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iMac the black sheep?

vand0576

vand0576

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 11, 2006
61
0
saint paul, mn
I am a current MS-PC user and am quite fed up. My last computer, a Gateway notebook, crashed on me an upwards of 8-9 times throughout the three-year warranty (thank God I had the warranty). I have been reading this site for months now, (as well as appleinsider, thinksecret, macobserver, and macworld.co.uk) anticipating my purchase of a mac.

I have decided that I will opt NOT to get a notebook computer this time around because I never really carried my old on around like I thought I should have. I also want the added HDD space and a larger screen.

I have thus narrowed it down to getting a 20" iMac. It seems through reading the forums here that most people on the site either have a MacBook or MacBook Pro, without nary a mention as to people who have an iMac. Why is this so? I thought this was supposed to be thier flagship model? Where are all the people that own iMacs?

I notice a lot of people saying how it is a "consumer-end desktop" and I realize it is, but people say it with such a negative connotation that it is implied to be incapable or something. The rumor of the new mac mini is even drawing more attention than the iMac should.

I don't need a Mac Pro by any measure or scale, it's too expensive and does not have a screen. The Mac Mini, isn't expandable enough, and then again I am left with the question of a monitor. It seems to me that the iMac is just right for me.

Why does no one seem to love or prefer the iMac? :confused:
 
I have a 20" iMac and love it. Whether it's what would suit you best is another matter of course.
 
i think the imacs are great, and i think you'll find most people here do. the imacs just havent been getting alot of attention because the mac pro was just released and the macbooks and macbook pros are really a hot ticket right now, being vastly different than the powerbooks and ibooks they replaced. there are lots of people here that LOVE their imacs and i wouldnt hesitate to get one if i were you. i would have gotten an imac instead of my macbook, but i dont have a proper desk, so i need a "portable".
 
A lot of people own the iMac.....but.....there is nothing wrong with the iMac. In other words there is nothing to write about because it works perfectly fine. The MBP and MB's have been giving people fits so you hear about them a whole lot more.
 
macdaddy121 is right. It's a perfect of example of not hearing about it when nothing's wrong.

My iMac has been almost perfect but I'm going to mention a problem I have, just to make the iMacs not feel left out.

It has a problem with the airport card ... when using WPA encryption it drops 20% of the TCP packets, hence internet connect is slow. It's not OS specific since exactly the same thing happens with XP in bootcamp (the only reason I installed XP with bootcamp) and it's not a router problem since my wife's MacBook or my Dell laptop are fine (incidentally, the MacBook has had no problems, but the Dell sucks - to heavy to be portable, slow despite it's 2.26GHz P-M, hot, whiny, fan noise, light bleeding along the bottom of the LCD, takes 5 minutes to boot AND shut down, and disconnecting OR connecting external keyboard makes it think the Shift key is pressed - if I'd bought it myself rather than getting it from work, I would have been pissed.)
 
I love my iMac(s!)

I've owned G3, G4 and G5 iMacs, and loved them all. I am still using my G4 at work, and have a 20" G5 at home which also serves as my TV, DVD player and hi-fi. Brilliant machine, can't fault it. It's plenty powerful enough as well, encodes video, runs photoshop no hassle etc. People seem to be forgetting at the moment with this consumer/pro agrgument that iMacs can do everything that the pro machines can do, you just have to be a bit more patient. I wouldn't swap mine for any other machine. Go for it!
 
My mom has had her iMac g5 for an year now. I convinced her to switch and she hasn't had one problem with it since. My cousin also uses it daily and loves it. They are really the best desktop out of the box. You plug it in and go. It set itself up on the wi-fi network via Airport Express like it was nothing.

Get one.
 
If I was in the market for a desktop, I'd get an iMac. I'm just waiting for my family's desktop PC to burn out, then my dad can take the external monitor to his work (he still has one of those bulky CRT's) and then I will get them an iMac because it's simple, it looks nice, if something goes wrong the people at Apple will fix it, and my family doesn't upgrade the computer in any way, so if I max it out initially it can last 8 years or something.

It's a really nice computer, I think.
 
I would also like to mention that the iMac G5's were updated right before the iMac Intels were released. This was the iSight update. There may be quite a few people who bought these and did not want to get another new iMac so soon. iBooks/PowerBooks to MacBooks/MacBook Pros did not receive such an upgrade and quite frankly were very far behind in upgrades compared to the iMacs.....
 
calculus said:
I have a 20" iMac and love it. Whether it's what would suit you best is another matter of course.
Click to expand...

It seems like the right machine. I plan on maxing it out to the fullest too. 2GB Ram, 500GB HDD, 256MB V-RAM (cheap upgrade with student discount). I want to do everything I couldn't do with my MS-PC: Rip and Burn DVD content (for home movies of course, nothing illegal ;) ), search the web, run mathematica, word processors, edit graphics, BT downloading... OK so I could do some of that stuff with my sh*tty gateway, I just want to be able to do it better.

I just have two gripes about the iMac.

1) The price seems a bit high with all the upgrades as compared to a comparable windows machine (a comparison I would not have made had not Apple themselves done it at WWDC06 with MacPro)

2) I really wish for them to upgrade it to a Conroe, that frontside bus is incredible.

These gripes might very well be taken care of soon, as I am waiting for the next update to buy iMac. Hopefully by MacExpo.
 
plinden said:
... when using WPA encryption it drops 20% of the TCP packets, hence internet connect is slow. It's not OS specific since exactly the same thing happens with XP in bootcamp (the only reason I installed XP with bootcamp) and it's not a router problem since my wife's MacBook or my Dell laptop are fine (incidentally, the MacBook has had no problems, but the Dell sucks - to heavy to be portable, slow despite it's 2.26GHz P-M, hot, whiny, fan noise, light bleeding along the bottom of the LCD, takes 5 minutes to boot AND shut down, and disconnecting OR connecting external keyboard makes it think the Shift key is pressed - if I'd bought it myself rather than getting it from work, I would have been pissed.)
Click to expand...

