Intel iMac... more like Intel whyMac

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Shitty thread title aside, take a look at the specs of the current low end iMac vs. the new midrange Macbook. For the same price ($1299) you get a Macbook with a faster clockspeed and portable form factor. Aside from graphics and disk space there are few other differences between the two systems. What gives? Could this be an indicator (although very subtle) of an upcoming iMac bump of some sort? Maybe the iMac will pick up a Conroe?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    I agree that the CPU of the iMac could use a bump now, but other than that? The iMac comes with a significantly faster and bigger hard drive, much better graphics, a higher-resolution, -size and -quality screen, a faster SuperDrive with dual-layer, and probably more things I'm overlooking right now. I don't think it's a bad deal.
  • Reply 2 of 16
    synpsynp Posts: 248member
    - Bigger, faster hard drive

    - Accelerated graphics

    - Better keyboard and mouse

    - That "portable form factor" is as much a disadvantage as an advantage.



    Working on a laptop is not comfortable. The screen is just over your hands, so you're always looking a bit down, and very close to the screen. This strains your eyes and your neck.



    Mobility is good only if you need it.
  • Reply 3 of 16
    flounderflounder Posts: 2,674member
    Yeah, I imagine the iMac will get the same speed bump the MBP got sometime soon.
  • Reply 4 of 16
    netdognetdog Posts: 244member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Flounder

    Yeah, I imagine the iMac will get the same speed bump the MBP got sometime soon.



    Honestly, I think that the 20" iMac and the new MacBook are both very good deals, and excellent pieces of hardware. With an iMac at home, and an MB for the road and writing in bed or on the sofa, you are equipped.
  • Reply 5 of 16
    macnycemacnyce Posts: 18member
    speed bumps for the imac, do you own a ferrari to drive 55 mph, everyone has this lust for faster machines, is there something you need to do that the current machines can't. Quit your whining and be happy with what is out. I use my current 20 intel mac for composing music, editing music videos, plus graphic design and animation plus tons of other things. You don't need a 10 gigahertz mac to surf the net and download porn.!!!!!
  • Reply 6 of 16
    flounderflounder Posts: 2,674member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by netdog

    Honestly, I think that the 20" iMac and the new MacBook are both very good deals, and excellent pieces of hardware. With an iMac at home, and an MB for the road and writing in bed or on the sofa, you are equipped.



    I absolutely agree with you. I love my 20" iMac.

    I just think a speed bump is likely sometime soon to keep it on par with the MBP.



    My guess as to why they didn't bump them at the same time as the MBP is that laptops are a very competitive field, and apple simply can't afford to fall behind, chip-speed wise.



    The iMac, on the other hand, is a pretty unique machine and doesn't have much of a counterpart in the PC world. Thus, they can hold off on a speed bump a touch longer and milk some extra profits, since doing so won't appreciably hurt sales.
  • Reply 7 of 16
    progmacprogmac Posts: 1,850member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by netdog

    With an iMac at home, and an MB for the road and writing in bed or on the sofa, you are equipped.



    ... for a life staring at computer screens
  • Reply 8 of 16
    >_>>_> Posts: 336member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by synp

    - Bigger, faster hard drive

    - Accelerated graphics

    - Better keyboard and mouse

    - That "portable form factor" is as much a disadvantage as an advantage.




    - Considerably larger display. I'd say that alone accounts for the price:quality difference.



    - Xidius
  • Reply 9 of 16
    dhagan4755dhagan4755 Posts: 2,152member
    If one were so inclined, they could attach their MacBook to a Cinema Display in clamshell mode. This would give a desktop experience, would it not?
  • Reply 10 of 16
    icibaquicibaqu Posts: 278member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by DHagan4755

    If one were so inclined, they could attach their MacBook to a Cinema Display in clamshell mode. This would give a desktop experience, would it not?



    is that one of the features that comes with the spanning/etc that was used to distinguish the ibook and powerbook?



    if so that's a major bonus and something that i think would be really appealing to some people i know who are in the market for a new computer, but could probably benefit from the flexibiilty of being able to use both.



    how big a screen can the macbook run? (going to apple.com to investigate now, but one of you probably knows faster than my investigation)
  • Reply 11 of 16
    cj171cj171 Posts: 144member
    yes, the ibooks used to only be able to mirror displays...



    as for the macbook, i believe it can run either a 20 or 23" cinema
  • Reply 12 of 16
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Originally posted by icibaqu

    how big a screen can the macbook run?




    "Extended desktop and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 1920 x 1200 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors"



    # 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. At 1920 x 1200 resolution

    # 20-inch Apple Cinema Display. 1680 x 1050 resolution
  • Reply 13 of 16
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    The Macbook has integrated graphics.









    Let that ring in your ears for a while.
  • Reply 14 of 16
    pippinpippin Posts: 91member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by macnyce

    speed bumps for the imac, do you own a ferrari to drive 55 mph, everyone has this lust for faster machines, is there something you need to do that the current machines can't. Quit your whining and be happy with what is out. I use my current 20 intel mac for composing music, editing music videos, plus graphic design and animation plus tons of other things. You don't need a 10 gigahertz mac to surf the net and download porn.!!!!!



