My new eMac - mini review.
I received my Super800 eMac yesterday.
I pretty much concur with most others have stated about the eMacs in general:
Screen:
On first boot, the screen did not come on. Heard the boot chime and then the "welcome" music you get during registration. It scared me, but when I did a hard reboot from the power switch, everything came up fine. It's been running like a champ since.
The CRT is very crisp and I see none of the major flicker or problems some have mentioned. There's some slight EMI interference at the maximum resolution (the "waves" you sometimes see on a TV) but it's not noticeable unless you're really looking for it.
Most likely it may be the result of noisy power - I'll have to plug it into and isolated, filtered outlet to verify.
I actually had to decrease the contrast and brightness so I wouldn't fry my retinas in my office. (I have fairly soft lighting up there.)
The fan:
Yes, it's noticeable - not near as bad as any PC I've ever heard, but you'll know it's on. It doesn't bother me at all - someone had referred to it as sounding like a 60's slide projector - and that's pretty accurate. Only real down side is that I was up pretty late playing with my new toy, and the soft drone of the fan was actually lulling me to sleep. Maybe the first case of mac induced whiplash...
Speakers:
These must be the same as the pro speakers the iMac comes with - they sound just fine. Not super loud, as could be expected, but they sound pretty darned good. They're completely adequate for my purposes, although I may add an iSUb for that extra oomph.
Thanks to the line in jack, I can use my dLink USB radio as well.
There's an OS X native app for it, which is better than the Windows one it ships with by far - nice.
Performance:
Runs great - Warcraft 3 and Stronghold run great. The "everyday" apps are as responsive as most apps are on my 1Ghz wintel box. I haven't tried any heavy duty crunching yet - eventually I'll see how fast it encodes video - I just need something "DVD-R" worthy.
Smokes by iBook 600 in most apps, obviously. Overall "feel" is that it's pretty quick.
Overall:
I'm very pleased - I added an extra 128MB stick I had lying around for a total of 384MB and it seems very responsive. Eventually I'll drop a 512 stick in, as they're still fairly cheap.
I may miss the expandability in the future, but I gained a lot of desk space back. The whole unit is smaller than just my 19" monitor. (If I could only get a video driver hacked up to allow spanning...)
I'm a pretty happy guy overall. I know you hear a lot of the "I can build a faster PC for less $$" arguments out there, but the fact is, a DVD-R combo "Superdrive" type unit is around $500. Throw in a case, motherboard, CPU, RAM, monitor, power supply, video card, keyboard, optical mouse, etc. - And a copy of Windows XP Pro and comparable software to match the iApps, and the eMac makes a pretty compelling buy.
I pretty much concur with most others have stated about the eMacs in general:
Screen:
On first boot, the screen did not come on. Heard the boot chime and then the "welcome" music you get during registration. It scared me, but when I did a hard reboot from the power switch, everything came up fine. It's been running like a champ since.
The CRT is very crisp and I see none of the major flicker or problems some have mentioned. There's some slight EMI interference at the maximum resolution (the "waves" you sometimes see on a TV) but it's not noticeable unless you're really looking for it.
Most likely it may be the result of noisy power - I'll have to plug it into and isolated, filtered outlet to verify.
I actually had to decrease the contrast and brightness so I wouldn't fry my retinas in my office. (I have fairly soft lighting up there.)
The fan:
Yes, it's noticeable - not near as bad as any PC I've ever heard, but you'll know it's on. It doesn't bother me at all - someone had referred to it as sounding like a 60's slide projector - and that's pretty accurate. Only real down side is that I was up pretty late playing with my new toy, and the soft drone of the fan was actually lulling me to sleep. Maybe the first case of mac induced whiplash...
Speakers:
These must be the same as the pro speakers the iMac comes with - they sound just fine. Not super loud, as could be expected, but they sound pretty darned good. They're completely adequate for my purposes, although I may add an iSUb for that extra oomph.
Thanks to the line in jack, I can use my dLink USB radio as well.
There's an OS X native app for it, which is better than the Windows one it ships with by far - nice.
Performance:
Runs great - Warcraft 3 and Stronghold run great. The "everyday" apps are as responsive as most apps are on my 1Ghz wintel box. I haven't tried any heavy duty crunching yet - eventually I'll see how fast it encodes video - I just need something "DVD-R" worthy.
Smokes by iBook 600 in most apps, obviously. Overall "feel" is that it's pretty quick.
Overall:
I'm very pleased - I added an extra 128MB stick I had lying around for a total of 384MB and it seems very responsive. Eventually I'll drop a 512 stick in, as they're still fairly cheap.
I may miss the expandability in the future, but I gained a lot of desk space back. The whole unit is smaller than just my 19" monitor. (If I could only get a video driver hacked up to allow spanning...)
