New Workspace Setup and Apple 24″ iMac Review
Old Powerbook Setup:
New 24” iMac Setup
Well, it’s that time of year again; NEW HARDWARE TIME!! My old 12” Powerbook G4 was aging quite a bit, though it lasted me 3 great years with almost zero problems (or reinstalls for that matter).
So I sprung out and got a 24” iMac Core 2 Duo. I bought it refurbished from the Apple site so I ended up getting it for $1699 which came to $2001 with tax. Here are the specs:
- CPU: 64bit 2.16Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2MB L2 Cache per core
- RAM: 1GB (single DIMM) of PC-5300, 667Mhz DDR-II RAM. (I’ve upgrade to 2GB)
- HD: SATA 7200RPM 160GB HD.
- Display: 24” GORGEOUS Apple LCD with up to 1920×1200 Resolution
- Video: NVIDIA 7300GT w/ 128MB RAM
- Optical: 8x Dual-Layer DVD-RW SuperDrive
- Build in iSight
- Magnetic Side-mounted front row remote
- 24w amplified stereo sound
Ports:
- 3 x USB 2.0
- 1 x FW 400
- 1 x FW 800
- Mini-DVI
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Analog/Digital Sounds in and out
The 24” iMac’s Speed
CPU
This is quite a relative subject; Case in point being that my point of reference was a 1.33Ghz G4 Powerbook. But none-the-less, the thing is QUITE fast. I usually have A LOT of things open at a given time and don’t tend to reboot my machine for weeks/months. Having run this setup for a few weeks it hasn’t slowed down a bit. I usually Firefox with 20-30 tabs open, TextMate, Mail, iChat AV, iTunes, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, SmartSVN, 2-5 PDF’s open, Quicktime, Transmit, YoJimbo, 6-10 Terminal windows and Parallels open at any given time. With all that I’m usually at 90-95% idle most of the time. Even when I’m doing a DVD rip (personal backup of home movie of course), an h.264 encoding and compressing 2GB worth of files I go to around 50% CPU utilization. That’s 50% of each core working.
RAM
I’d say where the slowdown comes in is with RAM. If you have a lot of windows open, especially for a long period of time things can chhuuuuuggggg alllooonnnggg. You’ll find this out all while seeing the CPU being 99% idle and think WTF. I found this out quite quick as I use VirtueDesktop and run around 8 different desktops plus span to my external 20” dell widescreen. I then upgraded to 2GB of RAM and it was a day and night improvement. Now everything is in RAM instead of the hard drive being paged and it stays fast no matter what I do.
Booting
The 24” iMac boots and shuts down VERY fast as well, around 18-20 seconds on average for both.
The Design
Design, The Stand and Noise
This being of course what Apple is known for, there isn’t much to complain about here. Though it is a big piece, it doesn’t weight too much (around 25lbs) and it’ll fit in almost any workspace. Its great that in the box you get, all it comes with is the Booklets/CD’s, Keyboard/Mouse and power cord! Plug in 3 things and you’re ready to go.
The stand is very sturdy as well and allows for easy up/down tilt of the enormous monitor. The magnetic attachment for the front row remote is genius as well. Also in the stand is a hole about 2-3 inches in diameter for you to pull all the cables through so you don’t see any hanging cables from the front side.
As for noise of the system, it is VERY quite compared to many PC’s and Macs I’ve used; you can barely hear it even when doing CPU intensive tasks.
The Display and Monitor
Display
If you’re looking at buying the 24” iMac, one reason is obviously the screen size you get. I do a lot of multitasking and need the screen space and boy did I get it with this. Even if I didn’t have VirtueDesktops and the extra Dell 20” widescreen there is plenty of space with the 1920×1200 res to do most of what you need, especially side-by-side editing or working with large images.
NVIDIA Graphics
The NVIDIA 7300GT is quite nice with it, though if you’re a gamer you should opt for the 7600GT upgrade with 256MB RAM as it goes yield about 50% greater performance (in most tests). Though I’m not a big gamer, the few games I have played on it so far have run flawless (Quake 4, Doom 3 etc).
Display Bugs
The only con about the display is a very strange bug. One of the things Apple brags about with the 24” iMac is that its 43% brighter, which it is, but what I’ve found is that if you turn down the brightness (it could be very alarming to some people), you’ll experience a subtle but VERY annoying vibration coming from it. After some research thinking I got a defective model, I’ve found many people have this issue. Apparently it is tied to apple using some cheap power converter hardware that causes this noise/vibration from the inside if you turn down the screen brightness. So if this is an issue for you then you might want to check it out for yourself. From what I hear the “newer” models being made don’t have this issue. But I love the screen at full brightness so it’s not an issue for me. You also only notice it in very quite rooms.
Other Things
Sound
They also boast about 24watt amplified sound with the 24” iMac. You can turn it up quite loud and the sound is of decent quality. But once think is that they’ve mounted the stereo speakers on the bottom of the iMac and the sound basically hits your desk and bounces off, this might annoy some audiophiles out there. But if you are an audiophile you probably have an external speak setup ready to hook up to the iMac anyway so it most likely won’t be an issue. One thing I wish it had is USB and Headphone jacks closer to the front.
Front Row
Front row is great, seriously I love this feature. I basically have a 24” flat panel LCD TV to watch my movies, view pictures or listen to my music library which I can control from across the room. The interface is flawless as well. If you haven’t experience front row yet I suggest you visit your local Apple store ASAP!
iSight
I also never knew how much I really needed a webcam, but now with iSight built right in I’ve been so productive with the SugarStats.com team it’s ridiculous. You almost don’t need meeting rooms anymore, just pop onto iChat AV, Skype, Yahoo! IM etc and you’ve go free 2day Video/Audio conferencing.
Verdict
I give it 9 out of 10 definitely. Besides the sound bug this is a perfect computer system. It’s fast, affordable (relatively) and quite multipurpose. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for an all around good, complete and powerful computer system.
My Complete Setup
So my complete setup now consists of:
- 24” iMac: 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, 2.16Ghz Core 2 Duo, iSight, 8x DL SuperDrive
- 20” Dell Widescreen to the right with screen expansion via mini-DVI out.
- 12” 1.33Ghz Powerbook for mobile computing
- 2.1 Logitech speaker setup
- Dual 250GB FW External HD setup in software RAID 1
- Logitech S 530 Mac Keyboard/Mouse Combo
- Canon MP780 Multifunction SOHO printer
- Canon SD630 3” 6MP Point and Shoot
- And a nifty 30GB White Video Ipod to top it off.
Over all a very effective and productive setup for work and play.
.
Posted on January 17, 2007
Filed Under Apple, Business, Daily Thoughts, Entertainment, Hardware, Mobile Tech, Productivity, Quotes, Ranting, Startup, SugarStats, Tech, Travel, Web
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I'm Marston and here you'll find my rantings, rhetoric and other useful info. I dig tech, photography, quantum physics and organic food. I'm the founder of SugarStats.com and thats my days developing.
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