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iMac Idea

I

imacintel

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 12, 2006
1,581
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iMac is very light for a desktop. 15.2 lbs. It is almost-well...portable. I thinkit could be used as a portable desktop. Maybe Apple could think about putting a battery in the iMac, and while being plugged in to a power source, charge it? Any thoughts?:)
 
imacintel said:
iMac is very light for a desktop. 15.2 lbs. It is almost-well...portable. I thinkit could be used as a portable desktop. Maybe Apple could think about putting a battery in the iMac, and while being plugged in to a power source, charge it? Any thoughts?:)
Click to expand...

Dell has a 19lb "portable" with a 21" screen and can run off of a battery. It has a built in handle, removable mouse and keyboard, and looks sorta cool, but definitely not apple-esque. I don't think there's much of a market for this...that's just me though.
 
Interesting idea.

I'd be worried about lugging around a keyboard and mouse, but if they were wireless it wouldn't be too bad. And also that LCD screen is going to be pretty vulnerable during transportation. It may need some kind of screen cover if you were to be carrying it around a lot.

I think it's great that apple's computers are usually fairly portable so that when you have to move, or put it in a different room, it's a painless task.

As for a battery in the iMac... I don't know. It seems like the macbook and macbook pro do the same thing in a much better way... But sure, if it were just an added feature, I bet some people would take advantage of it. :)
 
The battery would not weight nothing! It would have to weigh a lot more than a standard notbook battery too to give it reasonable life (remember the components in an iMac like the harddrive are not laptop ones: they draw a lot more power).

Would it still be so attractive with say, the weight (and size) of 3 MacBook Pro batteries added?
 
15.2 LBS is pretty damn heavy to lug around, not to mention the addition of massive batteries to add another 5-7 LBS to it. 20+ LBS is NOT portable.
 
robbieduncan said:
The battery would not weight nothing! It would have to weigh a lot more than a standard notbook battery too to give it reasonable life (remember the components in an iMac like the harddrive are not laptop ones: they draw a lot more power).

Would it still be so attractive with say, the weight (and size) of 3 MacBook Pro batteries added?
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Exactly agree I havent weighed the battery on my 17'' MBP but I imagine that it must make up at least 10% of the weight I have taken it out and it is a beast.
 
It's a good idea, but if you want portabilityy the imac won't do it. sure, 15.2 lbs. is light when compared to other desktops, but how many PC owners with these "super giant" 15 lbs. + laptops do you know? Quite frankly, I think the imac's shape makes it harder to carry around. Even the mac mini can be a pain in the rear to move around.
 
How would an external battery be any different than an internal battery? You'd still have to haul that freaking car battery around with you.
 
If it's an external battery then I'm sure you can get one already. Basically you are talking about a UPS: it sits inbetween the power socket in the wall and the computer and supplies power in the event of a loss of supply. These exist!
 
Being that there is only one cable to plug into the wall when moving an iMac, I don't think a battery is neccessary. Although, it's an interesting idea. I would use the iMac as is as a portable desktop anyhow. I love that sort of concept. :)
 
Portable PowerMac

When I first got my PowerMac, I used to lug it back and forth to my recording studio everyday. I always had the fear of it getting messed up, but it withstood the rigors of travel quite well. I would have loved something the weight of an iMac to have carried around instead, but what would be the advantage of an iMac over a MacBook Pro, except a bigger screen and a larger hard drive? You can't expand either, plus you would have to carry around the keyboard and mouse.
 
robbieduncan said:
The battery would not weight nothing! It would have to weigh a lot more than a standard notbook battery too to give it reasonable life (remember the components in an iMac like the harddrive are not laptop ones: they draw a lot more power).

Would it still be so attractive with say, the weight (and size) of 3 MacBook Pro batteries added?
Click to expand...

What are you talking about?
Processor: Same as MB.
Graphics: Same as MBP.
RAM: Same as MB/MBP.
HDD: Spins at 7.200 rpm., but makes no difference really.
Display: Same pixel amout as MBP, and you can adjust the brightness.
Keyboard and mouse: It would have to power them through USB or have Bluetooth turned on, but since the MBP is capable of powering a backlit keyboard and built-in trackad, it shoud do just fine.

There is no facts in your claim. The iMac will do fine in battery life. If you added a 100 Wh battery, that would last for like 7 hours, and wouldn't weigh much extra. It would be a great idea, but Apple won't do it, since it's a desktop.
 
Josias said:
What are you talking about?
Processor: Same as MB.
Graphics: Same as MBP.
RAM: Same as MB/MBP.
HDD: Spins at 7.200 rpm., but makes no difference really.
Display: Same pixel amout as MBP, and you can adjust the brightness.
Keyboard and mouse: It would have to power them through USB or have Bluetooth turned on, but since the MBP is capable of powering a backlit keyboard and built-in trackad, it shoud do just fine.

