Apple iMac 17" Mactel

[radar]

Hi,

just using a new iMac 17", got it this afternoon. I sort of bought it

Domayne is running a promotion right now. You can use a new iMac 17", Mactel, for ten days. At the end of the ten days, you either buy it or return it, no questions asked. Ultimately, I really want the 20" iMac, but we'll see how this test goes.

I thought it would be a good opportunity to give it a good try. I've installed Bibble Pro and Firefox so far on it.

My reasoning behind looking at the iMac is driven by photography. For everything else, I'm very happy to use Linux. However, for colour calibration, Linux is just not there yet. One can spend a lot of time "fiddling", but I'd rather be taking photos.

I still do plenty of other great Linux stuff. However, Tux may be having nightmares right now

I'll keep adding to this thread as I go along.

Cheers,

Andre
(I'll have to figure out how to easily get accents, was easy on Linux )

[byrt_001]

hi radar

im very jelous! looove macs, unfortunalty i returned my beloved 12inch mac back to my previous employer.
i woder when apple will release their new macbook 12inch? dual chip?

you got a very good deal in trying out the mac!

christian

[pharmer]

Get Adobe Lightroom (beta 2) for managing all your RAW images - fantastic, I love it

Apple now allow you to dual boot XP on the Intel Mac as well with "Boot Camp" http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

Get the best of both worlds on one machine

Cheers

[Nnnnsic]

Apple now allow you to dual boot XP on the Intel Mac as well with "Boot Camp" http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

Get the best of both worlds on one machine

Likewise you can boot Mac OSX on current Intel-based PC's and 939/940 A64's.

[pharmer]

Likewise you can boot Mac OSX on current Intel-based PC's and 939/940 A64's.

Not legally, you are pirating MacOS X if you are doing this

And its not without its problems in terms of hardware compatibilty and the fact that new patches from Apple won't work on it until its illegally hacked again

OS X on a Intel/AMD PC if you're an unethical, cheap pirate - that about sums it up

[daniel_r]

Andre
(I'll have to figure out how to easily get accents, was easy on Linux )

Can help you with that

Say you need the accent in André :

A n d r (option key + e) e

Say you need the umulat in über:

(option key + u) u b e r

For more details, open Mac Help under the help menu in Finder (the desktop environment). In the search box, enter accent. The top help item found should be "adding accent marks to characters"

[daniel_r]

and if you're keen on getting Windows to run on your Intel based Mac, take a look at the BootCamp Public Beta announced last night by Apple.

[radar]

Thanks for the info,

I can now spell my name correctly on the Mac

I'll have a look at boot camp. What I really would want is vmware on the Mac, then I can run WinXP, by linux test environments, etc. Wait and see.

Cheers,

André

[radar]

Continuing with the review:

I've been using for a few days, I'm very impressed. Some of the things I like:

-whisper quiet
-sharp screen - see as well in dislikes
-fast enough, certainly compared to my existing desktop
-bibble pro works a treat on it, they have a Mactel version
-a fair bit of software/hardware available to run on Mac OS X, eg Spyder for calibration
-the "i" software that comes with it is very nice.
-the feel of the system, very nice.
-nice DVD playback
-HD-TV Tuner available for it.
-native dual monitor support - DVI, just need an adapter for mini-dvi, could use my Samsung monitor as second screen.

What I don't like:
-noticed a bit of ghosting on some fonts, certainly font for Firefox and Safari. It is the same on both, eg FE gives me a bit of ghosting on the "middle" stroke on those letters. It also happens on others. I've tried a few other applications and I haven't noticed that. I looked at my Linux workstation with a Samsung monitor and it does not have that problem
-not expandable other then having external devices, but not a big deal overall.
-will take a bit of getting used to with the one button mouse
-would go for the 20-inch iMac, more dollars
-learning curve in using Mac OS X GUI
-I have to return it by Thursday

Overall a very nice experience. It pretty well has all that one needs in the one package. I don't play games on my computer, so gaming is not an issue for me.

I'll look at installing OpenOffice on it, as I don't want to run MS Office.

Cheers,

André

[pharmer]

-will take a bit of getting used to with the one button mouse
André

It comes with a two button Mighty Mouse with scroll wheel - enable the second button in the mouse area of System Preferences

All Macs ship with the 2 button, scroll wheel mouse

I suggest looking at the setup guide/manual

[radar]

[quote="pharmer"
It comes with a two button Mighty Mouse with scroll wheel - enable the second button in the mouse area of System Preferences

All Macs ship with the 2 button, scroll wheel mouse

I suggest looking at the setup guide/manual[/quote]

Thanks, works beautifully now. RTFM!!! Takes all the fun out of it

Thanks,

André

[pharmer]

No problem

[Nnnnsic]

Likewise you can boot Mac OSX on current Intel-based PC's and 939/940 A64's.

