The old iMac was kinda annoying (and somewhat nerve wracking) to open up and upgrade the HDDs so I'll reserve judgement on the new iMacs, especially the 21", until we see if they made the process less annoying.
IMHO the little door to upgrade RAM isn't all that important to upgradeability although I noticed that Apple is back to charging a hefty premium on RAM upgrades for the mini. $300 for 16GB? Really? Given I'm not going to pony up $300 for a 256GB SSD either I'm going to upgrade both drive and RAM at the same time so opening up the iMac is a given.
I dunno what crack folks are smoking to say that the 2011 iMacs are all that user serviceable given you have to go in with suction cups and hope you didn't just bork the display on a brand new iMac by having it slip while detaching the two fiddly cables attaching it to the logic board. It's either a 2 person job or propping the display up with something random that's handy. No harm done but there was a moment of "Oh shit, what have I done".
On the plus side, getting dust in between the glass and display shouldn't be an issue anymore. Damn was that annoying.
And there is such a machine, made just for you. It's called the Mac Pro. I hear that the new ones will be out in 2013.
If the display is such an issue, he can plug one into the iMac and have dual displays. There's certainly nothing wrong with the performance of the iMac, it is workstation class.
I agree with Bruce. Those of you excoriating users who want / need DVD burners, etc, need to step away from your myopic perspective. Anyone working in commercial graphics / video production receives hundreds of DVDs with source material. You possibly heard of "graphic design"? The original market that saved Apple from itself?
Odd, the thing I hear from the commercial graphics/video production folks is "the internal burner is too damn slow to bother with". Now with USB3 you can use pretty much any of the fast Blu-Ray external burners at their rated speeds. A pro or prosumer using the craptastic internal 4x (for dual layer) "super"drive is being pennywise and pound foolish.
Folks bitching about an external burner cluttering their desks ignore all the other crap cluttering the desks of graphics/video pros.
YOu need to learn a thing or two about home "burned" CD and DVDs... they aren't as permanent as you think. The tech big industries used to make discs that are sold with software or movies and music and such are NOT the same tech your home burner uses... and you can very well lose your data over time.
Yah, tape is where it's at for actual backup media. Which is why I punted and paid for CrashPlan and a couple external drives for short term backups. If my RAID 1 dies, my offsite backup external is lost and Crashplan dead then something has gone terribly wrong and I probably don't really care that much about my data anymore.
If the display is such an issue, he can plug one into the iMac and have dual displays. There's certainly nothing wrong with the performance of the iMac, it is workstation class.
Some of you are missing the point. Apple are slowly migrating us all towards a high speed (almost) always on cloud based future, where machines like the iMac will be sexy 'light weight' terminals, and won't require as much power or memory as pure desktop paradigm hardware does. Just as Siri offloads most if not all the work to Apple's servers, so, power apps (including those like Photoshop) will one day also hand over some of their tasks to remote servers making the 'terminal' device more affordable and of course, easier to keep 'active'.
IE, if your iMac fails and you receive a replacement/loaner, you'll simply login to a future version of iCloud and continue where you left off. This is what Google are trying to do with the Chromebook concept, even if on a less ambitious scale.
Apple know YOUR future even if you're not aware of it - yet!
All the talk about Apple going down to a 5400 RPM drive has got me a little concerned. Can anyone comment, at a practical level, the impact this will have on performance? Will it really be noticeable? We use our iMac at home - surfing, gaming, music, photos, etc.
AS for me,,, I think it looks great and it will look great on my office desk. Why so people try to find something wrong is beyond me. I'll order what I need with sufficient RAM, run bootcamp for office work, and grin while others marvel my machine. This iMac Rocks!! Glad I waited - Raleigh, NC Joe
Less aluminium in the case so it's cheaper on materials, whooosh, bonza profit!
Lighter, lower shipping fees for Apple!
It's thinner at the edge so then you get the benefits of..... errrr..... ermmmm..... really hurting your hands when you have to take it to an Apple shop to be fixed.
