me....

Well one of us is stupid in my original post I was making reference to both the 1.5in iMac and its big brother, however, lets just price in the cost of the Fusion HDD a moment and extrapolate from there - its very expensive, i.e., in HK its nearly a HK$2000 dollar upgrade, or US$250 price actually taken from Mac Mini BTO prices today.

in numerous other posts I've highlighted the fact that the cost of a NVIDEA GTX680M, that's the 680M and not the MX, is more than US$300 higher than its peer over at AMD Radeon.

now I may not be a mathematician and have used mac products for 20 years, so it does not take a genius to fathom - what with the outrageous cost of Apple SSD upgrades, that the cost of the highest specced BTO's is going to be high indeed, and I'm not even including its 750G SSD option in my guesstimate.

Still, come middle of November we'll see who's proved right - but I'm put my money on my view given my experience with Apple since 2009 on the BTO price front.

 

[26139]

Huh?

I'm not in the market for a desktop, but the new iMac looks fantastic.

 

[Bendrix]

I don't agree with the people saying Jobs would not have done this. I think the people at Apple are carrying out his vision. He liked for things to be sealed shut and singular. There's the anecdote in his bio about how he didn't want windows in that new Apple facility. He said people would inevitably **ck a thing up if they were given the option of opening it up or if it had moving parts. I won't be surprised if Apple's future computers become more like home appliances such as TVs or toasters that you would never dream of opening up. You hire someone to do that for you, or get a new one. For some people, that's what they want for their computers too. I personally like options in a computer and I don't think I'll ever again get an Apple computer with the direction they're heading. I'd rather learn about how it works and upgrade components when necessary. TVs, fine. I'm not that invested in television. I just want to watch shows. A computer for me is more than a basic appliance.

 

[kitsunestudios]

It seems insane that the only computers Apple offers with 1GB of video ram START at $1999, and need to be upgraded to an i7. If you don't need the 27" screen (i.e. using dual monitors, or a cintiq), then there's a massive overhead. Now more than ever, you need to buy all your upgrades immediately at high prices CTO from Apple, since you can't upgrade much in the future.

3d designers, video compositors, animators and large-format image editors all benefit from CUDA and the i7, and may need to pay massive premiums to use an APple that benefits them. Gamers benefit from the faster graphics cards, and are penalized by high-rez monitors.

Apple is not price competitive in the workstation space, period. I love the stability and reliability of MacOS X, but I can't justify the 800-1000 premium for a desktop Mac anymore. Unless Apple changes their policy at some point in the next couple of years, my current iMac will probably be my last Apple desktop.