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Apple iMac Desktop with 20 Display MA876LL A (2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB...
Product Description Redefining Apple's signature all-in-one desktop PC, the newly redesigned iMac now sports a sleek, professional aluminum enclosure that's joined precisely to a 20-inch glass cover to create a virtually seamless front surface. It also features new ultra-thin aluminum Apple Keyboard--with an extended layout and dedicated keys for Mac features such as brightness, volume, eject, play/pause, and Exposé--as well as the wired Mighty Mouse. The iMac is preloaded with Apple's latest suite of digital media applications--iLife '08--and also comes with the Apple Remote and Front Row media display software, which enables you to easily play your music, enjoy photo slideshows, and watch DVDs, iMovies, music videos and television shows from across the room. It's powered by a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor from the newest "Santa Rosa" chips, which offer a top-of-the-line 800 MHz front-side bus speed and a huge 4 MB L2 cache. This 20-inch iMac also features a 250 GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM (with a 4 GB maximum capacity), 8x SuperDrive for burning movies to DVD and music mixes to CD, integrated 802.11n wireless LAN, Gigabit Ethernet wired networking, Bluetooth connectivity, ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT video card with 128 MB dedicated memory, and the Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard operating system. The iMac, Transformed
With its elegant anodized aluminum enclosure, the new Apple Keyboard looks equally at home in your living room or on your desk. Just connect it to the USB port on your iMac and start enjoying the crisp, responsive feel of its low-profile keys. The extended layout has a full complement of keys, including document navigation controls, a numeric keypad, and special function keys for Mac features such as brightness, volume, eject, play/pause, Exposé, and more. Two USB 2.0 ports provide high-speed connectivity for your iPod, Mighty Mouse, digital camera, and other USB-based electronic devices. Preinstalled with iLife '08 Every iMac includes iLife '08, the latest version of Apple's award-winning suite of digital media applications, with major upgrades to iPhoto, iDVD, iWeb, and GarageBand and a completely reinvented iMovie. iPhoto '08 now automatically organizes photo libraries into Events that let you more easily manage your growing photo collections, and iMovie '08 can import video from the latest AVCHD, HDV and DV camcorders, as well as from digital cameras, and displays your entire video library whether it's stored on internal or external drives. Both iPhoto and iMovie integrate seamlessly with the new .Mac Web Gallery, Apple's new service for .Mac members to instantly create and host websites for their photos and videos.
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor It's powered by the 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 processor from the newest "Santa Rosa" chips, which offer a top-of-the-line 800 MHz front-side bus speed and 4 MB L2 cache. (An L2, or secondary, cache temporarily stores data; and a larger L2 cache can help speed up your system's performance. The FSB carries data between the CPU and RAM, and a faster front-side bus will deliver better overall performance.) With such a substantial L2 cache, data instructions can be kept close to the two processor cores, greatly increasing performance and allowing the entire system to work more efficiently. The Intel Core 2 Duo's 128-bit SSE3 vector engine handles 128-bit computations in a single clock cycle, accelerating data manipulation by simultaneously applying a single instruction to multiple data. And its two execution cores are designed to share resources and conserve power, helping it to achieve higher levels of performance since it uses fewer watts. Graphics and Video The 20-inch widescreen TFT active-matrix LCD offers a resolution of 1680 by 1050 pixels--36 percent more than the previous 17-inch iMac. It has a brightness rating of 290 nits, a contrast ratio of 800:1, and a viewing angle of 160 degrees (both horizontal and vertical). An ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics processor powers the iMac with 128 MB of dedicated GDDR3 memory. It features some of the most advanced graphics technology available and delivers new levels of visual realism and a huge texture fill rate for smooth surfaces and complex character details. GDDR3 (Graphics Double Data Rate, version 3) is a graphics card-specific memory technology that's better able to deliver fluid frame rates for even the most advanced games and applications. This iMac also enables you to connect a second display in either extended desktop mode or video mirroring mode. The mini-DVI port connects to DVI displays, VGA monitors and projectors, and S-video and composite devices using the appropriate adapter (sold separately). Wired and Wireless Connectivity