There is no facts in your claim. The iMac will do fine in battery life. If you added a 100 Wh battery, that would last for like 7 hours, and wouldn't weigh much extra. It would be a great idea, but Apple won't do it, since it's a desktop.
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Um... Logic Board is different and the HDD is not the same get it right... Its a much bigger HDD and works differently then a laptop HDD, also the Monitor maybe be about the same pixel's but it also may be brighter... and the fans that keep the CPU cool run much more frequently in the Imac in comparsion to the MBP.
 
bbrosemer said:
Um... Logic Board is different and the HDD is not the same get it right... Its a much bigger HDD and works differently then a laptop HDD, also the Monitor maybe be about the same pixel's but it also may be brighter... and the fans that keep the CPU cool run much more frequently in the Imac in comparsion to the MBP.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? Do your f*ckin' research. The logicboard doens't consume more power, the HDD will at an extremely rarely rate spin at 7.200 rpm. Only when you game alot watch movies. The screen, has the same amount of pixels to power up, and for one, the iMacs screen is not brighter, and second, if it was, it could be adjusted. God! Think!!!
 
Josias said:
What are you talking about? Do your f*ckin' research. The logicboard doens't consume more power, the HDD will at an extremely rarely rate spin at 7.200 rpm. Only when you game alot watch movies. The screen, has the same amount of pixels to power up, and for one, the iMacs screen is not brighter, and second, if it was, it could be adjusted. God! Think!!!
Click to expand...

RPM of the drive is not this only consideration for this component. iMacs use 3.5" HDDs. Laptops use 2.5" HDDs. The size of the spinning platters is much larger in a 3.5" drive (about 1" larger). This consumes more power. Also as 3.5" drives are used in desktops where power usage is not a concern their control electronics and access strategy paterns are significantly different leading to higher power usage.

Moving on to the CPU: yes they the same. The RAM is the same on the current revision. The logic boards are NOT the same. Whilst they have the same Intel core logic chipset this does not mean they are the same. The iMac board is different, and as it's a desktop is likely to consumer more power to get slightly better performance.

The displays are very different. Pixel count is not the issue here. Total size and brightness are the issue. A larger backlight for a larger screen consumes more power regardless of the number of pixels. Add in a brighter backlight consuming more power and it's clear this is a significant drain on power.

To give an illustration of the differences between an optimised mobile platform and a desktop one:
A 17" MBP has an 85W power supply that can power the machine AND charge the battery at once
An Intel Mac Mini has a 110W power supply with no battery to charge (and no screen to power)
An Intel iMac has (according to Apple) a maximum power draw of 180W (almost twice a MBP) with no battery to charge.

Still think I'm so far off?
 
Sorry to jump in here, but isn't the motherboard in the iMac a laptop board? I heard that somewhere. If that is the case, then I would assume it's the same as the MacBook Pro's.
 
3.5" hard drives use approximately 4 times as much power as 2.5" hard drives when active, and in addition to that, the 3.5" hard drives have less advanced power saving methods. I read this in a Fujitsu (I think) pdf on advantages of using 2.5" hard drives for RAID storage solutions.
 
robbieduncan said:
RPM of the drive is not this only consideration for this component. iMacs use 3.5" HDDs. Laptops use 2.5" HDDs. The size of the spinning platters is much larger in a 3.5" drive (about 1" larger). This consumes more power. Also as 3.5" drives are used in desktops where power usage is not a concern their control electronics and access strategy paterns are significantly different leading to higher power usage.

Moving on to the CPU: yes they the same. The RAM is the same on the current revision. The logic boards are NOT the same. Whilst they have the same Intel core logic chipset this does not mean they are the same. The iMac board is different, and as it's a desktop is likely to consumer more power to get slightly better performance.

The displays are very different. Pixel count is not the issue here. Total size and brightness are the issue. A larger backlight for a larger screen consumes more power regardless of the number of pixels. Add in a brighter backlight consuming more power and it's clear this is a significant drain on power.

To give an illustration of the differences between an optimised mobile platform and a desktop one:
A 17" MBP has an 85W power supply that can power the machine AND charge the battery at once
An Intel Mac Mini has a 110W power supply with no battery to charge (and no screen to power)
An Intel iMac has (according to Apple) a maximum power draw of 180W (almost twice a MBP) with no battery to charge.

Still think I'm so far off?
Click to expand...

You are right, the size of the backlight, yet as said, brightness can be adjusted, so it won't draw much more power. The logicboard won't consume a vast amount of power compared to the MBP. You are also right that the HDD's consume more power due to the extra 1". All together, these small things do not make a vast difference though, and putting a larger battery in the iMac (for instance 120 W, which is possible), will make it operable for quite a long time.

You point out, that the desktops consume more power than the laptops. This is explained here.
 
Josias said:
You point out, that the desktops consume more power than the laptops. This is explained here.
Click to expand...

Apple do not say the iMac has a 180W power supply. They say that it was a maximum continuous power draw of 180W. This means that under certain conditions the iMac can and will draw a whole 180W of power. This almost certainly means that the power supply is rated higher than 180W.
 
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