Apple unveils new iMacs with 21.5 and 27-inch displays - Page 8

Well, I made the switch a couple of weeks ago - I went from PC to Mac. I was so sick of PCs and security updates etc. So I bought a shiny new 24" iMac and have enjoyed every minute of using it. I know Apple announced these new iMacs today and there are pros and cons to each of them (glossy screen this, no blu-ray that, only four USB, etc.) but I don't care. I just love having a Mac. You'll never be able to please all the people all the time, and I am going to resist saying 'I wish I had waited', because in truth I'm glad I didn't (as I would have only been able to afford the 21.5"), I am glad I got a Mac when I did, in fact I am just glad I got a Mac!

Except if you don't live in the US...

Enough of that lame link! Is that article taking into consideration on-demand services from cable/sat companies and, most importantly, the ad supported streaming that makes up the bulk of the streaming these days. Sure didn’t sound like it.

[QUOTE=melgross;1503652]Of course it has bearing. One waxes, and one wanes.[/QUOOTE]

What? You cited the eventual success of the iTunes music store as relevant to eventual adoption of Blu-Ray, which is what I was responding to. Are you saying that there's some kind of waxing and waning of music sales vs. video sales?


And, again, percentage increases can't mean much starting from a near non-existent base.


Yep, that's the point of contention-- how long has Blu-Ray got? Complicated by the fact that "how long" is preceding from a barely established base, so any near term slow down would be a virtual death knell.

This is very different from the DVD trajectory, that was already completely established as the defacto standard by the time any competition appeared. Blu-ray is attempting to establish itself just as downloads, on-demand and streaming are starting to take off, so it's really an uphill battle.

Not in my life time, and not in my childrens life time. Downloads may be the next big thing, but it will be a while away

Congrats to you. Enjoy it.

So, it's lame because it disagrees with your point, right...

Except nobody is saying that.

What's being said is that, while Blu-ray is obviously technically superior to any download option currently available, PQ may not be sufficient to trump convenience.

People are being conditioned to watch video on laptop screen via Hulu and their ilk, a lot of people have on demand (in reasonably decent HD) available on their cable subscription.

Anyone arguing for the eventual dominance of online music sales wasn't predicating it on something like "High bit CDs suck" or "they cost too much", they were simply reading the writing on the wall. Anyone saying "but high bit CDs sound so much better, crappy MP3s will never beat that" were just missing the point.

Look great. Why are people so hung up on the cost of a mac vs. pc. I never hear Chevy owners complain about the high price of a Lexus and how Lexus owners are getting ripped off, etc.

Anyways, even if you end up spending $700 more for the low end iMac over a POS PC for something you use everyday like your computer (say for the next 4 years), paying $15 a month extra is a small amount for the reliability of OS X and the overall superior Mac experience.

You need to stop now- you're embarrassing yourself. Do you know how much faster Macs would have to sell "to dominate the computer market"?

Hi. jfanning, this is my point. Point, this is jfanning. I dont' believe you've met.

You were citing rate of growth outstripping downloads as evidence of Blu-ray's eventual dominance. I was pointing out that rate of growth is pretty misleading is you don't take into account installed user base.

Somehow you managed to get that backwards and end up agreeing with me.

See my post above. You're a ****** idiot.

I'm pretty sure that if you took all factors into consideration including the LED backlit IPS monitors, these imacs would be very competitive. Macs tends to be fairly competitive when they are released (still costing slightly more that comparable systems) and then trailing off further into the product cycle as competing technology advances and Mac price points remain the same.

He's trolling his Apple FUD again- or is it the old "I don't own any discs mantra"?

The 24" iMac is still a great Mac. In fact only the 27 is really superior to your computer as the 21.5 inch is smaller and won't deliver any picture quality over what you have now. Enjoy it and welcome to the forum!


There's a place for both IMO. I don't need EVERYTHING I watch to be in 1080p high bitrate video so there's a need for my HD DVD/Blu-ray player. There's a lot of things that are just better in lower rez. I like sports in 720p/60 when available and for sitcoms 720 rez is fine as you're never really seeing a wide picture or a lot of depth of field.

well you just made my point.