Not legally, you are pirating MacOS X if you are doing this

Err... no.

If you already own an Intel based Mac then it's legal.

[Nnnnsic]

Two buttons!

Wow... Mac users are so lucky!

[pharmer]

Err... no.

If you already own an Intel based Mac then it's legal.

Wrong

The EULA from Apple prohibits use on anything other than an Apple manufactured machine

And the discs that you get with an Intel-Mac won't install on a normal PC without obtaining "hacked/altered" files from the net - this is illegal modification of copyrighted code

How would you feel if someone stole your copyrighted work (e.g. photos etc) and then modified or sold them for thier own personal gain

[pharmer]

Two buttons!

Wow... Mac users are so lucky!

Well, for years now you could just plug in any USB mouse and have it work without issue.

The Apple mouse has 5 buttons including scroll if you want to be picky

[daniel_r]

What I don't like:
-noticed a bit of ghosting on some fonts, certainly font for Firefox and Safari. It is the same on both, eg FE gives me a bit of ghosting on the "middle" stroke on those letters. It also happens on others. I've tried a few other applications and I haven't noticed that. I looked at my Linux workstation with a Samsung monitor and it does not have that problem

Bloody font smoothing!! It's too overdone for the cinema displays and the built-in iMac LCDs.

Try this: System Preferences -> Appearance -> Font Smoothing Style = Standard.

Quit and re-open any apps (they're reloaded with the new font settings)

[robboh]

Radar,

I love Tux too, in fact there are several cute penguins sitting on my desk here at work right now

However, over the years, I have tried (and lived in) just about every 'alternate' OS known to man in a quest to find one that didnt waste my time or drive me batty, while still providing enough alternate functionality and/or compatibility to easily coexist in a Windows world. OS X is the only one I have found that lives up to that requirement.

In fact, if it werent for downloading my dive computer data, I wouldnt have turned on my PC in the last 18 months. Granted that desktop linux has come a long way in the last 36 months, so my experience may be different if I were to go down that path now. It was also photography and colour management that finally got me to bite the bullet and buy a mac. I havent looked back.

I guess what Im trying to say is that I think you will find, over time, that you will begin to spend far less time with Tux and more time with OS X.

[radar]

Okay,

one can certainly get used to system like this

Time to pack it up and return it. As nice as the 17" is, what I really want is the 20-inch. It comes with a faster processor, a larger disk and the video memory can be expanded.

I'll see what kind of money they want to charge me for it. That is one thing I have found with Apple, there usually isn't much movement on

Thanks for the comments everyone. I'll let you know how I go,

André

[birddog114]

radar,
Giving it up already?
I thought you're in love.

[radar]

Size matters, , that's why I'm looking at the 20-inch

André

[stubbsy]

Figured you'd return it and lust the 20".

One thing to bear in mind is the Intel Mac's won't run Virtual PC so you can't run any PC apps on them.

[losfp]

Figured you'd return it and lust the 20".

One thing to bear in mind is the Intel Mac's won't run Virtual PC so you can't run any PC apps on them.

Just have to run bootcamp

[radar]

One thing to bear in mind is the Intel Mac's won't run Virtual PC so you can't run any PC apps on them.

Still have Linux/vmware desktop for that, I'm not retiring it yet

They also have annouced "Boot Camp", see earlier in the thread, but I don't have much PC apps to run anyway.

Cheers,

André

[stubbsy]

Figured you'd return it and lust the 20".

One thing to bear in mind is the Intel Mac's won't run Virtual PC so you can't run any PC apps on them.

Just have to run bootcamp

And reboot the machine. One of the good things about virtual PC is you could switch (of course that has its drawbacks too)

[robboh]

One thing to bear in mind is the Intel Mac's won't run Virtual PC so you can't run any PC apps on them.

Still have Linux/vmware desktop for that, I'm not retiring it yet

They also have annouced "Boot Camp", see earlier in the thread, but I don't have much PC apps to run anyway.

Check out 'Parallels' for OS X. Full hypervisor VM environment.

[radar]

Check out 'Parallels' for OS X. Full hypervisor VM environment.