I know that the higher the encryption is on a wifi network, the slower the service will be. I have never seen much of a purpose in using anything more than WEP 64-bit. I have tried 128 and it slowed it down a bit, so went back. I never fussed with WPA, because it was such a hassle (ok so i was using windows, uggh)
 
Jovian9 said:
I would also like to mention that the iMac G5's were updated right before the iMac Intels were released. This was the iSight update. There may be quite a few people who bought these and did not want to get another new iMac so soon. iBooks/PowerBooks to MacBooks/MacBook Pros did not receive such an upgrade and quite frankly were very far behind in upgrades compared to the iMacs.....
Click to expand...

Thanks, that puts things into better perspective.
 
vand0576 said:
I just have two gripes about the iMac.

1) The price seems a bit high with all the upgrades as compared to a comparable windows machine (a comparison I would not have made had not Apple themselves done it at WWDC06 with MacPro)

2) I really wish for them to upgrade it to a Conroe, that frontside bus is incredible.

These gripes might very well be taken care of soon, as I am waiting for the next update to buy iMac. Hopefully by MacExpo.
Click to expand...

1) Apple ram prices are historically high, just upgrade the ram from another source (it's as simple as pie to put in yourself). The 500GB HD is not worth it it my opinion. For the same cost as the upgrade you can buy a 500GB Mybook External Firewire HD - giving you 750gb

2) They probably will upgrade to memron as they are laptop chip inside the iMac, chances are before the end of the year.
 
your just hearing that everybody has a macbook/macbook pro becuase their is so much hipe about Merom. If i had the space for one i would buy one in a second iMac that is
 
Clydefrog said:
your just hearing that everybody has a macbook/macbook pro becuase their is so much hipe about Merom. If i had the space for one i would buy one in a second iMac that is
Click to expand...

Plus everyone has to convince themselves that they made the best possible purchase. Some people do it by hating on other products. But people who have iMacs love them. I love mine. :)
 
MacRumorUser said:
1) Apple ram prices are historically high, just upgrade the ram from another source (it's as simple as pie to put in yourself). The 500GB HD is not worth it it my opinion. For the same cost as the upgrade you can buy a 500GB Mybook External Firewire HD - giving you 750gb

2) They probably will upgrade to memron as they are laptop chip inside the iMac, chances are before the end of the year.
Click to expand...

Is there anything special or different about the RAM installed by Apple that is worth paying them to do it? If I were to purchase RAM on my own which would you suggest?
 
vand0576 said:
I am a current MS-PC user and am quite fed up. My last computer, a Gateway notebook, crashed on me an upwards of 8-9 times throughout the three-year warranty (thank God I had the warranty). I have been reading this site for months now, (as well as appleinsider, thinksecret, macobserver, and macworld.co.uk) anticipating my purchase of a mac.

I have decided that I will opt NOT to get a notebook computer this time around because I never really carried my old on around like I thought I should have. I also want the added HDD space and a larger screen.

I have thus narrowed it down to getting a 20" iMac. It seems through reading the forums here that most people on the site either have a MacBook or MacBook Pro, without nary a mention as to people who have an iMac. Why is this so? I thought this was supposed to be thier flagship model? Where are all the people that own iMacs?

I notice a lot of people saying how it is a "consumer-end desktop" and I realize it is, but people say it with such a negative connotation that it is implied to be incapable or something. The rumor of the new mac mini is even drawing more attention than the iMac should.

I don't need a Mac Pro by any measure or scale, it's too expensive and does not have a screen. The Mac Mini, isn't expandable enough, and then again I am left with the question of a monitor. It seems to me that the iMac is just right for me.

Why does no one seem to love or prefer the iMac? :confused:
Click to expand...

I have a 20" iMac, 2GB RAM, 250GB HD, 256MB VRAM, and I LOVE it. Hands down the BEST computer I've ever owned.

You have to understand that there was a LOT of demand for an X86 laptop from Apple, since the old PPC iBooks and (particularly) the Powerbooks were so underpowered compared to Windows machines. Consequently, a lot of people bought MBPs and MBs. Conversely, the G5 iMacs were not too shabby, and there wasn't as much demand. I was replacing a G3 iMac so it was perfect timing for me. I think this may be why there are so many more MBP/MB owners.

But my iMac is GREAT.
 
I’ve been thoroughly happy with my iMac G5 (iSignt) since I purchased it in January. It replaced a homebuilt Windows PC that I was never totally happy with.

I have upgraded my RAM with a 3rd party product and so far it has worked just fine. I also have an external hard drive so that took care of the storage space issue as well…
 
vand0576 said:
Is there anything special or different about the RAM installed by Apple that is worth paying them to do it? If I were to purchase RAM on my own which would you suggest?
Click to expand...

In an odd twist, when I bought my iMac, it was actually cheaper to buy the RAM from Apple than from any other source. First time I had ever seen that happen.
 
I agree with other poster's above. I've had my G5 iMac for almost a year and it's given me zero problems since it was first turned on.

It's just simply a fantastic machine!
 
Imacs are great. I just think they are neglected a little on here people either want portability ala Macbook or MacbookPro or they jump straight to the high end with Mac Pro. I came close to buying a Imac instead of a Mini but I already had a screen, keyboard etc but I had a play with an Imac I think they are great especially the 20"
 
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