This is the story of my experience with a new 24-inch iMac: 3.06 GHz, 1 TB hard drive, 4 GB of memory, and the Nvidia GT 130 graphics processor. So far, at least, it’s both thumbs up.
First a little background: I’ve been writing about Macs for over 10 years and using them for 25, but I’m not what I think you’d call an expert. I’ve never been a geek’s geek, although my friends certainly consider me one. But Macs are the only computers I’ve ever used and I can’t imagine anything else. If Apple went bust, I’d probably just go full Luddite and swear off anything that wasn’t made from a goat.
My last brand-new, purchased outright desktop Macintosh was a Power Mac 8600 back in early ’98. I bought a tangerine iBook in late ’99 for the same reason you climb Mt. Everest: because it was there. (Wireless, remember? It’s hard to overstate what a milestone that was.) Over the next few years I acquired an original TiBook and a blue & white G3, both free, and in 2006 a true miracle occurred: as a result of circumstances that shall forever remain shrouded in mystery, the gods delivered unto me a brand-new MacBook as a gift, one of the very first. I was instantly current and could pretend that I knew what I was talking about again. For someone who occasionally writes about these machines, this was, you know, important. Heck, it was essential, only I couldn’t see that until someone stepped in and slapped me silly.
The MacBook is mildly souped up with 2 GB of RAM and a 7200 rpm 160 GB Hitachi hard drive. For the last three years, I’ve flogged the little white laptop without mercy, and it’s never even hiccuped. If I could say the same about my mule, I’d probably be arrested, but with machines, you expect to have some trouble. I haven’t had any, frankly.
Well, there is one thing, and it got to be serious with me: the MacBook is kind of small… [cough]
After three years of doing graphics work and building websites on a 13″ screen, I was dreaming of the wide open spaces. That, and I just had feeling that “it was time.” Like popping the question or quitting your job, the moment arrives. In my case, I think I was guided by guardian angels. Why?
This thing puts what I do in a whole new dimension. It’s the right tool. And I already know how to drive one of these things, so I’m having the time of my life!
I’ll be blogging more about this over the next few weeks at least, but for now, a few highlights:
1. This sucker is fast. Almost twice the processor and double the RAM of the MacBook.
2. That 1 TB hard drive has all my stuff on it, and I’ve only used 1/12 of the available space. Lots of slack, more speed!
3. Running ethernet from the Buffalo AirStation wireless router with real-word DSL just under 1.2 MBps (nominally 1.5), the best I can get at this address.
4. THE SCREEN! THE SCREEN! It’s… it’s… to die for. It’s beautiful. The colors are bright and highly saturated. I can see the very finest details. I don’t want to ever look at anything else. Glare, schmare, who cares? It’s just stupendous, period.
5. Next to the looming face of the aluminum iMac, the keyboard looks like some kind of miniature doll-house toy. Of course, it’s actually the same size as the MacBook keyboard, so the muscle memory in my fingers let me dive right in. It’s also a joy to have the mouse so close to my right hand, without having to reach over a number pad I never would have used. And to think that I almost ordered this with the extended keyboard, just because it was a “desktop” machine!
(Guardian angels again, see?)
More to come, please check back soon.
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