It has to be said... (about the new iMac)

[peroxidechicken]

It's just what those tablet things always needed - a stand!  

But don't get me wrong - I like it.  

[kd7ota]

Your talking about the new eMac computers right? Then ones that are white?

My school just got them this year, but yea, they are nice, but still, its a Mac.  :-D  :-)

[CodeSmith]

Definitely looks pretty good, the only disappointing bit is the amount of memory you get.  256MB on a machine with a G5 CPU?  If 256MB is cutting it close on a PPC Amiga, on a PPC BSD box with a featureful window manager and loads of eye candy it's probably not going to exactly fly.  I wonder if maybe they've done some market research and found that most people only run one program at a time? (I'm serious, judging from what I see of "everyday joes" using computers I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case)

[Hyperspeed]

I can't believe that in 6 years they sold the same amount of iMacs as
the entire Amiga range in 19 years!

What happened to those MMC designs for the old AmigaOne, the pastel
coloured games console designs that were created by some design
agency?

Why is our AmigaOne using some non-descript line of PC cases!?

Okay, the Micro AmigaOne motherboards are fantastic (if a little
expensive), but we really need external identity. iMac, iPod all
looked different.

They say "Never judge a book by it's cover" but you have to
differentiate, that's why flowers look different. To attract bees!

As for 256mb being insufficient, how can the average Amiga get away
with 16mb and live comfortably? An efficient machine shouldn't need
64mb if it's using virtual memory.

[locutus]

It has to be noted tough that you immediatly get prompted with a box which asks how much memory you want, so 256 is a _default_ setup, you can just order a iMac with 1GB memory if you want :-)

[BukkY]

:-)

[adolescent]

@locutus

Actually, you can get 2GB of memory.  :-D

@chicken

My HP tablet has a tilt and swivel stand/dock.  But, of course they are completely different things.

[JetFireDX]

I have to say that I have been waiting to see what the new iMac was going to be for a long time. (I was planning on getting a G4 one back in March but chose to wait it out) After waiting for the G5 all I can think is "underwhelming". I really find the look boring and uninspired...the "big iPod" thing really doesn't appeal to me. Also, it looks like reaching the Superdrive up high on the side would be an uncomfortable reach to do many times. The amount of RAM doesn't bother me one bit cuz I could always add plenty more. The GeForceFX5200/64meg under the hood does though. Seriously, this is the same card I have in my PC right now and it is not great. It does okay, but not spectacular, about the same as my GF4MX440 I had before only with bumpmapping. I certainly couldn't see it keeping up for several years to justify the investment in the whole system. I have been reading today a lot of people don't expect Mac users to play games, or at least not the ones who would buy an iMac. This could be true I guess, but if you give them a barely adequate video card on board and no hope to upgrade they certainly won't ever play any serious games on the Mac. Even though the price ranges of these new iMacs is great, I was prepared to spend around $2500 base on a new iMac that I wouldn't have to worry about big upgrades for a while because I expected it to be enough ahead of the curve to last me several years. Similar to what my best friend was able to do with his gen 1 iMac in '98 and then his G4 867mhz tower in 2002. I don't have the money to throw down on a G5 tower and nice Apple cinema display too. How hard would it have been to have several differnt model iMac systems with varying graphic capabilities? Then those that wanted more power could spend a bit more. Bummer... guess I will be sticking with this PC for a while.

There were a lot more pleasing mock ups people did all over the place online. A few of them really got me hoping some people had some inside information...but maybe they did, just not the ones I was hoping for I guess. Oh well, I will head to the Apple store sometime soon to see one in person and reserve final judgement until I can try it out.

Wheew! Long post on a late night.  :-D

[Robert17]

When I saw Geforce FX5200 Ultra I kinda though it was a bit inadequate too... a shame they couldn't fit an AGP/PCI-X slot into the design for expansion.

Robert

[itix]

As for 256mb being insufficient, how can the average Amiga get away
with 16mb and live comfortably?

Because an average Amiga can't do 32 bit gfx with 3D acceleration nor play 16bit audio @ 96kHz. Nor you have FireWire/USB stack on your Amiga. Oh, and you are not wasting precious ram for memory protection.

[whabang]

I love the design of that thing! Too bad aboot the rip-off price, though.

[Kronos]

@whabang
Rip-off-price ??

I must say that this is the 1st (new) Mac in the last 10 years that has bang/buck-ratio good enough to get me tempted.

The only "bad" thing is the GFX-card, but I downgraded my Athlon from GF2 to Matrox-Millenium, so I don't expect that to hurt me ... and I have a PS2 to play games.

[whabang]

Well,
I'd have to pay over 20000 SEK for a decent computer.
A PC with similar specs would cost 5k less.

[Kronos]

@whabang
Dunno bout swedish prices, exchange rates or VAT, but the base modell is 1369 Euro including german VAT.

A 17" LCD is about 300 Euro, and a x86 including WinXP is atleast 500Euro.

O.k. still cheaper, but you would have to endure XP, miss all the SW Apple bundles with the Mac, and it might be questioned if the PC has the same quality as the Mac.

The price is fair for what you get.

[whabang]

The base model is not worth very much, IMO.
1,531.79€ (Excange rates and prices from Sept 1st) for a computer with 256 Mb RAM, and an 80 Gb Hd???

Last Christmas, I paid less than 3500:- (aprox. 380€) for a full PC-system (without monitor, though) with larger HD, and more RAM.
Of course, the 1.6 GHz G5 would beat the crap out of my 2.4 GHz Celeron, but CPU isn't everything.