    I'm pretty sure I wasn't whining... just looking at what's out now and trying to glance ahead a little bit. Plus, I think it's weird to see a portable with such a clockspeed with no price premium over a desktop. Strange times.
  • Reply 15 of 16
    macnycemacnyce Posts: 18member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Pippin

    I'm pretty sure I wasn't whining... just looking at what's out now and trying to glance ahead a little bit. Plus, I think it's weird to see a portable with such a clockspeed with no price premium over a desktop. Strange times.





    I wasn't necessarily attacking you but after reading so many threads about future machines and the yurn for speed bumps, it just urkes me to see people always needing fatser machines. It not the machine, but the what the USER can do with it. If you need so much power, buy and build a cluster. I have many friends and myself included that do tons of commercial work, singers, music producers, commercial and tv show editors and graphic designers that have filled the sirwaves with work all done on older slower macs. It's not the speed of the machines but the speed and functionality of the human brain. Feel free to speculate, this is america but for those who need a faster machine than what is out these days, I say "get a life".
  • Reply 16 of 16
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Originally posted by macnyce

    I wasn't necessarily attacking you but after reading so many threads about future machines and the yurn for speed bumps, it just urkes me to see people always needing fatser machines. It not the machine, but the what the USER can do with it. If you need so much power, buy and build a cluster. I have many friends and myself included that do tons of commercial work, singers, music producers, commercial and tv show editors and graphic designers that have filled the sirwaves with work all done on older slower macs. It's not the speed of the machines but the speed and functionality of the human brain. Feel free to speculate, this is america but for those who need a faster machine than what is out these days, I say "get a life".






    Let me ramble on a bit. You are right. I used to do web design for several years. Completely self-taught, started with bad photoshop stuff (bevels and glows, you know that kind of thing) but eventually moved on to decent design work on a Titanium Powerbook. Through 2004 I explored various Macs (symptom of my bipolar disorder -- more on that later), buying and selling a mac a month -- this went on for about 5 or 6 months until I started running out of cash and had to bail and go back and live with my parents.



    Through 2004 I managed to finally break through into that elusive "creative industry", working at actual graphic design houses (boutique places and some in-house) and ad agencies. Flash and Photoshop, working it, doing the design and all that, yeah, the kind of machine is important if it facilitates the work but people involved in producing creative work place the priority on the quality of the work first, the networking and business aspects that the work achieves, and then comes the speed of the machine they use. Creatives tend to naturally drift to Macs because it just works and it just helps them to work. Yet a lot of design and creative work gets done on PCs as well. A lot of great music is produced on PCs and Macs.



    Towards the end of 2004 my bipolar disorder got worse and in 2005 and this year I've been slowly improving via treatment. I no longer do design work and cannot afford to buy Macs or work that much on a Mac.



    Yet it gives me a whole bunch of fun to read the forums, look at bizarre stuff like the application of thermal paste on the MacBook Pro and so on. I have a sense of satisfaction that my AMD64 Venice 3000+ CPU is stock clocked at 1.8ghz and I'm typing on it right now and play games on it overclocked to 2.20ghz.



    What I'm saying is that these forums are populated by various people, some who are in the thick of creative work that just pop by to scope out what's happening in the Apple scene and what people are saying about the new Macs.



    For some of us, it's a hobby, a way to pass time and read up on stuff, and for me particularly, it's a link to a career and lifestyle I used to enjoy before my bipolar disorder ran amuck.



    Yeah, sometimes I laugh about the people including myself dissecting and whining about the difference between 1.8ghz, 2.0ghz and 2.16 ghz.... since I get 1.8ghz to 2.2ghz for FREE



    Don't take it too seriously mate, there are a whole different type of people here, and if you yourself are involved in creative work I wouldn't recommend you spend too much time distracted by sites like appleinsider.com, hardmac.com etc. etc. The PC sites are way worse, by the way, tomshardware and anandtech will write up to 20 pages or more just on the difference between a core duo 1.8+ghz and a core duo 2.0ghz and so on.



    It's about enthusiasm. Some of us are enthuastic about some things, some others. I like to read up Apple news and rumors, I also appreciate good motion graphics and quality web and icon design for example, though I am bitter about the harshness and extremely stressful nature of the creative industry.



    But at the end of the day, it IS about the enthusiasm, and what excites us. I mean there are threads dissecting how glossy the Macbook is, how Black is the Black MacBook, and right now people are already queuing up at the new NYC apple store waiting for it's opening 24 hours from now.



    Some people yeah, need to get a life, but for some, this is part of our lives. I appreciate and enjoy the AppleInsider forums, it brings meaning to my life. For example, I may not be producing the latest trance music anthem but for now, reading about Logic updates brings meaning to my life.
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