To make up for it, have a rejigged 2010 Fermi graphics architecture and ivy bridge which is being superseded in 6 or 7 months by Haswell.
Now, I saw the whole drive deletion debate going on around the time of 3.5" and it's similar here however, I'm just not ready to give up my DVD drive yet and I don't want to pay extra for an external drive that I got internal for free on the previous models. I buy audio CDs and rip them to iTunes. In many cases it is cheaper to buy CDs instead of downloading legally. Same with DVDs, I buy, I watch, I sell on (unless I really like the film).
Older films are cheap on Amazon and new films can be bought/watched/sold for a loss of about $2 which again is cheaper than downloading legally from iTunes.
"Adding thinness" on a desktop makes no sense to me, what was the gain? The previous 2 generations have never really been bettered and they weren't exactly fat.
Good idea sticking the SD card slot around the back. Form over function in every sense of the word. It'd have been better to not bother. If you use it it's gonna be a pain, if you don't you won't need it. If you do use it you'll probably get a USB card reader and a USB extension cable. Again, Apple shouldn't have bothered even putting the SD lot on the iMac at all if they aren't going to put it somewhere sensible. More people are going to use the DVD drive than the SD port.
The only way I would have upgraded to this cut down iMac is if they did it in 30" standard screen or at a push, 27" retina.
So now the decision has to be made, upgrade my 24" to the current 27" before the new one shows up, wait for the new one and get the old "fat" 27" iMac or wait until the middle of next year to see if Apple actually improve the next version.
These are my opinions, I look forward to a torrent of abuse from the self important "high milers" who believe that their opinions are fact and my personal opinions are incorrect.
These are my opinions, I look forward to a torrent of abuse from the self important "high milers" who believe that their opinions are fact and my personal opinions are incorrect.
I don't have any abuse to dish out towards you. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion.
But just know one thing, while your opinion isn't exactly incorrect, it is an opinion afterall, I will say that your personal view represents a tiny minority of users. You still use DVD's and buy CD's? Good for you, but most people don't.
Apple should build machines for the 99%, not the 1%, and you sir, are a statistical outlier, an extremist. Expecting Apple to accommodate such a tiny group of people who still dwell in the past and demand obsolete features would not be a wise business move for Apple. And if you can't even be bothered to go and purchase a cheap external drive just proves that this iMac is obviously not made for you. Either use what you already have, or just go and buy something else.
We've made it better by giving you less stuff.
No DVD drive, wow!
Slower HDDs, OMG awesome!
No Firewire, woohoo I love buying adapters!
Less aluminium in the case so it's cheaper on materials, whooosh, bonza profit!
Lighter, lower shipping fees for Apple!
It's thinner at the edge so then you get the benefits of..... errrr..... ermmmm..... really hurting your hands when you have to take it to an Apple shop to be fixed.
To make up for it, have a rejigged 2010 Fermi graphics architecture and ivy bridge which is being superseded in 6 or 7 months by Haswell.
Now, I saw the whole drive deletion debate going on around the time of 3.5" and it's similar here however, I'm just not ready to give up my DVD drive yet and I don't want to pay extra for an external drive that I got internal for free on the previous models. I buy audio CDs and rip them to iTunes. In many cases it is cheaper to buy CDs instead of downloading legally. Same with DVDs, I buy, I watch, I sell on (unless I really like the film).
Older films are cheap on Amazon and new films can be bought/watched/sold for a loss of about $2 which again is cheaper than downloading legally from iTunes.
"Adding thinness" on a desktop makes no sense to me, what was the gain? The previous 2 generations have never really been bettered and they weren't exactly fat.
Good idea sticking the SD card slot around the back. Form over function in every sense of the word. It'd have been better to not bother. If you use it it's gonna be a pain, if you don't you won't need it. If you do use it you'll probably get a USB card reader and a USB extension cable. Again, Apple shouldn't have bothered even putting the SD lot on the iMac at all if they aren't going to put it somewhere sensible. More people are going to use the DVD drive than the SD port.
