Played with new PM's
Yesterday I spent about 45 minutes at my local Apple store, they had 4 of the new dual 1gig Powermacs and 4 of the dual 867's but none of the 1.25 dual gig's.
My initial feeling on them are as follows:
Looks: I'm torn on this, the old Quicksilvers have a more integrated look as their drive doors match the front of the case, the new drive doors look like an afterthought cut into the case, though they are in a nice shiny chrome.
The ports on the bottom of the front panel seem to be just for looks as there are silver plates behind them, I guess this is purely a subjective call.
Mouse and keyboard are exactly the same as before, this is not by any means a case overhaul, just a modified front and back panel.
OSX 10.2- They came preloaded with the final version, where the 17"FP iMacs were loaded with the beta version.
Now instead of the "Happy Mac welcoming you, you get a corporate Apple logo and a spinning pinwheel (the beta OS X 10.2 version starts up with Happy Mac and says Hello).
Speed: At least in the little while I was playing with the machine I really cannot say that I saw any obvious speed increase with OS X10.2.
Applications did not seem to open faster, but I guess this is not a fair venue to test this.
Photoshop 7 opened in about 7 seconds which is the same as on my PM.
Neither did startup seem to be faster.
For me the coolest thing about OS X 10.2 is the new zoom feature under universal acces in system preferences.
Just my initial thoughts.
My initial feeling on them are as follows:
Looks: I'm torn on this, the old Quicksilvers have a more integrated look as their drive doors match the front of the case, the new drive doors look like an afterthought cut into the case, though they are in a nice shiny chrome.
The ports on the bottom of the front panel seem to be just for looks as there are silver plates behind them, I guess this is purely a subjective call.
Mouse and keyboard are exactly the same as before, this is not by any means a case overhaul, just a modified front and back panel.
OSX 10.2- They came preloaded with the final version, where the 17"FP iMacs were loaded with the beta version.
Now instead of the "Happy Mac welcoming you, you get a corporate Apple logo and a spinning pinwheel (the beta OS X 10.2 version starts up with Happy Mac and says Hello).
Speed: At least in the little while I was playing with the machine I really cannot say that I saw any obvious speed increase with OS X10.2.
Applications did not seem to open faster, but I guess this is not a fair venue to test this.
Photoshop 7 opened in about 7 seconds which is the same as on my PM.
Neither did startup seem to be faster.
For me the coolest thing about OS X 10.2 is the new zoom feature under universal acces in system preferences.
Just my initial thoughts.
Comments
Probably because they only have 256M of ram in them.
I think it's a mistake for Apple to display these with this amount of ram. The average computer illiterate conusmer who walks into an Apple store and tries one out will probably walk away with thoughts that it's slower than a pc.
I suspect they do it because that's how the default models ship. If this is the case, then they ought to display a memory upgrade model so that people can see how extra ram improves the performance of the computer.
[ 08-16-2002: Message edited by: Moogs ]</p>
<strong>how loud was it? did the extra holes make it louder or quieter?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Some people have said these are more quiet, but I never heard the fans on the Quicksilvers in the Apple Store while music was playing or anything and I heard the fan on the new PMs.
<strong>Maybe each had a different amount of RAM so people can compare / see what they're comfortable with? That is, maybe (if he just tinkered with one machine instead of 4), he tinkered with the one that had 256MB instead of 512, 1GB or more? Not sure if Apple would have the foresight to do that or not, but it seems like a good idea. Just make sure you label em right.
[ 08-16-2002: Message edited by: Moogs ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
All of the ones I played with just had the RAM that it comes with.
You have to put them into somewhere that's NOT close to the wall (to reduce noise reflection). Or leave them on floor.
You'd have to label those display models *very* carefully. The point of display/testers is to be able to test the product you are going to buy. You'd get some people complaining if they discovered they were being sold on an already-expensive PowerMac and then having to shell out extra for RAM just to get it to equal the display computer. Some would call that bait-and-switch.
More to the point, I don't think Apple wants to admit that you frankly *have* to buy RAM right off the bat for any stock system they sell. They know their price point is too high, and they'd rather you come back to the store in a couple of weeks to buy RAM aftermarket, rather that purchase extra RAM up frong and realize "damn, this thing is like 2X the price of a new Dell and I still have to add stuff on".
I'm still holding out hope for an affordable, powerful prosumer micro-tower someday. I hope Apple gets their s*&t together.