Share files around your house with built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet as well as the next-generation high-speed wireless 802.11n technology, which is integrated into the latest Apple Airport Extreme Base Station. The iMac is also Wi-Fi Certified to work with base stations and routers that use industry-standard 802.11a, 802.11b, or 802.11g wireless technologies. The integrated Bluetooth wireless connectivity--version 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate (EDR)--allows you to use a wireless keyboard or mouse, and synchronize peripherals such as cell phones and PDAs. Enjoy high-quality sound on almost any speaker system with double-duty analog/digital audio. Record digital and analog sources through audio line in, perfect for your latest podcast in GarageBand. SuperDrive Integrated neatly into the iMac is a slot-loading SuperDrive that lets you play and burn your own CDs and DVDs--including double-layer DVDs. And there's no disc tray--just slide the disc right in. It offers the following speeds:
Other Features
Included Software Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard operating system (includes Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat AV, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Xcode Developer Tools); iLife '08 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand); Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive; iWork (30-day trial); and Front Row Included with this Product iMac, Apple Keyboard, Mighty Mouse, Apple Remote, cleaning cloth, power cord, install/restore DVDs, printed and electronic documentation Product Description More than ever before, iMac allows you to live a digital life. Loaded with iLife, the new iMac makes it easy to turn your photos, movies, and music into blogs, podcasts, books, and calendars. All the other essentials are built in as well, including an iSight camera, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Just plug it in, turn it on, and you're ready to create something great. Display 20-inch (viewable) glossy widescreen TFT active-matrix LCD, 1680 by 1050 pixels, millions of colors Video - Built-in iSight; mini-DVI output port with support for DVI, VGA, S-video, and composite video connections via adapter Graphics ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB of GDDR3 memory FireWire One FireWire 400 and one FireWire 800 port; 7 watts each ; USB Three USB 2.0 ports on computer; two USB 2.0 ports on keyboard Built-in stereo speakers with 24-watt digital amplifier, built-in microphone, optical digital audio output/headphone out, optical digital audio; input/audio line in Ethernet Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit) Wireless Built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n ; built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) module Hardware accessories Apple Remote, Apple Keyboard, and Mighty Mouse; Built-in IR receiver Your iMac comes with 90 days of free telephone support and a one-year limited warranty. Purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan to extend your service and support to three full years. Only the AppleCare Protection Plan provides you with direct telephone support from Apple technical experts and the assurance that repairs will be handled by Apple-certified technicians using genuine Apple parts Reader Reviews This must be my eighth desktop Mac since 1991, my fourth iMac since 1998, and it's definitely my first new Mac in a good two and a half years. And although I'm certainly not sorry I shelled out the money for this beauty, I'm not as blown away by its performance as I'd imagined I would be. My previous Mac, now semi-retired to a bedroom, was a 20-inch G5, 1.8 Ghz, 2 Mb of RAM. That one was a huge step up from its predecessor. Somehow, I don't feel that way this time around. Even though my new 24'' 2.4 Ghz Intel Mac is outfitted with the maximum 4GB of RAM, speed and productivity gains seem incremental. Not that it's a snail. It's just...not that impressive, as upgrades go. At best, I notice relatively hefty speed improvements where I don't care that much -- importing CDs into iTunes is easily 40, 50% quicker -- and very little difference where it actually matters to me, Photoshop performance included. Migrating my data from the old Mac to the new one via a Firewire cable was painfully slow this time around -- something like 27 hours(!). After that, I had lots of problems with passwords not getting stored properly in Keychain Access, necessitating multiple calls to Apple's help line. Oh, and I actually lost all the data in ecto, my blog program. 