Looks good Robboh, once I get my iMac, I'll give it a try.

thanks,

André

[robboh]

Check out 'Parallels' for OS X. Full hypervisor VM environment.

Looks good Robboh, once I get my iMac, I'll give it a try.

Kewl. I see its a free beta at present, and will be ~USD$50 once released. Reports on the web seem quite complimentary so far too. As far as I understand, its very similar to VMWare and supports pretty much any OS that will normally boot on a PC.
VMWare are also apparently soon to release a beta for OS X Intel as well.

Great to see you have enjoyed your experience so far!!

Make sure you check out Adobe LightRoom beta if you havent already!

Rob

[radar]

Okay,

[rant]
As mentioned above, returned the 17" imac to Domayne last week. I wanted to buy the 20-inch version. I had seen the imac at pluscorp at $50 off the RRP. So I asked them to match it, sorry no go

Not a problem, will get it at pluscorp. Since I needed a custom one, I phoned them to get a quote, that should be fine, should get quote via email, still waiting, after a repeated email query

Okay, will try face to face, so went to my local mac1 shop, may as well support the local shop. As I'm telling them I want the dvi adapter to run extended desktop, they tell me that the imac does not do extended desktop, the second desktop just mirrors! I was pretty sure that the new intel based one did extended desktop, but they assured me that it didn't. Coming from Linux, I thought they would know more then me, so I said, sorry, won't order just yet then, One of the reasons to get the imac was the ability to run extended desktop, so I'll need to think about it.

Back at home, go to the Apple site and in the imac section, it is listed that the new imac does run extended desktop

Support for external display in extended desktop and video mirroring modes

[/rant]

I'm in a good mood today, got some chocolate for Easter so I'll give the mac1 shop another go this week and see if they can make it up to me having to visit their shop yet again, otherwise, I'll just order directly from Apple.

Glad I got it off my chest


Cheers,

André

[decryption]

I've got one of these myself (17" Intel) and I work for an AppleCenter (Computers Now in Malvern, Melbourne). So if you have any questions, just ask mate

Oh and a tip, get 2GB of RAM. Mac OS X loves RAM and the performance difference between 1Gb and 2Gb is very noticeable. Espically when running PPC apps in Rosetta (e.g, Photoshop)

[radar]

Thanks decryption,

I'll keep your offer in mind

As for 2Gb, that's what I was planning on getting, but not from Apple, too expensive, will get it from my regular supplier.

Cheers,

André

[byrt_001]

I've got one of these myself (17" Intel) and I work for an AppleCenter (Computers Now in Malvern, Melbourne). So if you have any questions, just ask mate

Oh and a tip, get 2GB of RAM. Mac OS X loves RAM and the performance difference between 1Gb and 2Gb is very noticeable. Espically when running PPC apps in Rosetta (e.g, Photoshop)

hi anthony

wooowww you work for apple, any discounts for us???

great shot of the car on its side.

take care

christian

[shutterbug]

Andre, get a student to get the imac for you, you get 10% discount

[radar]

Thought about that, but it's a business expense anyway, so I will get 10% off anyway.

Cheers,

André

[radar]

Hi,

just a bit of an update on this one.

I finally got my iMac 20". Got the extra memory for the video and 2Gb of RAM. Initially I only had the 512Mb it came with, but putting in my third party memory for 2Gb makes it that much faster

Still getting used to the way Apple does things, but getting there. For the desktop, it is wonderful.

Bibble works great on it and having the extra screen space is a pleasure to work with.

This morning I installed the demo version of Parallels, a virtual machine software program. Easy install, then loaded up my linux server distro on it, works a treat.

I'll have to migrate WinXP to the virtual machine, no dual booting required for this Mac user.

Also have to plug in my second monitor for extended desktop, will report back when I get to it.

Also, the iMac is so quiet, I can hear myself think , scary

Also, the fact that MacOSX is *BSD based is a great plus for me, all those nice open-source tools are still there for me and those that aren't are easy to install.

That's it for now,

André

[robboh]

Still getting used to the way Apple does things, but getting there. For the desktop, it is wonderful.

Great to see another one in the fold
There are a few things which are a bit different, but they'll come quick enough. I found that one of the biggest mindset changes was trying to stop using the usual Linux/Windows approach and trying to over-think things in terms of how a developer would normally approach a task. Its amazing how many little things you keep finding that you go 'oh, thats too easy, why didnt I try that first??'
Good luck and keep us posted with your experiences, good AND bad!!

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