The only way I would have upgraded to this cut down iMac is if they did it in 30" standard screen or at a push, 27" retina.
So now the decision has to be made, upgrade my 24" to the current 27" before the new one shows up, wait for the new one and get the old "fat" 27" iMac or wait until the middle of next year to see if Apple actually improve the next version.
These are my opinions, I look forward to a torrent of abuse from the self important "high milers" who believe that their opinions are fact and my personal opinions are incorrect.
I spoke against the misguided SD card slot location. I believe it's possible to have a slot in a more reasonable location if they wanted to, but it doesn't seem like they care.
I'm not happy with the drop in ports. Needing a special adapter for everything gets old.
But at some point, you need to let go of the optical drive. I don't know where it's cheaper to buy a CD and rip, unless you buy used. Then I'll grant that.
I'm not happy with the drop in ports. Needing a special adapter for everything gets old.
We're just in a bad time. USB had this same transition period, where adapters were required for everything. Once Haswell picks up, Thunderbolt will become the standard.
I buy CDs and rip and I get plenty of them cheaper than an iTunes download and even at the same price you get more cos you can rip losslessly rather than get a 256kbps AAC file.
There are tons of people that do this. Audio forums are full of people that manage music libraries in this way.
I don't see the point of making it thinner but it does look fantastic. I'm concerned about the 5400 hard drive but someone did say that these drives nowadays are much better than they used to be. I don't know the technicalities of that.
The other downsides for me are that the 21" has non accessible ram and the base model has no fusion drive option.
I really thought that a newly designed iMac would offer SSD in the base model as this is so popular these days and prices are coming down.
All in all it looks great and I could get close to what I want but I'd have to spend more on a custom option.
All in all it looks great and I could get close to what I want but I'd have to spend more on a custom option.
Apple has always been shrewd in that way, even going back more than a decade or more.
The bottom model will always come with some compromises, and you're going to have to add on some extra options or move up to the next models, in order to get exactly what you want.
Not nearly enough for the capacities expected of a desktop.
Is it a known fact that somebody can not choose to configure one with an SSD though?
On the Apple store, you can not even buy an iMac at the moment, and you can not configure a custom one either.
I'm expecting that somebody will be able to configure one with an SSD if that's what they want. 512Gb SSDs are pretty pricey still, but if somebody's willing to spend the money on one, then why not!
I was operating under the assumption that you'd be able to choose HDD, Fusion, SDD, or HDD+SDD still.
Yes, I'm sure that that will be an option.
I just misunderstood the comment for a moment.
It's pretty obvious why the bottom model doesn't come with SSD standard though, as you're correct, a small sized SSD is not nearly enough for a desktop machine.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by MoffeDK
please supply us with a desktop computer we can access, perform upgrades and perform small service on.
And there is such a machine, made just for you. It's called the Mac Pro. I hear that the new ones will be out in 2013.
The old iMac was kinda annoying (and somewhat nerve wracking) to open up and upgrade the HDDs so I'll reserve judgement on the new iMacs, especially the 21", until we see if they made the process less annoying.
IMHO the little door to upgrade RAM isn't all that important to upgradeability although I noticed that Apple is back to charging a hefty premium on RAM upgrades for the mini. $300 for 16GB? Really? Given I'm not going to pony up $300 for a 256GB SSD either I'm going to upgrade both drive and RAM at the same time so opening up the iMac is a given.
I dunno what crack folks are smoking to say that the 2011 iMacs are all that user serviceable given you have to go in with suction cups and hope you didn't just bork the display on a brand new iMac by having it slip while detaching the two fiddly cables attaching it to the logic board. It's either a 2 person job or propping the display up with something random that's handy. No harm done but there was a moment of "Oh shit, what have I done".
