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Merom-powered iMacs available for immediate purchase online

Apple fans have been waiting anxiously for news of new products on September 12th, including the long-awaited iTunes Movie Store. However, visitors to Apple's online store got a surprise today as the iMac lineup received a quiet but significant update.

Apple has added the Core 2 Duo chip to the entire iMac family while simultaneously lowering prices. The base-level iMac now comes with a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo, and costs only $999.

The star of the show, naturally, is the brand-new 24" iMac, affectionately dubbed by some as the "iMac HD." Its 24" screen is up to 40% brighter than the previous iMac, and features a 1920x1200 resolution, and is able to show 1080p content with no scaling. The inclusion of a FireWire 800 port on the 24" iMac allows for high-speed video copying as well. Standard equipment on the 24" iMac includes a 2.13GHz Core 2 processor, 1GB of DDR2 (unfortunately for upgraders, it comes in a 2x512MB configuration), a 250GB SATA hard drive, a double-layer 8x SuperDrive, and an nVidia 7300GT graphics card. This base configuration costs $1999 and is upgradable with more RAM, up to a 2.33GHz CPU and an nVidia 7600GT with 256MB of GDDR3.

All new Core 2 Duo iMacs are available for purchase immediately, with shipping dates of "within 24 hours" for the base model and up to "2-4 business days" for the new 24" model.

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24"
By SLCentral on 9/6/2006 10:09:40 AM , Rating: 3
24" sounds pretty damn sexy, but it's unfortunate that once the computer gets too old for you, you have to give up a 24" screen as well.




RE: 24"
By headbox on 9/6/06, Rating: 0
RE: 24"
By michal1980 on 9/6/06, Rating: 0
RE: 24"
By bob661 on 9/6/2006 11:21:44 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
If you get a 24" iMac and want to sell it a year or two later, you will get close to retail price for it
That's because most Mac users are idiots. Pay too much when new and pay too much when old.


RE: 24"
By retrospooty on 9/6/2006 11:54:00 AM , Rating: 5
"That's because most Mac users are idiots. Pay too much when new and pay too much when old."

LOL ... A bit harsh, but alot of truth to it. I wouldnt call them all idiots, but a great deal of them are lets say "hardware/purchasing impaired"

Just swallowing what Steve Jobs tells you, and ignoring the rest of the info the world has to offer is probably not the best way to go. :D


RE: 24"
By akugami on 9/6/2006 3:16:24 PM , Rating: 2
Most Mac users are not idiots. I'll go out on a limb here and say there are more stupid PC users percentage wise than Mac users. Mac users are traditionally graphic artists and desktop publishers.

Macs originally were much easier to use due to it's superior GUI until after Win95. Now, I know Win95 is a decade and change old but that originally justified some of it's higher price. Even after Win95, the traditional publishing industry all used Macs which meant if you were a graphic artist or some publisher, your work better be done on some of the then, Mac only, software if you wanted it to come out right or done without a lot of hassle.

Also keep in mind the total cost of ownership was actually roughly on par between a Mac and PC most of the time. The traditional PC's in the early days required someone to be more knowledgeable about computers and there were a lot of hardware problems due to software and driver conflicts as well as hardware conflicts. If your PC was out of warranty or it's a hardware add-on that was causing the problem, you had to pay to get it fixed by someone. Macs, due to their tighter integration was for the most part not as troublesome.

The landscape is very different today and the prices for Macs have come way down, though they were still higher than PC's. However, with the coming of the Mactels, the prices between the two are not that great.

I know it's fashionable to bash the Mac's for being too expensive but calling Mac users idiots is just too far from the truth.


RE: 24"
By headbox on 9/6/06, Rating: -1
RE: 24"
By Roy2001 on 9/7/2006 7:15:02 PM , Rating: 2
If I got the money, I will get a iMac, just put it on desktop as a decoration :) I will still use my PC.


RE: 24"
By DallasTexas on 9/6/2006 11:44:10 AM , Rating: 1
"..You are speaking like a PC user that is used to having parts become practically worthless in a year..."

I agree most here are the typical nerdy 'PC user' and have difficulty relating to the reasons and objectives of the Apple user/buyer. I doubt Apple buyers factor in resale value as a primary criteria but rather a superior OS and simply better product to use for most if not all of their needs.

The 'PC users' in here are mostly hobbyists, gamers and overclockers. Basically, the young version of the nerdy dude in the Apple commercial but don't know it.

While a Windows user myself for many reasons, I am jealous of the Apple crowd as they really do have a better ergonomically built computer, better OS and better overall experience.


