Hi Everyone
A little background on the reason for doing this thread. Basically, I have lurked in macrumors forums for a long time and rarely post or reply. It has been an excellent resource for making me make educational decisions in what Apple products to buy. You guys have been great in voicing out your experience and I have not done so. Also, most posts here are about problems with hardware so potential buyers usually end up with a sense of risk or refraining from buying, so I wanted to add a balance with a slightly casual thread on how well the new iMac is in my opinion.
Firstly, the bad:
The good thing about this section is that it only describes previous experiences
. At first, I hated macs. My dad had an Apple II when we I was young and we stopped using Apple machines since Windows 95 came out. The games, wider selection of software and the abundant use of it in the public and educational sectors made us not look bad. Quite frankly, I thought Windows was superior then. When XP came out, it did well at the beginning but started getting dated. I looked at Panther and Tiger and decided they were rubbish. So I used Linux.
Then came Leopard. I tried it, it was amazing. People tell me it is similar to Tiger, but I don't know, I just loved Leopard and hate Tiger. Then came the easy decision, getting a Macbook Pro. With the student discount and a free iPod and printer, it was a no brainer. Getting something superior at a cheaper price than Dell and HP for similar spec AND better build. Der Derp Derp Derp.
The main bit. iMacs where rubbish until they got the desktop processors in them (my opinion since they were over priced and had notebook hardware). So when the new 27" came out end of last year, I was the first to get it. Got a C2D with an amazing monitor on first day but the super-drive broke in a day. Stupid thing. So I decided to replace it, and went for i5 since I thought it would last me. BIG BIG mistake. The yellow tinge curse started. Keep it short, 3 replaces, same problem, some shouting, got it returned and decided to get a new iMac when the refresh comes...
Secondly, the good. Also the review:
What can I say! I went for the i7. My demands have increased since the last attempt in the iMac foray so I decided to go for something that will last then cheaper. This thing is a beast, amazing!
Firstly: the screen - Fantastic, best so far. I know my yellow tinges and this has none. It makes my Dell U2711 next to it look hideous, and that monitor is a beast. (Need to sell the Dell, one 27" alone is crazy).
Secondly: the rest - Fantastic. Very fast, very quite, very much what I want from such a grand investment (even though I get a student discount, it is a lot!). Quite HDD, super-drive works, no screen bleeding, OSX works great and the software update for the opengl performance make steam games awesome in native res maxed out with 2xAA.
Lastly: I love it. I got frustrated with the first gen iMacs and i nearly gave up on it. Clearly problems still occur, but on the same note, a lot less of it is happening. Compiling in Xcode is so much faster. I believe this is a good investment for the serious programmer who wants to cut the time to compile and be more efficient with his time. That is, if like me, your projects are big and not just uni assignments. To finish off, here is the spec:
27" i7 with 1 TB HDD and 8GB RAM (I upgraded 4 myself for £95).
As a little extra, I ran the Resident Evil 5 benchmark in windows at native res with everything up and no AA, average FPS was >50 in game benchmark and ~40 in the second benchmark. But I don't care about that, since I will be playing Halo Reach and the new FIFA 11 when they come out. I also average less than 5 hours of gaming per week atm.
A little background on the reason for doing this thread. Basically, I have lurked in macrumors forums for a long time and rarely post or reply. It has been an excellent resource for making me make educational decisions in what Apple products to buy. You guys have been great in voicing out your experience and I have not done so. Also, most posts here are about problems with hardware so potential buyers usually end up with a sense of risk or refraining from buying, so I wanted to add a balance with a slightly casual thread on how well the new iMac is in my opinion.
Firstly, the bad:
The good thing about this section is that it only describes previous experiences
. At first, I hated macs. My dad had an Apple II when we I was young and we stopped using Apple machines since Windows 95 came out. The games, wider selection of software and the abundant use of it in the public and educational sectors made us not look bad. Quite frankly, I thought Windows was superior then. When XP came out, it did well at the beginning but started getting dated. I looked at Panther and Tiger and decided they were rubbish. So I used Linux.Then came Leopard. I tried it, it was amazing. People tell me it is similar to Tiger, but I don't know, I just loved Leopard and hate Tiger. Then came the easy decision, getting a Macbook Pro. With the student discount and a free iPod and printer, it was a no brainer. Getting something superior at a cheaper price than Dell and HP for similar spec AND better build. Der Derp Derp Derp.
The main bit. iMacs where rubbish until they got the desktop processors in them (my opinion since they were over priced and had notebook hardware). So when the new 27" came out end of last year, I was the first to get it. Got a C2D with an amazing monitor on first day but the super-drive broke in a day. Stupid thing. So I decided to replace it, and went for i5 since I thought it would last me. BIG BIG mistake. The yellow tinge curse started. Keep it short, 3 replaces, same problem, some shouting, got it returned and decided to get a new iMac when the refresh comes...
Secondly, the good. Also the review
:What can I say! I went for the i7. My demands have increased since the last attempt in the iMac foray so I decided to go for something that will last then cheaper. This thing is a beast, amazing!
Firstly: the screen - Fantastic, best so far. I know my yellow tinges and this has none
. It makes my Dell U2711 next to it look hideous, and that monitor is a beast. (Need to sell the Dell, one 27" alone is crazy).Secondly: the rest - Fantastic. Very fast, very quite, very much what I want from such a grand investment (even though I get a student discount, it is a lot!). Quite HDD, super-drive works, no screen bleeding, OSX works great and the software update for the opengl performance make steam games awesome in native res maxed out with 2xAA.
Lastly: I love it. I got frustrated with the first gen iMacs and i nearly gave up on it. Clearly problems still occur, but on the same note, a lot less of it is happening. Compiling in Xcode is so much faster. I believe this is a good investment for the serious programmer who wants to cut the time to compile and be more efficient with his time. That is, if like me, your projects are big and not just uni assignments. To finish off, here is the spec:
27" i7 with 1 TB HDD and 8GB RAM (I upgraded 4 myself for £95).
As a little extra, I ran the Resident Evil 5 benchmark in windows at native res with everything up and no AA, average FPS was >50 in game benchmark and ~40 in the second benchmark. But I don't care about that, since I will be playing Halo Reach and the new FIFA 11 when they come out. I also average less than 5 hours of gaming per week atm
.