Since I switched to Apple using an early version of the MacBook Pro at the end of 2006, I’ve really enjoyed the features of this fine notebook and working with MacOS in general. After working with Linux almost ten years everything got so much easier without compromising on flexibility.
Now, three years later, I decided to get a new Mac: it should be fast and have a big screen. The 27″ iMac with an i7 processor seemed to be the perfect match. This post is about my first week of using this great computer.
Specs
Choosing an iMac is pretty straight forward. It’s all about size and speed: small or large screen and Core 2 Duo or i5/i7. If you opt for the i5/i7 processor you’ll have to get the large screen since the small ones always come with a Core 2 Duo processor.
Since I wanted the Intel i7 processor due to various reasons regarding performance, I bought the 27″ iMac with some extra RAM. It comes with a large hard disk drive (1TB), a decent graphics card, the new Magic Mouse and a wireless keyboard.
If you want to buy an iMac and you really want to work with it, I definitely recommend getting the faster CPU, i.e. the Intel i5 or i7. The benchmarks that you can see on Apple’s website aren’t fake and I’m sure you will notice the positive difference.
Design
I’ve just sold almost all of my old PC’s on eBay. Some of them were fifteen years and older. Looking at these rather ugly yet practical pieces I can’t believe that I really worked with them. Now, sitting in front of the iMac – by the way requiring just one cable (power) to get it going – still amazes me.
Comparing the iMac with my old MacBook Pro reveals that the iMac hasn’t got any areas that will look ugly over time. Since it’s just one large piece I’m quite confident that it will still look nice in a year from now.
When it comes to Apple and it’s hardware the prevalent argument in any discussion is the price tag. Sure, there are a lot of other companies trying to copy the design – still the stuff just looks bad. If you’ve got a sense for aesthetics, get the real thing and not just a copy; it’s worth the extra money.
Work
I work with my computer. A lot. It has to be reliable and make things as easy as possible. I haven’t got the time compiling a new kernel in case I wanted to connect to a wireless network; things like this should work out of the box. Of course, I could do these things but if somebody else prepared the configuration for me that’s even better.
The same holds true when it comes to software. The operating system needs to be as robust and flexible as possible and having an e-mail client that shows PDF documents inside the mails saves me a lot of time. Again, it’s nice if somebody already implemented all these features so you don’t have to work around several shortcomings or have to come up with hacks.
After just one week I probably already adapted to the great performance of this machine. Since everything is very responsive working with it is so much more fun than ever before. Now I don’t want to go back to anything that’s slower than this.
Extra
Basically, it’s pretty nice that the iMac comes with a mouse and a keyboard: you can immediately start using the computer and don’t have to buy any extras. But I almost immediately sold the shiny Magic Mouse and the wireless keyboard.
Well, the Magic Mouse is – from a technician’s perspective – a brilliant and well manufactured piece of hardware. It’s a real innovation and as far as I know there hasn’t been anything similar to this before. Since it’s way too small, working with it makes my hand hurt, so it’s definitely not for me.
The keyboard looks fine and if I didn’t already have a nice one, maybe I would have used it. But as with the mouse you’ll need batteries for this thing. Plus I don’t know whether the communication between keyboard and computer is encrypted. Made me sell this piece as well.
Conclusion
The new 27″ iMac is the perfect Christmas gift for everybody who’s working with a computer more than half an hour a day with a taste for nice looking hardware. It isn’t as cheap as the next best PC but definitely worth the money spent.
I’ve talked about the pros and that I really like this computer. Although I’ve sold the mouse and keyboard that come with this Mac, this doesn’t make things worse – they just weren’t for me. To the contrary, I like the idea of having a package that contains all the peripherals.
Coming to a conclusion: Apple has created another fine computer coming with a slick operating system. Both will help me doing my work faster and – this is the best part – I’ll enjoy creating things with it more than ever.