Notebook Critic

Wondering why I am reviewing a desktop on this site? We all know that iMacs use mobile components, and I find the notion of a desktop made form mobile components intriguing.

First Impressions

Apple’s excellent packaging opens to reveal the iMac and a thin box containing keyboard, mouse and disks. This is one good looking computer. I owned the previous generation model and thought it looked pretty good but the aesthetic improvements of this unit are immediately obvious.

Apple has re-proportioned the screen to a 16:9 aspect ratio. Glass extends edge to edge without the previous model’s aluminum bezel. The aluminum ‘chin’ is smaller too so there is less to distract from the screen.

The screen is something special. Rather than the former design’s TN panel (common in low-end computer displays), the new iMac uses a 1080p LED back lit IPS panel. This is the same type of technology used in high end LCD televisions (both the panel and back lighting).

• The LED offers brighter and more even back lighting
• IPS panels have a wider color gamut (less banding/dithering) and better view angles

Apple obviously realized the potential appeal of the iMac screen for use as a monitor/TV – the 27″ iMac models have video inputs for use with other sources.

Viewing images and text on the screen is a pleasure. Put this iMac next to a typical 22″ LCD monitor and you’ll be able to see the difference in quality immediately – even to an untrained eye the iMac screen is much better.

Apple’s wireless keyboard is OK. It uses Bluetooth to connect instantly to the iMac at first boot, no configuration required. The key feel is great and the base is flex-free but the lack of a numeric keypad is dumb. I also miss the integrated USB hub of the old wired version. If you buy from Apple the wired keyboard with numeric keypad is available as a no-charge option.

Magic Mouse is also included and like the keyboard it is ready to use right out of the box with zero configuration. It is the best wireless mouse that I have ever used – I even found its tracking and responsiveness suitable for gaming. What is great about it is the solid and weighty construction – unlike most mice it feels like it will last.

The main innovation of the Magic Mouse is the inclusion of Apple multi-touch to the mouse’s glass top surface. It works great and beats a scroll wheel any day – except for games where a mouse wheel’s clicks makes weapon selection much easier. Some of the more advanced gestures were not practical in my opinion and I stopped trying to master them – but other people might be more persistent or dexterous. I am happy using this mouse in my old-fashioned way and consider it a good value for people who own older Macs.

Software

iMac ships with MacOS 10.6.2 (Snow Leopard). I run this OS on several machines in my home and that I administer for family and it is rock solid stable. Features like Time Machine (automated back ups) and Expose (task/window manager) become pretty hard to live without if you ever use other operating systems.

iLife is another inherent advantage of Macs as it ships with every new model. This is Apple’s ‘office suite for your digital life’ – an apt description. iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb and Garageband are the types of apps you would have to pay hundreds of dollars for on other computers. If you don’t manage photos, video, author DVDs and web pages and don’t have an interest in music then this suite is admittedly of little value to you. After years of struggling to find a good solution in Windows (Pinnacle, Adobe, etc.) it is nice not to have to worry about this stuff anymore. I am on my third generation of iLife and I could not be happier.

Performance

Many people will be wondering how the iMac’s 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU performs and whether they should invest the extra money in the 27″ iMac’s Core i5 or i7 processor options. Sadly, a quad core option is absent for people who want the compact 21.5″ screen (like me). Core 2 may be dated technology heading into 2010, but the performance is still good.

PCMark05 returns a score that is inline with desktop replacement notebooks – exactly what you should expect from a desktop that shares parts with a typical high end notebook.

Will you miss quad core? Yes eventually you will, my guess is that within a year you will see noticeable performance improvements from more processors cores in a wider range of applications.

What does that mean to the average iMac consumer? Can you afford to wait a little longer for your video files to encode? If not, get the faster iMac (either the i5 or i7 is a good choice). I never found myself waiting for my old iMac with its 2.4 GHz CPU so the 3.06 GHz in this iMac is plenty fast enough for me.

Gaming is a big part of this review, and I will get to that in second, but something I found most interesting is the coupling of an Nvidia core logic chip set (9400m/nForce 730i) with an AMD GPU (RADEON 4670). Based on my testing performance was fine and stability  excellent – there were no obvious hardware conflicts.

How does the new iMac’s video system perform? Futuremark’s 3DMark06 benchmark does a pretty good job of providing apples to apples metrics, at least in the 100 or so tests I have done over the years. iMacs have traditionally used mobile computer components to keep power use and heat down. A score of 7157 is very good for a mid line GPU such as the 4670. That is 3x as fast as the 9400m in the entry level iMac and 20% faster than the 9600m GT in the MacBook Pro. It is 30-40% slower than the 8800m GS and 130 GT in the previous generation iMacs.

Gaming performance will be adequate for medium settings in 720p in new titles like Borderlands.

Settings: 720p, AF 4x, Dynamic Shadows, Foliage High, Texture High, Game Detail High, Ambient Occlusion On, Bloom On, Depth of Field Off, Flare Outs On

The RADEON 4670 can play older titles like Left 4 Dead at high settings in 1080p, but the 4670 is going to have a hard time filling the screen fast enough for demanding titles.

Settings: 1080p, 4xMSAA, AF 4x, Multiprocessor On, Shader Detail Very High, Effect Detail High, Medel Detail High, Paged Pool High, Vsync Off

If you scale games to playable resolutions on the iMac’s screen, such as Borderlands at 720p, the results are pretty good. Visuals looks fine without the blotchy or blurry effects of bad resolution scaling seen on a lot of TN panels. I don’t know if this is a function of the panel type or the logic built into the LCD’s firmware, but the results are good.

Value

I learned recently that most people do not share my obsession with penny pinching, so I am not going to bother lamenting how Apple charges me too much money for my computers. I’ve been an Apple user since Mom bought me my first Apple IIc bundle at Eaton’s for Christmas a few decades ago.

After about a decade of Windows use I doubt that I will ever go back to Microsoft full time. The only value in Windows to me is gaming and since Apple’s transition to Intel I only need a windows partition on any given Mac to enjoy my games.

The fact that I can do anything I want on my iMac or MacBook Pro makes them worth a premium to me. I have built my own hackintosh beasts but the experience just isn’t the same.

For $500-600 less than this iMac you can get a Gateway, HP or Dell PC based on Intel’s excellent i5 CPU, running Microsoft’s equally excellent Windows 7 operating system, similar storage specs and an almost as good RADEON 4650. Once you tune your PC it will likely run as fast or faster than the iMac.

Sadly you will also get a lot of noise, trail ware, incomplete anti-virus solution (until you download Microsoft’s superb and free Security Essentials software), a duller lower resolution monitor, cheap clackity keyboard and a corded mouse. You won’t get applications approaching iLife on a Windows PC either – and iLife constitutes a lot of the work people do on computers when they are not surfing or engaging in online communities.

In my opinion the iMac’s advantages justify the cost premium over garden variety Windows desktops.

Verdict: Buy