On the plus side, getting dust in between the glass and display shouldn't be an issue anymore. Damn was that annoying.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][
And there is such a machine, made just for you. It's called the Mac Pro. I hear that the new ones will be out in 2013.
If the display is such an issue, he can plug one into the iMac and have dual displays. There's certainly nothing wrong with the performance of the iMac, it is workstation class.
All the best.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vaporland
I agree with Bruce. Those of you excoriating users who want / need DVD burners, etc, need to step away from your myopic perspective. Anyone working in commercial graphics / video production receives hundreds of DVDs with source material. You possibly heard of "graphic design"? The original market that saved Apple from itself?
Odd, the thing I hear from the commercial graphics/video production folks is "the internal burner is too damn slow to bother with". Now with USB3 you can use pretty much any of the fast Blu-Ray external burners at their rated speeds. A pro or prosumer using the craptastic internal 4x (for dual layer) "super"drive is being pennywise and pound foolish.
Folks bitching about an external burner cluttering their desks ignore all the other crap cluttering the desks of graphics/video pros.
Quote:
Originally Posted by doh123
YOu need to learn a thing or two about home "burned" CD and DVDs... they aren't as permanent as you think. The tech big industries used to make discs that are sold with software or movies and music and such are NOT the same tech your home burner uses... and you can very well lose your data over time.
Yah, tape is where it's at for actual backup media. Which is why I punted and paid for CrashPlan and a couple external drives for short term backups. If my RAID 1 dies, my offsite backup external is lost and Crashplan dead then something has gone terribly wrong and I probably don't really care that much about my data anymore.
Quote:
Originally Posted by IQatEdo
If the display is such an issue, he can plug one into the iMac and have dual displays. There's certainly nothing wrong with the performance of the iMac, it is workstation class.
All the best.
What does workstation mean these days?
IE, if your iMac fails and you receive a replacement/loaner, you'll simply login to a future version of iCloud and continue where you left off. This is what Google are trying to do with the Chromebook concept, even if on a less ambitious scale.
Apple know YOUR future even if you're not aware of it - yet!
All the talk about Apple going down to a 5400 RPM drive has got me a little concerned. Can anyone comment, at a practical level, the impact this will have on performance? Will it really be noticeable? We use our iMac at home - surfing, gaming, music, photos, etc.
Thanks.
Glad I waited - Raleigh, NC
Joe
Apple's 2 key words for 2012. Adapters and Money.
We've made it better by giving you less stuff.
No DVD drive, wow!
Slower HDDs, OMG awesome!
No Firewire, woohoo I love buying adapters!
Less aluminium in the case so it's cheaper on materials, whooosh, bonza profit!
Lighter, lower shipping fees for Apple!
It's thinner at the edge so then you get the benefits of..... errrr..... ermmmm..... really hurting your hands when you have to take it to an Apple shop to be fixed.
To make up for it, have a rejigged 2010 Fermi graphics architecture and ivy bridge which is being superseded in 6 or 7 months by Haswell.
Now, I saw the whole drive deletion debate going on around the time of 3.5" and it's similar here however, I'm just not ready to give up my DVD drive yet and I don't want to pay extra for an external drive that I got internal for free on the previous models. I buy audio CDs and rip them to iTunes. In many cases it is cheaper to buy CDs instead of downloading legally. Same with DVDs, I buy, I watch, I sell on (unless I really like the film).
Older films are cheap on Amazon and new films can be bought/watched/sold for a loss of about $2 which again is cheaper than downloading legally from iTunes.
"Adding thinness" on a desktop makes no sense to me, what was the gain? The previous 2 generations have never really been bettered and they weren't exactly fat.
Good idea sticking the SD card slot around the back. Form over function in every sense of the word. It'd have been better to not bother. If you use it it's gonna be a pain, if you don't you won't need it. If you do use it you'll probably get a USB card reader and a USB extension cable. Again, Apple shouldn't have bothered even putting the SD lot on the iMac at all if they aren't going to put it somewhere sensible. More people are going to use the DVD drive than the SD port.
