Apple iMac 27" 3.2GHz Core i3
Introduction
Apple have recently become known for their quality portable products, the iPhone, iPod, iPad, etc etc, but people often forget about their main customer base, and you would be forgiven for doing so, with the sheer number of people adopting apples mobile devices, however, their desktop and laptop front have been increasing strongly too.
and this is where i start this review, with one of their desktop computers, the iMac lineup has been around for some years now, as apple's all in one alternative to fiddly pc's.
apple advertise this computer as the all in one with one wire, and indeed, if you opt for the standard configuration, including the magic mouse and wireless bluetooth keyboard, there is only one wire, the power cord.
the concept for an all in one pc started a while back, when somebody at apple thought that a normal pc made a desk too cluttered, and the result, the first imac, it was a sucess, and since then apple have gone from streignth to streignth.
if you are unfamiliar with the iMac range, have a quick gander here first: www.apple.com/uk/imac
for the keyboard, see here: http://www.apple.com/uk/keyboard/
for the trackpad, see here: http://www.apple.com/uk/magictrackpad/
and for the mouse, see here: http://www.apple.com/uk/magicmouse/
Packaging
right, now, lets take a look what mr UPS man delivered
i ordered a printer with mine, simply because there was £70 off the stock price, making it nice and afordable...
do note the envelope ontop of the printer box.
opening the box, this is what we see:
and out of the box, here we have it, a box!
its a rather nice looking box though, soft cardboard, if you have ever bought a apple product you will know what i mean, if not, it has a similar feeling to photo paper.
here we have the front of the box
and here we have the side showing standard included products.
Specification
Processor: intel Core i3 3.2GHz 550
Ram: 4GB DDR3-1333 SO-DIMM
Hard Drive: Seagate 1Tb
Graphics: ATi Radeon 5670
Screen: 27" 2560x1440 with IPS
Wired keyboard
Magic mouse
Magic trackpad
Apple Remote
iSight camera
integrated mic
The contents
so, time to open the box, and here we go, how neatly packed is that, nice and safe, it would take a particually careless courier to damage the contents of this...needless to say my courier dropped the box out of the back of the van and it was indeed fine.
here we have the contents of the box removed, it includes :
a smaller box
the iMac itself
the power cable
now we come to the odd envelope....what have we here...
items added below, a disk and a book ...apple care, taken out again due to cheep price on education store...
items were sent by themselves.
opening the box, we find somthing that you would not find with a standard specification iMac, of any size or variaty, i have chosen the wired keyboard over the wireless one that could have been included
before you think i have gone completely doolally though, i do have my reasons, the wired keyboard has two powered usb ports available on it, it doesnt need its batteries changing every 3 months, and i like having a keypad on my keyboard
once that had been removed, you can clearly see my touchpad, another none-standard option, that i chose, it is essencially like a touch pad for a laptop, but it is a bit bigger, and it supports all of the gestures any of you familiar with the iphone, ipod, ipad, or macbook / macbook pro / macbook air will be familiar with, such as pinching to make smaller, or bigger, two fingers to scroll, right click by using two fingers etc etc
this attaches via bluetooth and uses two AA batteries (there was no wired alternitive available)
also in this pic, you may notice the small white package in the middle, more on this next
so, lets move this setup to the temporary desk ...the dining room table
you can see here the sheer size of the thing, you can see the trackpad, and the mysterious white package is actually the magic mouse, you can also see the remote, which was hidden away behind some instruction books in that box previous.
morrisons sausage roll anyone?
*pants* 15 minutes later and a lot of packaging removed .... (s sheet of plastic on the base, a bag over the entire machine, and two very strong, very adhesive sheets of plastic over the screen. and here we are, here it is in all its glory!
the power button is very well hidden round the back of the left hand side (as you look at it, bottom left), now asmuch as i like the sleek looks of the machine, this is rather fiddly to find, ...albeit most people wouldnt be bothered, but i figure for very neerly £1500, this should have been thought out a bit better...buttons dont have to interfear with the design, but should be atleast easy to find, for example, if the black apple logo on the front was turned into a button? wouldnt hurt? or even if they machined a touch sensor for the on button onto the front, like they machined holes in the macbook pro ....again, possible, and would have worked quite well.
here however we have the iMac's major downfall,
its conectivity,
4x usb 2
1x aux audio in
1x aux audio out
1x mini display port
1x firewire 800 port
1x gigabit eithernet port
now this is an alright lineup, however, apple with all their claims to be forward thinking, havent been very forward thinking here
usb 3 is just arround the corner, no support?
HDMI is fast becoming standard, no support?
