The Game's Afoot-New iMac G5 Arriving
I’m not sure if I mentioned I was looking at getting my sister some kind of Mac for Christmas. Initially, I had planned on getting her an eMac. But after looking at my costs and options and figuring I could kill two birds with one stone, I ordered my wife an iMac G5 this morning. It’s the mid-range 17 inch 1.8 GHz with a SuperDrive model and a refurb (factory refurbished). That’s just fine with her, and she is anxiously awaiting its shipping. We’ll then give my wife’s 800MHz G4 15 inch flat panel iMac to my sister, hauling it to North Carolina with us when we go to visit just before Christmas.
I’ve been thinking, too, of replacing my dual 1 GHz G4 PowerMac and its 20 inch screen with a 20 inch iMac G5. But, to be honest, keeping my credit cards paid off takes a lot higher priority than that; and I’m pretty happy with this setup. Sometimes an “upgrade” doesn’t turn out to be better than its predecessor, so that makes me cautious. I like the idea of an iMac since it would free up some desk room, keep me from having to crawl under my desk anymore to plug anything in, and moves us to 64 bit computing even though there really isn’t much benefit for us right now. Still, I spent a little over a half hour in the Apple Store last weekend looking at 20 and 17 inch G5 iMac’s but couldn’t get clear which, if either, was really the best choice for me. So, I didn’t buy anything until this morning. My wife really needs an upgrade more than I do, and my sister didn’t really believe I’d give her a Mac. I wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to make sis eat crow. What brother would?
Earlier in the year, I said I didn’t see a compelling reason to upgrade our operating systems to Tiger when it is released, probably in early in 2005. If we had all G4 machines, I’d still feel that way. But with at least one G5 moving into the house and maybe more later, my position may change. It will depend on what performance advantage Tiger might have running on a G5 that Panther does not. That remains to be seen. Apple hasn’t really done a good job pre-selling Tiger. Rumor now has it that Tiger and possibly G5 PowerBooks will appear at MacWorld Expo in San Francisco in January 2005.
I’m looking forward to my wife’s iMac arriving, too. I’m hoping the noise problems appearing in many of the 17 inch iMac’s do not plague us; from a quality control standpoint, one would think Apple would be even more careful with a refurbished machine. I also want to use it to see if I might be happy with a 17 inch iMac instead of a 20. While larger screens work with desktop publishing, when writing I’ve found that the larger screens create a visual distance from my writing that creates an emotional distance as well, i.e, smaller screens feel more intimate. I’ve got a novel to revive and though I can do it on my PowerBook hooked up to a 17 inch flat-panel Apple Studio Display, I’d really rather work on an iMac. But the web, Photoshop, and PowerPoint work I do as well as sporadic work in Illustrator and In Design argue for the larger screen. If I decide I want to stay with a 20 inch screen, I also have another option which will save me some dough and some hassle, and that is to buy a single 1.8 GHz G5 PowerMac. It would cost less than the 20 inch iMac, yield the same performance, be slightly less convenient but much more expandable.
I’m not sure which argument is going to win out.
I'll also post a review complete with pictures after it arrives and update the AMD, G4, G5 Shootout article with its Cinebench performance once I get 512MB of RAM in it.
I’ve been thinking, too, of replacing my dual 1 GHz G4 PowerMac and its 20 inch screen with a 20 inch iMac G5. But, to be honest, keeping my credit cards paid off takes a lot higher priority than that; and I’m pretty happy with this setup. Sometimes an “upgrade” doesn’t turn out to be better than its predecessor, so that makes me cautious. I like the idea of an iMac since it would free up some desk room, keep me from having to crawl under my desk anymore to plug anything in, and moves us to 64 bit computing even though there really isn’t much benefit for us right now. Still, I spent a little over a half hour in the Apple Store last weekend looking at 20 and 17 inch G5 iMac’s but couldn’t get clear which, if either, was really the best choice for me. So, I didn’t buy anything until this morning. My wife really needs an upgrade more than I do, and my sister didn’t really believe I’d give her a Mac. I wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to make sis eat crow. What brother would?
Earlier in the year, I said I didn’t see a compelling reason to upgrade our operating systems to Tiger when it is released, probably in early in 2005. If we had all G4 machines, I’d still feel that way. But with at least one G5 moving into the house and maybe more later, my position may change. It will depend on what performance advantage Tiger might have running on a G5 that Panther does not. That remains to be seen. Apple hasn’t really done a good job pre-selling Tiger. Rumor now has it that Tiger and possibly G5 PowerBooks will appear at MacWorld Expo in San Francisco in January 2005.
I’m looking forward to my wife’s iMac arriving, too. I’m hoping the noise problems appearing in many of the 17 inch iMac’s do not plague us; from a quality control standpoint, one would think Apple would be even more careful with a refurbished machine. I also want to use it to see if I might be happy with a 17 inch iMac instead of a 20. While larger screens work with desktop publishing, when writing I’ve found that the larger screens create a visual distance from my writing that creates an emotional distance as well, i.e, smaller screens feel more intimate. I’ve got a novel to revive and though I can do it on my PowerBook hooked up to a 17 inch flat-panel Apple Studio Display, I’d really rather work on an iMac. But the web, Photoshop, and PowerPoint work I do as well as sporadic work in Illustrator and In Design argue for the larger screen. If I decide I want to stay with a 20 inch screen, I also have another option which will save me some dough and some hassle, and that is to buy a single 1.8 GHz G5 PowerMac. It would cost less than the 20 inch iMac, yield the same performance, be slightly less convenient but much more expandable.
I’m not sure which argument is going to win out.
I'll also post a review complete with pictures after it arrives and update the AMD, G4, G5 Shootout article with its Cinebench performance once I get 512MB of RAM in it.
posted by Andy Foster at
2:56 PM
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