abolinger's Full Review: Apple iMac 17 in. (M8812LL/A) Mac Desktop
If you're considering buying an iMac to surf the web, you should stop reading the review right here. There's no reason to pay up for a computer if you're just going to surf the web. Here's my story...
I was out shopping with my wife this past weekend and she asked me if I wanted anything for Christmas. I told her a DVD-RW drive and some video editing software would be nice. We looked at some applications and the specs for virtually every software package had my current computer at the lower boundary of ideal system specs for video editing. That, combined with the fact that to get video editing capability on my existing Pentium III running at 1 Ghz with 256 megs of RAM and a 20 gig hard drive would have meant almost buying a new PC. My wife did the mental math and agreed that a new PC was in order.
In the past, there were several things that kept me from switching to the Apple platform. The first was the cost of the system, relative to Wintel PCs. The second was the fact that Apples didn't do anything special that warranted the premium price. Thirdly, I was pretty much married to my PC peripherals and the software I invested in.
Apple has done a good job addressing my concerns, which I'm confident are representative of most PC users who are considering replacing their existing Wintel PCs. If you go out today and purchase a PC equivalent of the iMac, you're going to spend roughly the same amount of money. Here are the specs of the iMac that I bought:
* 800 mhz G4 processor
* 512 MB RAM
* 80 gig hard drive (running at 7200 rpm)
* DVD-R/CD-RW combo drive
* 17" flat panel screen (and it is gorgeous...no comparison to a notebook screen)
* 2 Firewire ports
* 3 USB ports
* Speakers and integrated microphone (the speakers are OK, but the microphone is great compared to those I've encountered with PCs)
* Integrated 10/100 base-T network card
* Integrated 56 kb modem (which I'll never use)
I priced out a Dell with a comparable feature set and I came to roughly the same price as the iMac, if not a little more. I did not include video editing software in the equation.
The operating system that came with my iMac is OS X 10.2.x, which is the latest, greatest version.
In addition, you get some phenomenal software. I bought Microsoft Office X for $200. That's the same amount I'd pay to buy Office for a PC. The file formats in this version of Office are identical to those on the PC platform, so sharing documents between Wintel users is effortless.
Here is some of the software you get from Apple. Bear in mind, as a former PC owner, I've always been skeptical of "free software" that's thrown in because it was, without exception, junk.
* iMovie (for editing movies from your DV camera)
* iDVD (for mastering DVDs)
* iTunes (for managing MP3s)
* iPhoto (for editing photos)
* Mail (for e-mail)
* iChat (AOL Instant Messenger for OS X)
* Microsoft Internet Explorer
* and many others
These software packages aren't "lite" versions of real applications like you normally get with PCs. They're the real McCoy and they work flawlessly, they do what they're supposed to do, and they do it well.
Now, for the setup process. The computer comes in a nicely packed box, everything's tightly packed so it doesn't jiggle in transit, but it's easy to unpack. I didn't bother to open up the documentation because it was so straightforward. I had the computer up and running within 15 minutes of opening the box. There is only one plug for the base unit and it powers the CPU and the screen. There is one cord for the speakers, a USB cable for the keyboard, and the mouse plugs into the keyboard (either left or right side). I noticed I had a lot more legroom under my desk and a lot fewer wires dangling behind my desk.
After the painless 15 minutes to set the computer up, I booted it up. Two things will trip up PC users. The first is the power switch. It's a small button at the rear left portion of the CPU. The other is how to open the DVD-R/CD-RW...it's the eject button located on the keyboard. Volume for the speakers is also adjusted via the keyboard. Those are the only things that took me a minute or so to figure out.
After booting up the PC, it took me another 15 minutes to go through the setup routine. It was painless and intuitive. In a few more minutes, I had the desktop customized to my liking. The operating system is very easy to navigate and you can set up multiple user accounts so only you can make changes to the system.
Setting up my existing peripherals was where I thought I was going to run into trouble. I went to the HP site, downloaded the Mac driver for my HP d135 all-in-one and I had it working in short order. Next was my firewire drive that I used to back up my PC. This was nothing short of stunning: I plugged it in and the icon for the drive popped up on the screen. No intervention on my part required. I plugged in my Canon S200 digital camera and the iMac saw it, again no intervention required. I opened up the iMovie application, plugged in my Canon Elura 2 Digital Video camera and I was instantly importing video. My brother-in-law's jaw dropped when he saw me do this because he was wondering when the Mac was going to fail. It never did.
I placed one technical support call to Apple this morning because I mistakenly unplugged my external Firewire drive and the iMac wouldn't see it when I powered the drive back up. My wait time was 1 minute and the time it took for me to get it working again was less than 5 minutes. I only had to press a number once to get a real person on the other end.
In addition to the stock iMac for $1999.00, I bought 256 MB extra memory for $40.00, Microsoft Office for $199.00, a 3 year service plan with tech support for $170.00, and they threw in an HP color printer for free. Again, like I said at the beginning, there's no reason to pay up for this computer if you're just going to surf the web. If you're interested in doing video editing, DVD recording, etc., I think the iMac is a bargain given that I experienced no hassles with it and it costs roughly the same as a comparably equipped Wintel PC.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2400 Operating System: Macintosh Processor speed: 801-900 RAM: More than 256 Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.