DVI is an industry standard, no support?
this is not a good side to the new iMac,however, it does make up for it in some ways, it does have bluetooth built in as standard, this is an up side
it does have wireless 802.11n built in as standard, this is an up side too
it supports SD cards, upto 2TB (SDXC)
and it has full support for DVD and CD media, ...however disapointingly no blu-ray support, this has been mentioned in many reviews of this and other apple products, however, asmuch as i would like blu-ray is asmuch as i can live without it, the clarity of the display is incredible, and if i want blu-ray, its simple, buy a mini-display port - hdmi adapter, and hook my ps3 up, simples, as a certain fluffy critter on telly would say.
the inbuilt speakers (not pictured) run along the bottom of the screen, and they are good, they are not profesional quality, nor do they claim to be, but they are good enough quality for an average msn/internet/text document user, and they far surpass those of a typical laptop.
so, keyboard plugged in, power plugged in, on i shal turn it.
then you go through a setup process, if you've ever set up any operating system you know how mundane this can be, set time, set locaton, set an account, username, password etc etc...very simple stuff
i wont bore you with details of how to set up the OS, anyone and their dog should be able to do this with no issue
right, it is set up, so ...the sheer size and quality of that screen, its incredible:
one thing i rather like on mac OSX, is the dashboard app, showing apps, in a similar way to windows vista's sidebar:
its just a bit bloomin chilly out there...
time for some artsy pics, or as best i can using my standard 5mp camera phone....the keyboard and the trackpad are the same colour, the same height and same angle ...so they match rather well, although acording to other pics i have seen the trackpad matches the wireless keyboard even better...however...i made my choise...
the keys are hard to explain, they are almost identical to those on the macbook pro (excepting the colour)
they are very soft, it takes little effort to make a keystroke
however, they have a positive resounding feel when typing, it feels almost instinctive, its very natural
they keys feel good under the finger, however, suprisingly they are quite noisy, i imagined them to be quite quiet, however, nay.
artsy pic of the keyboard and trackpad.
the apple remote, demonstrated laying across the trackpad, this is a very handy device if you use or plan to use the iMac as an entertainment center, it is infra red, so you have to be within a certain distance, and a certain angle, but after a bit of testing, it is quite good for the angles you can use it, if your not stupid, and you use a bit of common sense, it will work from some bizare angles, ....
here we have the magic mouse, it is a very...odd looking device...apple pre-installed the batteries in both this and the trackpad, which had me confused, i was scowering through the box for some AA batteries, i eventually thought apple were tight-wads, considering the price of it, but alas, no, it was my lack of noticing that was the fault.
a quick review on the trackpad:
its a brilliant little thing, if you get used to a macbook, or a macbook pro, and you want the same experience on the desktop, here is where you look, it is a £59 optional extra, however, in this reviewers opinion, it is worth every penny, it is a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant device, it clicks, it scrolls, it right clicks, it does everything you could need it to, and if your getting just a bit bored of your normal boring old mouse, its a brilliant idea for an upgrade, ...if you want further information, scroll back to the introduction, i posted a link to its official page.
the magic mouse deserves its own review really, but i shal sum it up here, its a cracking little mouse, its rather brilliant...
when i first started using it, i couldnt get used to it, it felt too small in my hand (odd, considering i have rather small hands anyway) but it didnt feel quite right, however, after a bit of use, it feels more comfortable, and the touch sensors are actually brilliant, it has the same swiping technology as the trackpad, and the ipod, iphone etc as mentioned earlier...if you want to scroll, just go to scroll asif there was a scroll wheel, and it will scroll, if you want to go back and forth through pages in firefox, easy peasy, two finger swipe, ....its a brilliant little thing, it also does the bog standard left, and right click.
here is a list of the standard applications installed as standard, excepting firefox, that is my adition as soon as i got it, first things first and all
good god how small does that look on this screen!!
a bit over stretched?
the quality of this screen just wont come through in photo's, its so bright, its so vibrent, its so clear, and its simply gorgeous ....if i hadnt just paid in the region of £1500, i would be licking it, it looks so good
played around with some different desktop options, here is a snow leopard, ....after the name of the OS
settled for a pic ive had for a while, off my old external drive, its the only one on the entire drive of the resolution of that massive screen
Conclusion
This is a brilliant package, an all in one pc, with a 27" moniter, for little more than the moniter is worth by itself
the advantage of mac OSX, no viruses, no spyware etc etc are all here
the programs available for mac are growing all the time
the innovations in some of the devices to go with the iMac are brilliant
and after owning it for 5 hours i can honestly say...i like it
so, to sum up:
Pro's
- Brilliant Screen
- Decent hardware power
- very neat and tidy (if you choose the wireless keyboard)
- decent quality inbuilt speakers
- good quality iSight camera
- Good quality microphone
- really smart style and design
- no viruses/spyware with it being mac osx
- so simple to use even your granny could do it
- very very quiet under normal use
Alright's
- Not a bad selection of ports
- a bit pricy (but worth it)
- no wired trackpad, or magic mouse (i see it as a con, but others may be alright with it, so compromise)
- power cable a bit short
- seems to run a bit warm
- bigger than HD quality screen, so HD 1080p would have to be scaled up to fit
Con's
- Abysmal lack of modern ports (USB3/HDMI/DVI)
- lack of some windows programs yet making the jump to OSX
- neck ache from having to look at so many angles?
any questions, or anything anyone wants me to add, picture etc etc?
