iMac G5 out
Apple keeps churning out stuff that makes it look likely that the next computer I get will be one of them. Case in point: the new iMac G5. At this moment, the only major negatives I can think about Apple hardware is that it doesn’t play anywhere near as many games as a PC does, and it’s not as heavily customisable as a PC is from a hardware point of view. Apart from that, they’re mightily attractive, not to mention sexy looking. (When you get chicks saying how nice a computer looks, you know you’re on to something good. Hell, even my mum who normally rolls her eyes at the mention of anything electronic was amazed by how good the Apple Cinema Displays looked.)
Not only games, but specialised software. However, if you don’t want either of those, and care about how “sexy” your computer looks (mine’s under the desk, and not because it’s ugly) … not to mention that LCD I’ve yet to see an LCD display that doesn’t get completely raped, image quality wise, by my trinitron (but Sony are dropping them from production!! *sniff*).
So, for the thing I use my computer for 50% of the time (watching anime / movies), this is distinctly inferior. For the other 50%, browsing the web and using Word, I hardly think there’s going to be much difference between my 2ghz Athlon and a 1.8ghz G5.
And even if you buy some games, what can you expect from a puny 64mb GeForce FX 5200 Ultra compared to any of the current or even (current – 1) gen boards…
Having a more careful read of the specs (click “Tech Specs” from the posted link), there’s no option for an 8x DVD burner. Minus 100 points, seriously … that’s a pretty fscking piss poor effort, and I am genuinely suprised at that from Apple.
(What’s more the say it’s only DVD-R … but I’ve read that those drives can be tricked into burning on +R discs…).
Well you’d want a dual CPU Powermac if you want to pull out the horsepower and expansion options. The iMac is very targetted computer – a sort of “entry level” Mac which sits there and looks pretty, while being pretty decent to boot, not to mention it saves a hell of a lot of space. On LCDs, my Sony is nice and big, but it takes up too much fricking space even though my desk is 100cm deep. And if you want a monitor that’s 23″ (or even 30″), then a CRT is out unless you have heaps of space.
Hmm so it is (entry level)… something didn’t click there. It’s a bit pricey tho, $2.1k … for that much I could build an entry level PC with an LCD screen … sure it takes a bit more space for the box (under-the-desk space), but it could also cost half as much.
And on LCDs … Let’s be realistic. How many people have 23″ LCDs? or 30″? In some sort of Wall St. brokers’ room type office, where they genuinely need big displays and money is no object, sure. But in the home where the display has to handle a variety of tasks rather than one targetted one (ie. crisp text for web browsing, but rich colours and proper black for movies)? I have a 19″ trinitron, and it’s plenty big enough for me. Sure taking it to lans and stuff is a bitch (it’s 24kg, 30 in the box with all the packing stuff .. but that box fits into nothing less than a front set or a station wagon boot), but extra image quality is well worth it.
As for space, I have a desk that sort of wraps into the corner, and the monitor is positioned there, so it’s fine (it’s easily more than 100cm along that diagonal, maybe more like 120cm). It took effort to find a suitable desk tho.