20" VS 24" (from someone whose used both in their home)

[bluedoggiant]

I am basically confirming the the obvious, the 24" is the obvious way to go if screen estate is your issue, or a 20" +monitor.

As far as quality, the 24" iMac S-IPS panel views much more colors, and its much more vivid (before i calibrated the 24" imac last night, now that ive done so with the Spyder2PRO, it beats the 20" imac in every way) but on topic the 20" iMacs TN panel is a really big put down, and the viewing angle actually wasn't as bad as I've posted before, aparantly, one of the panel's apple includes in the 20" imac isnt really horrid, and we got lucky, but some panels have really bad viewing angles, but I can tell you, the 20" imac on the default aurora wallpaper wasn't as pretty as the 24", even in same lighting, some areas of the screen were washed out on the 20". But to my surprise, the 20" imac didn't feel small after 4 months of me using my 24" imac (20" is my dad's office computer at work), the 20" imac was very spacey, and well, HUGE, it seemed much smaller at the apple store, i can almost see no difference between the 20" and 24", both have nice big screens, and im comforable with both. So if thats your issue, the 20" isnt "that" bad, making its issue "untrue" color, and maybe the bad viewing angle.

either way, they are both nice imacs, the 20" imac has 1gb of ram unfortunately, mine has 2gb (it says 4gb in the sig cuz i ordered 4gb), and well i didn't really see a difference, i guess its cuz we ran software update, installed omnifocus, bento, and iwork onto it, today it left for my dads office at work, and the 2.4GHz was very speedy, so maybe the extra bucks for the 2.8 may not be worth it, but if you do video encoding a lot (not necessary huge projects), or if you have tight schedules (like me), quick encodes can be done to large projects.

 

[Muncher]

Yeah, I definitely have a viewing angle problem with my 20". If the top of the screen is at my eye level, the bottom will look distorted. [NOTE: For all you prospective 20" iMac buyers, wait for the next revision! If they don't change it then, it's not that bad of a problem.]

 

[rolex54]

i would definitely get the 24in
its just so nice to have that much screen real estate

 

[ryannel2003]

The 24" definitely has a much nicer screen, and the colors are much better. However, it'd be overkill for somebody to get one if all they do is basic web browsing or e-mail. The 20" is a great little computer, and they are a bargain at $1199. If Apple could create a 17" model and sell it for $999, it'd be a even better seller. Some people (like myself) don't need the extra 3" of screen.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

If Apple could create a 17" model and sell it for $999, it'd be a even better seller.

If that were true, they wouldn't have ditched the 17" in the first place.

 

[ryannel2003]

If that were true, they wouldn't have ditched the 17" in the first place.

From what I understood, the 17" was just as expensive as the 20" to produce. If Apple made the 20" under $1000 then it wouldn't be an issue. However, there are those people who really want a machine under $1000 and don't need the larger HD, dedicated graphics, SuperDrive, but want an all in one machine. I'm one of those people, and right now Apple doesn't have a machine that I could purchase brand new without all those other features.

Plus, people go ga-ga over the Aluminum for reason and a 17" Alu. would probably be a bigger seller than the white model was.

 

[hankolerd]

I move my iMac around a lot. so I am glad to have the 20" over the 24", sheds a couple pounds, which makes a big difference after .5 mile. Though, I have played with the 24", and if you can afford it, and you don't plan to move it that often, it definitely is a little nicer. And if you plan to watch movies on it you will never regret the larger screen.