new iMacs

The new iMacs are quite nice. The practicality of having it all-in-one without even a power brick is sexier to me than the actual look of the thing -- ergonomically, putting so much dead space below the monitor makes you tilt your head up higher. (I would have rather had a thicker object with less extra face area, but I'm sure they did their best given the components they had to balance.) If I were in the market for a desktop, this machine would probably top my list.

One thing about the iMac G5, though - it's seriously underconfigured by default:

BW Online | September 1, 2004 | Apple's New iMac: Skin-Deep Beauty

Apple included only 256 megabytes of RAM (random access memory), the type that helps computers handle taxing applications. Most PC makers ship only low-end boxes with 256 MB of RAM. To use graphically intensive applications such as editing digital images or movies, a full gigabyte of RAM is the accepted norm.

That means new iMac owners will need to cough up an additional $225 to get enough RAM to fully take advantage of the much touted Apple "digital lifestyle" software that Jobs has made the centerpiece of his pitch to Windows users. The policy follows a trend in Apple's standard configurations to skimp on components, such as lower-end graphics cards or memory, in order to preserve profit margins.

If you're looking at an iMac, bump up the RAM or you'll wonder why something so new is so slow.

There may be better deals out there than Apple's $225 though, if you don't mind popping open the back of your machine. Try dealram.     2 comment(s)  

We're looking at one to replace K's Cube. I agree on saving money on RAM. Apple charges a premium for them to install it, more so than the PC companies it seems. We only have a couple people who use Macs anymore at work (sorry Steve), but when we do buy one, we always buy the minimum from Apple and then get the rest of the RAM from somewhere else.
      ...posted by Scott L on September 2, 2004 8:08 AM

If you're going to buy extra RAM from a third party, let me suggest Other World Computing (macsales.com). I bought RAM from them once for my desktop. A year later my desktop was crashing left and right, and after trying everything else, we tried taking the RAM card out (this may have been Steve's suggestion)- it fixed the problem. I remembered that I'd bought it from OWC, so I contacted them, and told them I didn't have a receipt; they had me send it in. They told me that they had my purchase info on record, so it was ok that I didn't have the receipt. They sent me a new RAM card even though they said the old one worked fine in their testing.
That's what I call great customer service, and I'll always buy my RAM from them from now on.
      ...posted by Chris on September 3, 2004 5:23 PM

Add a comment...