iMac 1.83Ghz 17" questions.

[EM87]

Hi again,

I am thinking of getting the bottom of the line iMac instead of a Mac mini which I originally planned to get and I have a few questions about them.

First off I am wondering what the iMac's 17" screen is like? Is it nice and bright, have good black levels, vivid colours, does not get a fuzzy look when displaying whites and what is Apples policy on dead pixels?

Is the RAM user upgradeable or is it like the mini where it is almost impossible to do it yourself? I will be getting 512Mb at first and then I will put a 1Gb chip in if it is possible.

I would also just like to here a few opinions on the iMacs as well, preferably by people who own both a mini and an iMac.

Your help would be much appreciated,
EM87

 

[EM87]

Sorry but I need to know one more thing, is it possible to put a PCI-e GPU into the basic iMac or will I be stuck with the on board graphics?

 

[imacintel]

Either way, its very difficult to upgrade any iMac(graphics card, HDD, etc). The dissasembly is complicated, and difficult. The only thing truly upgradeable in an iMac is the ram. Its the same in the Mac Mini. If you want to have a truly good GFX card, get a Mac Pro.

But, if on the other hand, you really want an iMac and don't care about upgrades, the iMac is excellent for you! The screen gives me a face tan, and it's very sharp.( I have a PowerBook now, but used to own a Core Duo. Don't ask.)

 

[mkrishnan]

But, if on the other hand, you really want an iMac and don't care about upgrades, the iMac is excellent for you! The screen gives me a face tan, and it's very sharp.( I have a PowerBook now, but used to own a Core Duo. Don't ask.)

Now we just need to get your screenname changed to pbppc.

Ahem.

Now then,

1) No, it is not possible to upgrade the iMac video card... not just not easy, but not possible without extreme h4XX0Rz skills.

2) RAM upgrade is easy and user-installable. Here are some pictures.

3) The optical and hard drives aren't officially user upgradable, and they fall into the not-easy-but-not-impossible range. Probably easier than a Mini.

4) The display I would say is on the nicer end of comparable LCDs... it's bright, the black levels are not shockingly good but also not bad. I think the brightness is excellent, and I think the color faithfulness with calibration is also excellent. I'm not sure what you mean about the white fuzziness, as I've never seen this on an LCD before and known I was seeing it. Is this something that happens with LCDs that take analog inputs? Or can you explain more what you mean by this?

5) I don't know specifically the dead pixel policy... usually, dead pixels are worst on the largest displays... so in my time of owning 2x PDAs, 1x 10.4" notebook and 1x 12" notebook, 1x 15" desktop display, and 1x 17" iMac, I've yet to get a dead pixel. My iMac had a briefly stuck pixel, but as far as I can tell right now, it's no longer stuck. At least it doesn't appear to be there anymore.... Anyway, though, I would tend to think your likelihood of dead pixels on a 17" desktop is on the low side.

This claims to detail the real Apple policy; Apple doesn't publish a specific policy that says that X pixels is enough to warrant replacement... so there's some degree of "how much will you whine" that goes into it.

 

[EM87]

Thank you both for your help.

The white fuzziness I am talking about is something that I can see on my Dell laptop where the whites don't look smooth and the just look really fuzzy.

 

[mkrishnan]

The white fuzziness I am talking about is something that I can see on my Dell laptop where the whites don't look smooth and the just look really fuzzy.

I think I let this play around in the back of my mind a bit and I think I know what you are talking about now, maybe. On most LCDs, you can sort of see the individual pixels... in the sense that there's a very subtle "gridding" to the screen that is most evident on solid, light colors. And so I could see how the gridding would make the whites look muddled. I don't think the iMac is any different than any other LCD in that regard... you see the same thing on aperture grille monitors like the old Trinitrons... most of the time it really isn't that bothersome, especially since a lot of video and photo editing doesn't involve a lot of solid white. But I do understand what you mean.

 

[EM87]

The funny thing is that I can not see it on my PC's LCD (same resolution as laptop screen) and it is a 19" WS where the laptop is a 15.4" WS, I hope that the iMac screen is as good as my PC's because I would be very happy then.

 

[K20]

The funny thing is that I can not see it on my PC's LCD (same resolution as laptop screen) and it is a 19" WS where the laptop is a 15.4" WS, I hope that the iMac screen is as good as my PC's because I would be very happy then.

Is your laptop's 15.4" WS the one with TruBrite? (or something similar)

Coming from a PC, I had a 15" LCD monitor and going to the iMac's display was very visually appealing. Looks as nice (if not better than) the TruBrite displays newer PC notebooks have in my opinion.