1,400-plus posts mysteriously vanished. I have a backup, but still... Compounding the problems was the fact that I upgraded to Photoshop CS3 (from CS2) the same weekend I started using my new Mac. I'm sorry to report a string of Photoshop crashes -- and whenever Photoshop goes down, in my case, it takes all the other applications with it. At that point, the entire computer, right down to the Finder, becomes unusable: the cursor vanishes for 15 or 20 seconds, then resurfaces, but no amount of clicking or force-quitting (option-command-esc) produces any results whatsoever. Hard restarts are required. I have a suspicion this is Photoshop's (Adobe's) fault, not Apple's. Regardless, it's a serious annoyance. The issue seems less lethal and less frequent since I upgraded from 1Gb to 4Gb of RAM. We'll see. The new iMac somehow also screwed up my Airport Extreme network a bit -- one of my other Macs (an oldie from 1999 or 2000) suddenly no longer sees the network and has been stubbornly offline since the day I began using its bigger, brasher brother. I guess that's another call to Apple. The screen of the new computer, though beautiful, is a mixed bag. As before, it's way too bright at night, even when you turn the brightness level all the way down. You'll need some freeware like DarkAdapted X or Shades to tame it. The screen size is impressive (lots of real estate for Photoshop's arsenal of floating palettes), the sharpness is awesome, the colors are vibrant if a little oversaturated, and the super-glossy finish that others have complained about doesn't bother me much (although there are times when I'm aware of reflections and I have to remind myself to see 'past' or 'through' them). Fingerprints are much more visible than before and, despite Apple's thoughtful inclusion of a soft cloth, difficult to wipe off. Best keep a bottle of Windex handy! The discreetly built-in iSight camera is nice though, and I'm finally iChatting and Skyping all over the place. The remote, alas, is white -- not an eyesore, but it doesn't go with the aluminum-finish look of the computer (and neither does the otherwise excellent snow white Mighty Mouse). Also, there apparently is no longer a place to stick the remote to the computer case magnetically, inviting clutter (very un-Apple-like). I don't have to look at the back of the machine much, but whenever I do, I wonder what Apple was thinking. Matte black is an asinine color for a panel that contains vital USB, Firewire, video, and other ports. Even during the day I fumble; at night, I need a little flashlight to let me see what I'm doing. With the white back, I had no such problems. Also, on the previous iMac, the ports were in a more logical place, right around the right edge of the screen, where they were more easily accessible. I do appreciate the new i-apps, especially iPhoto, which has seriously bested previous versions with great new (and long-overdue) features. For instance, the program now shows you thumbnails of the photos on your memory card BEFORE you import them. I'm perhaps most pleased with how quiet this machine is. Even in the dead of night, with almost no ambient sounds anywhere, I can barely hear the internal fan. It's easily drowned out by the soft ticking of the clock on my wall. Fantastic. My old(er) iMac was considerably noisier from the get-go and more so as the months and years went by. Is this a great new iMac? Yup. A good value? Affirmative. Is it perfection? Not by any stretch. Guess I'll try again in early 2010. ;-) UPDATE, Sept. 23: Things have gotten beter. The upgrade to 4Gb of RM has made Photoshop CS3 a lot more stable, it seems, and I'm seeing much faster performance now too. The photo-batch-processing program I use, DxO Optics Pro, now takes just 2.5 to 3 hours to power through 500-plus 10-megapixel images, as opposed to roughly seven hours on my old Mac. iPhoto, with a 4,000-image library, launches and is ready to go in five seconds flat, roughly four of five times as fast as before. On the other hand, I've had five or six instances where the colors on the screen randomly went haywire systemwide, taking on positively pyschedelic hues and appearing as if you're viewing them through some kind of sheer fabric. This seems to require a restart. Still troubleshooting that one. While I'm happy overall, this iMac has given me the most reasons to scratch my head (and call Apple) of any Macintosh I've owned in the last ten years. Comments (8) | Permalink | (Report this)
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