I'm a pretty happy guy overall. I know you hear a lot of the "I can build a faster PC for less $$" arguments out there, but the fact is, a DVD-R combo "Superdrive" type unit is around $500. Throw in a case, motherboard, CPU, RAM, monitor, power supply, video card, keyboard, optical mouse, etc. - And a copy of Windows XP Pro and comparable software to match the iApps, and the eMac makes a pretty compelling buy.
Comments
I'm purchasing a new Mac early next year so I hope to make up my mind between eMac and iMac next year with updates to both models. At any rate it'll be nice to be current.
I'm a pretty happy guy overall. I know you hear a lot of the "I can build a faster PC for less $$" arguments out there, but the fact is, a DVD-R combo "Superdrive" type unit is around $500. Throw in a case, motherboard, CPU, RAM, monitor, power supply, video card, keyboard, optical mouse, etc. - And a copy of Windows XP Pro and comparable software to match the iApps, and the eMac makes a pretty compelling buy.
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Your right but they won't look at it like that!!!
Pioneer DVR-104 DVD-R/CD-RW for $246 shipped
Guess if it worked with iDVD it would drag the cost comparison down a little...
Knowing those damned Apple bastards, there's probably an obnoxious money grubbing firmware snafu to overcome aswell.
<strong>I can build a cheaper and faster PC than the eMac. I can get all the stuff at my local dealer and put Windows XP, and ... OUPS ! <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />
WOW! So Can I but it would run like shit because of the OS! <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />
I just enjoy the total overall user experience more on the macs.
And I am sucker for design - I've built some wicked looking machines (Lian Li cases are sweet), but I like the "harmony" of the Mac hardware and OS. As Apple controls the hardware mostly, they can design an integrated "package" better. Poor MS has to go generic to support the many different hardware configurations out there. It would be impossible for them to develop as refined an OS under those conditions.
Note the "put Windows XP, and ... OUPS!
My only complaints are two freezes in jag.
With no control alt delete possible, and the power button didn't even reboot. I had to unplug the d**n thing.
Sigh.
just like my old imac 333 that it rep;laced.
The thing needs an on/off switch.
Other than that I like it.
MSKR
Did you try holding the power button for 5 seconds?
The screen just seems huge compared to the CRT iMac they're replacing. And I find them to be crisp and flicker-free. Sound is much, much better than the old iMac too. And I'm really glad to have keyboard volume control. And my six year old can drop in CD's in the eMac, whereas he had big trouble "snapping" the discs onto the old iMac CD spindle (it's a Rev C, not slot load).
My 2 yr old prefers the hockey-puck mouse, but everyone else likes the new ball-less mice. I'd like a wheel mouse. Maybe Christmas.
Now I'm just waiting for my up-to-date program Jaguar disks to arrive so we can get printer sharing set up and I'll be a happy boy.
Only snag in the deal has been that some of my kids' old edutainment won't run in Classic, and I'm not going to have the family booting into 9, thank you very much.
So we did our part to boost the economy by stocking up on edutainment software that's OS X native, and we'll be sure to register the products and indicate we're using them on OS X machines. That's the only effective way to send the message that we want more OS X native software NOW, I think.
Oh, and the eMac is quieter than both my home and work Dells and the old iMac.
My one silly complaint: what happened to Cro-Mag Rally? The machines shipped with a space ship shooting game and a robot shooting game. How about something for the non-violent kid crowd, Steve? (no, not solitaire)
do you really own drivers for the dLink USB-Radio for Mac (OSX)? :eek:
I have this toy too but was only able to use it with my PC.
It would be very very kind of you to give me a hint to the source of the mac drivers.
thank you in advance
<strong>The CRT is very crisp and I see none of the major flicker or problems some have mentioned.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I just bought a combo drive 700 MHz eMac for someone else and set it up for her. At the very highest resolution, 1280x960, the scan rate is only 72 Hz -- for me, I notice the flicker at that rate and find it uncomfortable. If I step down to 1152x84 resolution at 80 Hz, I'm much happier.
All in all, for the price of $1100 US, I think it's a nice little machine. I spent another $135 right off the bat to bring the memory up to 640 MB. It's definitely a big improvement over the Rev A 233 MHz iMac she'd been using.
<a href="http://www.pth.com/DSBRTuner/"; target="_blank">http://www.pth.com/DSBRTuner/</a>;
-Mr_E
[quote]Originally posted by kiu77:
<strong>Hi Mr_E,
do you really own drivers for the dLink USB-Radio for Mac (OSX)? :eek:
I have this toy too but was only able to use it with my PC.
It would be very very kind of you to give me a hint to the source of the mac drivers.
thank you in advance</strong><hr></blockquote>
[ 09-03-2002: Message edited by: Mr_E ]</p>
I've just downloaded the driver and now
I'm listening radio on my new dual mac
which I use more often than my PC