Um, is the Imac nothing but a monitor?

Really now?

 

What? Where is this coming from?

 

All that the imac shows on the apple store is a monitor...

 

HAHA...

It's an all in one. I'm surprised you didn't know that. The designs changed from the horrible original imac, but yeah.. the Imac has always been an all in one. It has laptop internals.

 

The iMac is an "all in one" box, i.e. the monitor, CPU & drive(s) are all housed in one unit, similar to the first Macs from way back in the day.

 

I remember seeing glass keyboards, glass mice, where would these things be available?

I saw them when I went in a apple store :-X

 

glass keyboards and mice? You mean the clear plastic keyboards and mice? Those come with them. You can buy them from apple.

 

The dome, sir... The dome under the monitor...... in the older ones...
And the thick, bulky lcd, in it's latest incarnation.. Tho the older pedestal design was better....

 

How is the original keyboard and mouse, fast enough?

I'm not looking to switch over, but for a new thing.

I've always wanted a mac, but never got one...

What would be a fast mouse to use?

Also, my vista machines no longer like my ipod. Can't exactly use it anymore all that well...

 

Hrm? The old design was terrible.

The new one is nice. It's just a bit larger than a normal lcd monitor.

I think they're neat. I use them in one of our labs.

too bad apple doesn't make a computer like the Mac Pro, but without the xeons.

 

What do you mean fast mouse?

You can use whatever mouse you want to.

 

I mean fast as in high dpi. I'm currently used to a g5 which blazes at 2000 dpi via laser.

BTW, I did sorta realize that it was a all in one, my question was mainly, was there some kind of desktop attachment they were hiding, or was it just a monitor?

Because if its just a monitor then that is very... nice.

 

As said, everything is housed inside the monitor. You just add a keyboard and a mouse; you might use bluetooth kb and mouse so no strings clutter your desk. The design of the iMac is hard to beat indeed.

 

I kinda liked the dome-under-lcd design.. It looked futuristic, was space saving, and got those envious looks that you usually get when with a really cute girl...

Only Gripe with Macs has been their upgradibility(or lack of it, rather)

You can use your current mouse, if you aren't happy with the stock.. Or is it a question of not spiling the aesthetics?

 

I'm currently using my stock, I'd need another mouse :-X

 

So which would be the best Imac to get?

I'm not planning on getting this now, but in the next 3-5 months.

It's for business things that I can't do on vista.

I won't do any gaming, but I do need a big monitor...

Would the 20" screen be okay?

 

I think the 20" would be good. If you want a big screen, the 24" is pretty beastly, but for the price-performance ratio, the 20" is the sweetspot IMO.

 

I agree, the 20-inch iMac is the best if you ask me. The 24-inch iMac is a bit overboard for my taste.

 

i think in the next 3 or 4, maybe 5, the imac is going to be upgraded .. they are going to use santa rosa platform (i think).

 

Actually, only the CPU is a laptop internal. It has the mobile version of the C2D. All the other stuff inside is regular PC stuff.

 

Hmmm, I would get the 20" one, but the higher end 17" isn't bad either (I would know, too....check my sig).

actually, the only thing that isn't a laptop component is the hard drive. Other than that, the specs are identical to the macbook pro.

The keyboard and mouse arent great, the mighty mouse sucks but at least it has 2 buttons, and the keyboard (the clear one) is kinda cheapy feeling. Plus both are wired...I am going to upgrade to the Logitech S530 cordless desktop for mac in a few weeks.

 

Yeah, I'd go for the 20". We have a 17" and two 20" imacs side by side in our test lab (we're looking at converting our labs over to tri-boot imacs) and I would hate to use the smaller one. 20" is great, and I don't think I'd like anything bigger. Unless you know that the 20" and it's resolution isn't high enough for you, then I'd go for it, otherwise go for the 24".
And as I think others have said, avoid the mighty mouse lol. It's terrible and hard to right click with. Just go with your preferred mouse, they should work fine.

Just be careful and make sure you get any upgrades when you buy it. The worst thing about the imacs is that you cant upgrade them.

OHH!!!! I had to google it to remember that one. Yeah, I LOVED that design too. It was quirky. I was thinking you were talking about the original. I had completely forgotten about this one.

 

It also uses SO-DIMMs instead of regular DIMMs for the RAM, and the wireless chip and motherboard are both notebook parts.

 

It seems as it's about time for a new design. I would say probably this summer. Rumors have it the 17inch wont change, or they will drop it, and make the sizes like the Cinema Displays.

 

30" iMac... now that's just ludicrous... the 24" already blocks out the sun

I mean, if they gather enough in one place on the earth, we might be knocked out of orbit!

 

Oops, sorry for all the confusion everyone. Only the hard drive is a desktop component. The machine is still pretty good though.

 

Oh. I agree with you, thats just what the rumors are saying.

 

Actually, I believe that the GPU is a desktop component. It's really hard to say because Apple has the options listed as "Radeon x1600," (no Mobility), "Geforce 7300GT," (no Go), and "Geforce 7600GT," (again no Go). But if you look at 3dmark scores from the early Intel iMacs, they're listed as having a Mobility Radeon x1600... can anyone shed any light on this?

 

I don't see how they could use a desktop vid card in them. They're large and run hot, and the iMac is only like, 2" thick and doesn't have the best venting.

 

The 17" and 20" both definitely use the Mobility Radeon X1600. The 24" seems more complicated though, I don't know if they are mobility products. I am also quite skeptical that any 7300, GT or otherwise, can beat the MR X1600, even though the Apple product page says it can.

 

Haha. yeah.
I saw that and it confused me a little. They have it being better than the x1600 by quite a bit.

 

Actually, according to the iMac site, the 17" iMac is 6.8" thick, the 20" iMac is 7.4" thick, and the 24" iMac is 8.1" thick.

Well, if the x1600 is indeed a Mobility Radeon as you say, then the 7300GT could outperform it if it were the desktop card. There is no Go 7300GT AFAIK, and the desktop 7300GT also has a 128-bit memory bus, not a 64-bit like the lower (and Go) versions. Couple that with the fact that the x1600 in the iMac is a 128MB version (and possibly even 64-bit version, though I doubt it), and it is conceivable. Also consider the fact that both games shown (Quake 4 and Doom 3) are OpenGL games, and ATi has poor support for OpenGL, and it really doesn't become too hard to see where they got their numbers. nVidia has always been the choice for OpenGL stuff (professional or gaming), and that's really what it excels at.

 

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=431&card2=453

Don't look like the 7300gt does...

 

That could be overall dimensions if you were drawing a box around the whole thing sitting on your desk, stand and all.

the actual enclosure is nowhere NEAR 8" thick.

 

The 17" iMac is most definitely not 7" thick, if you were talking about just the white part around the screen (I cant speak for the rest, not having any of them in front of me, but I doubt that they are significantly thicker). Including the silver base, that may very well be true though. The white part alone is like 1.5", max 2" thick.

And about the GPU: I doubt that even the desktop 7300GT can beat the MR X1600. The 7600GT will though, no question.

 

I've used the 17" and 19" ones. They aren' that thick. They're no thicker than the box my MBP came in. Now, the stand... the stand could be close to that, but not the actual unit.