The install base for blu-ray is higher than downloads, so that means when blu-ray has a 66% growth, and downloads an %18 one, then blu-ray is growing a lot faster than downloads, and downloads will not be able to catch up until blu-ray starts decreasing...

Came across a interesting article,

http://www.physorg.com/news175257550.html


Basically Americans have a high rate of impulsive purchase behavior (low PDB or self control) and 80% of luxury goods are impulsive buys. Hmmm...Apple Store placement in trendy locations? All that cheap credit for so many years?

So Apple and other consumer computer makers are exploiting this and the "oh shiny" effect of glossy screens.

It's us people online who carefully review reports and/or have negative experience with glossy screens and reflections/glare that are fuming about the lack of matte screen options.


According to a poll Leveno and Ars Tech reported, over 80% of Leveno's business customers prefer matte screens over glossy.

Business people tend to be high in the self control department and Apple is a consumer products company, catering to people with low self control/early computer users with little experience. Leveno is concerned with the business computer market.

At least Apple still has the 15" MacBook Pro matte option, you can thank me and others online for that effort. Apple has always treated it's business customers like crap anyway.


If Apple only got it's head out of it's ass and concerned itself itself with the needs of both consumer and business/pro users they would own the world.

Not many men want a giant white 27" computer sitting on their office desk.

Silver sure, black sure. But not white. Looks to feminine.

But then again, perhaps Apple doesn't want a bunch of serious business people dulling the childlike impulsive carefree attitude Apple Stores seem to inflict.


Windows 7, bar any major problems, is going to seriously kick Apple's ass. I can feel it.

Bootcamp is going to come back to bite Apple in the ass too, as all those Mac labs are going to be switched to Windows 7 as the matte screen PC computers trickle in.

Apple is simply not giving the public the computers they want to buy. U.S. consumers are going to one day realize the free money trip is over, if they already have with their underwater mortgages and rising unemployment rates.

Conservatism is up, impulsiveness is going down. It's only the delusional who spend their last few grand on a Mac thinking it's going to make them money who are being fooled.

I've seen this before, Apple is going to wish it catered better to the non-impulsive market.


**Correction. New 27" iMac has a silver (not white backing) which gives it a better, more mature look. Still glossy, which causes problems with even more glare due to it's larger size.

Why oh why did they not put a VESA mount on the 21.5?

Didn't Apple read my post where I explained in complete detail that I want it to fit on the kitchen counter under the top cabinets?

I guess I'm going to have to retrofit a VESA onto my iMac.

I was hoping but... oh well.

Watch it. Teckstud can get away with the name calling on here in the same the way society lets the mentally challenged get away with stuff, but we can’t.

LOL excpet your analogy sucks! A very high percentage of parts in a Chevy are vastly different and in many cases inferior to that in a Lexus. What people on here complain about is that to buy the EXACT same hardware, except the "case", but the actual components, usually cost much less when building a pc. Not sure why you would call the pc a POS, since it has the exact same components, and in many cases much better (Lexus parts) compared to its mac counterpart.

a lot of people? You are aware that most of the world can not access Hulu, and most of the world does not have on demand (or can access it if they wanted it) HD cable?


I have some SACD as well, and they do sound better than the iTunes downloads

You make posts like that and I'm the idiot?

I bought the first iteration of the black/silver iMac at 20". I have a Blu-Ray player with my home cinema system. WHatever the arguments regarding the standard of the iTunes HD offerings or how much you could appreciate a BR disc on even the 27" iMac the reason I'd want the option is so I can play my existing BR discs on my computer if someone is using the TV. I don't want to have to buy on DVD because Apple doesn't support it or download it for the same reason.

Obviously if Apple TV offered a PVR service and iTunes an extensive, varied film library I might bear it (I discuss this in another thread) but at present all my film purchases are on hard copy and if there's a BR option I choose that.

How long before i5 or i7 make their way onto the 21"? Not sure my desk could hold the 27"

As if you don't? GMAFB
fyi- I rarely resort to such a tactic as namecalling.

Ha. My cat would disagree on the reliability issue.