The only way I would have upgraded to this cut down iMac is if they did it in 30" standard screen or at a push, 27" retina.
So now the decision has to be made, upgrade my 24" to the current 27" before the new one shows up, wait for the new one and get the old "fat" 27" iMac or wait until the middle of next year to see if Apple actually improve the next version.
These are my opinions, I look forward to a torrent of abuse from the self important "high milers" who believe that their opinions are fact and my personal opinions are incorrect.
Originally Posted by Evilution
…my personal opinions are incorrect.
Not all of them, but they are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Evilution
These are my opinions, I look forward to a torrent of abuse from the self important "high milers" who believe that their opinions are fact and my personal opinions are incorrect.
I don't have any abuse to dish out towards you. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion.
But just know one thing, while your opinion isn't exactly incorrect, it is an opinion afterall, I will say that your personal view represents a tiny minority of users. You still use DVD's and buy CD's? Good for you, but most people don't.
Apple should build machines for the 99%, not the 1%, and you sir, are a statistical outlier, an extremist. Expecting Apple to accommodate such a tiny group of people who still dwell in the past and demand obsolete features would not be a wise business move for Apple. And if you can't even be bothered to go and purchase a cheap external drive just proves that this iMac is obviously not made for you. Either use what you already have, or just go and buy something else.
I spoke against the misguided SD card slot location. I believe it's possible to have a slot in a more reasonable location if they wanted to, but it doesn't seem like they care.
I'm not happy with the drop in ports. Needing a special adapter for everything gets old.
But at some point, you need to let go of the optical drive. I don't know where it's cheaper to buy a CD and rip, unless you buy used. Then I'll grant that.
Originally Posted by JeffDM
I'm not happy with the drop in ports. Needing a special adapter for everything gets old.
We're just in a bad time. USB had this same transition period, where adapters were required for everything. Once Haswell picks up, Thunderbolt will become the standard.
There are tons of people that do this. Audio forums are full of people that manage music libraries in this way.
I don't see the point of making it thinner but it does look fantastic. I'm concerned about the 5400 hard drive but someone did say that these drives nowadays are much better than they used to be. I don't know the technicalities of that.
The other downsides for me are that the 21" has non accessible ram and the base model has no fusion drive option.
I really thought that a newly designed iMac would offer SSD in the base model as this is so popular these days and prices are coming down.
All in all it looks great and I could get close to what I want but I'd have to spend more on a custom option.
Quote:
Originally Posted by audiomac
All in all it looks great and I could get close to what I want but I'd have to spend more on a custom option.
Apple has always been shrewd in that way, even going back more than a decade or more.
The bottom model will always come with some compromises, and you're going to have to add on some extra options or move up to the next models, in order to get exactly what you want.
Originally Posted by audiomac
I really thought that a newly designed iMac would offer SSD in the base model as this is so popular these days and prices are coming down.
Not nearly enough for the capacities expected of a desktop.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Not nearly enough for the capacities expected of a desktop.
Is it a known fact that somebody can not choose to configure one with an SSD though?
On the Apple store, you can not even buy an iMac at the moment, and you can not configure a custom one either.
I'm expecting that somebody will be able to configure one with an SSD if that's what they want. 512Gb SSDs are pretty pricey still, but if somebody's willing to spend the money on one, then why not!
Originally Posted by Apple ][
Is it a known fact that somebody can not choose to configure one with an SSD though?
I was operating under the assumption that you'd be able to choose HDD, Fusion, SDD, or HDD+SDD still.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
I was operating under the assumption that you'd be able to choose HDD, Fusion, SDD, or HDD+SDD still.
Yes, I'm sure that that will be an option.
I just misunderstood the comment for a moment.
It's pretty obvious why the bottom model doesn't come with SSD standard though, as you're correct, a small sized SSD is not nearly enough for a desktop machine.