The charge is for disc rentals. The streaming is free.

Apparently the "case" includes LED backlit IPS monitors, slot loading drives, backlit keyboards, multitouch trackpads (and now mice lol), ambient light sensors, custom designed motherboards, hard drive drop sensors, etc. There are many components that add to the cost of a mac that don't show up on a comparison sheet.

But you are really annoying, especially today.

So where can he get the Netflix streaming for free so he can cancel his disc rentals?



Lets not forget the cost of going green, the support you get from the Apple, the 7 hour battery that is actually rated for 7 hours with WiFi on and in use, et cetera.

It's a growing segment for high def. Until you can watch the Netflix on a big screen without going, "UGH!", then it won't be good enough for more than a few, and growing number of people. Netflix is a supplement for people with big screens, not the only source. And screen size is continuing to grow as they get cheaper. It used to be that 42" was big, now it's 58". 42" is average.

The problem is that too many people sit too far from the screen to get the full effect of HD. But as those screen sizes get bigger, it will become more obvious. People I know in apartments who were telling me that they had little room for their 42" two years ago are moving up to bigger screens now.

Sports are a big inducer of this as well.

for such a sarcastic person you'd think you'd be able to pick up on this.

Can't we just have a "techstud complains about everything" forum and let people who want to see every other post as another familiar complaint/antagonistic remark just go there for (entertainment?) value?

Does anyone know if that Mac clone maker sells Matte screens?

Nice to see the back of the iMac no longer resembles a cheap ass Dell- that's definite plus.

I have brought real issues up today- blu- ray, matte, etc. See my first post. We are all discussing these topics back and forth. No complaints but real issues. What's your problem?
His comment if you read it directly appears literal not sarcastic. He should have added an emoticon or worded it differently. I can't help if he can't write.

Same here. My kid thinks buying a movie is something we get from the store and watch when we get home. My kid things downloading is that free low quality thing via YouTube.

Downloads? Oh, you mean watch it on the tiny computer screen? Or buy an AppleTV and only get movies from Apple because it does not work with any other store? No thanks.

I would love to go back to using a mac but:

Imac 27" w/4850 - $3300 (NZD)
Equivalent PC - $1862 (NZD)
Imac 21" - $2000 (NZD)
Equivalent PC - $1300 (NZD) (also has quad not dual core)

Seems hard to justify a 27" Imac when I can have a pc build to match its specs and a second machine with the specs of the 21" for $3162. Or replace the lowly 4850 for a Gt280, double the ram and hb space - for an extra 400-500 (NZD) So $2362 and use the $1000 for a trip to Fiji (or buy some crappy pc software).

I love Apples integration between hardware and software and osx is amazing, but build quality isn't as much better than any other pc these days, components are no more reliable - Both consequences of trying to compete on price, and more than allowable if the price reflected this. I would happily pay an extra 500-700 dollars premium to have a mac, honestly I would. But when I can build a superior computer and have almost $1000 left over it's very hard to go Mac

For the time being, I think I'll just cherish the time I spend working on my work Mac

edit: is it his fault if you can't read?

And yes, you are tackling 'real' issues, but in a) the wrong thread and b) every day and c) by posting the same thing and by d) being intentionally antagonistic. Which is fine. I'm just posting about the 'real' issue of you flooding the board with "omg no bluray" comments

From Apple's tech spec page:


Reads like it's for both.



know a lot of people from Janet's schools over the years. few are techie people, and few do downloads. Every one of my friends who are more techie have B-R, and some do download. Of the school friends, more have B-R than do downloads.


Convenience is also why CD made it. Same for DVD. B-R doesn't offer more than they do, but more people are buying home theaters all the time. It's the largest part of the consumer electronics purchasing plans these days for large systems.

While PC people may only want to pay a few hundred for their PC's, the same people are paying thousands for home theater. And they're buying B-R to go with it.

Netflix streaming is free with monthly membership, even 1 disc at a time.

I wish they had kept the 24" 16:10 option. 16 x 9 is great for watching movies, but for office type work, design/development stuff I think the 16 x 10 aspect ratio is slightly better, and 24" is a really good size on a desk.