RE: 24"
By Pirks on 9/6/2006 1:18:33 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
While a Windows user myself for many reasons, I am jealous of the Apple crowd as they really do have a better ergonomically built computer, better OS and better overall experience.
That is true but only until November. When Vista's out in November (yeah, not retail, I know, but still you can grab it and pay in January, you know what I mean ;) you can then pick a nice mATX case or a Shuttle case, put some nice silicon inside, grab a nice LCD screen (NEC or Shuttle or Acer Ferrari would be my primary choices) and get a kind of self assembled Mac with all the goodies - small, portable so that you can carry it around your home like iMac, buy a remote and a monitor with web cam inside and your're all set - your mini PC can do everything iMac does, plus a LOT more, price is lower (for same hardware specs, and probably not for expensive Acer Ferrari), works faster (if you slap some fast CPU or GPU in there, not Apple 7300GT junk), fully upgradeable, heck you can even slap an OS X there if you wanna check it out - just buy LEGAL copy of OS X and then proceed with some patches from wiki.osx86project.org - and you conscience is clean too :P I mean any hobbist/hardware literate guy with a taste can easily beat any Mac since Vista is out in November. Yeah, I know it's not for dummies/Apple users but hey, electric cars also beat crap out of Toyota/GM/BMW/etc junk and they TOO can't be just bought, it's life, man - buy consumer crap from Apple or Dell or GM or [any brand here] or assemble a beauty - it's just sad, but it's what it is


RE: 24"
By ergle on 9/6/2006 3:16:02 PM , Rating: 2
I think claiming Vista to be on a par with OS X is rather humorous. In typical Microsoft style, it is in many ways a poor copy. Spme would argue it's not even an improvement over XP, but that could just be people's natural resistance to change talking.

Apart from that you're entire set of suggestions are fine for the geeks out there, but that's not the iMac's target market. Apple targets average consumers, the majority of whom are neither capable or interested in building their own systems or hacking around OSes to get them to work.

btw, buying OS X and installing it on a PC isn't legal, since Apple licenses it for Apple hardware only, though I would consider it ethically sound. The problem there is it's hard to keep it updated due to all the work-arounds required.


RE: 24"
By ergle on 9/6/2006 3:16:40 PM , Rating: 2
gah, your, not you're.


RE: 24"
By retrospooty on 9/6/2006 5:44:27 PM , Rating: 4
and some (like me) would argue that OSX is not at all superior to Win XP. I have used both, I see good and bad points in both and see why each is popular it users. In the end it is up to your own personal preference.

Lets just stop the OSX is superior claim right now. It isnt, it doesnt do anything significantly better then Win XP, and Win XP has to do it with 10's of thousands of different parts from different vendors and all using different drivers. Lest see Apple swallow that pill.


RE: 24"
By Pirks on 9/7/2006 2:57:06 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
it doesnt do anything significantly better then Win XP


"Significantly" is a key word here. The devil is in details. Such as:

1) OS X renders windows in textures and composes them using 3D hardware - there's no redrawing artefacts/delays, so 2D graphics is smoother than in XP

2) OS X has much better security ideology at home (not at enterprise) since unlike XP it does not encourage users to run as admins

3) OS X has powerful and very flexible BSD ipfw firewall while XP built-in firewall is a joke power and configurability-wise

4) OS X introduced many eye-candy and convenience features into the OS much earlier than XP or Vista - desktop search and translucency/eye candy come to mind immediately.

5) Tons of little neat features come to mind as well. Can you drag and drop objects between local and remote desktop in Windows? Nope. OS X? Yep. Does the date format in tables automatically change from February 7, 2006 to Feb 7, 2006 to Feb/7/06 to 2/7/06 when you sqeeze the table column in XP? Nope. OS X? Yep.

It's all the details, man, Da Polish as they say - Apple can afford it since they custom build their systems, don't spend years of man time to provide compatibility with zillions of chinese cards (a lot of that is done by chinese themselves but MS is pretty involved in that as well), don't spend years of man time to patch XP since they build their OS on top of already hardened BSD, and so on. Then as a result we get a universal ubermonster Widnows which is a jack of all trades, and this is precisely why I love it - it can do absolutely everything I want it to without the need to buy a dozen of separate boxes Apple-style. But jacks of all trades don't do things smooth - they do everything but so-so, while Apple is only focused on one market - home Joe Blow who knows nothing about computers, plus a bunch of creatuive types who also know next to noting about PC hardware, and because of this focus and attention to detail they get this polish... albeit at the expense of being universal (no games, no cheap powerful custom rigs, no freedom in that sense). So you always will be right that XP is not SIGNIFICANTLY worse than OS X, because it is not, obviously, but Mac whackos will continue to pick away at you babbling about that OS X polish - I mean, this discussion won't end ever ever.


RE: 24"
By retrospooty on 9/7/2006 9:23:14 PM , Rating: 2
Polish? I dont see it. That is a matter of opinion. I think both OS have good and bad points, and each person should use what they like, but to say OSX is superior is just not true if you look at it without a bias.

1. smoother? I dont see it (I have used both extensively)
2. I have never had a virus, or been hacked, nor do I know anyone that has.
3. see #2.
4. Eye candy? OSX's look and feel are one of the downsides in my opinion. That is totally subjective.
5. Works both ways my friend.

I could add a whole lot of good points abotu XP as well, but dont have the time, or inclination right now. BTW The fact that you can buy parts from thousands of competing vendors is a MAJOR good point, not a bad one. Its called "open architecture" and it promotes competition... It is also the #1 reason why MAC has 3% of the global marketshare while MS has 90%.


RE: 24"
By Pirks on 9/7/2006 10:04:41 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Works both ways my friend. I could add a whole lot of good points abotu XP as well, but dont have the time, or inclination right now


If you have time - please do so later. I'd be interested in counterexamples similar to my "variable date specification in table column" and "drag'n'drop between remote and local desktop" stuff, plus maybe "when Mac is connected to Internet Safari picks up all the pages that were open before connection was made and silently reloads them - no need to go and reload every page once you're connected, like you do it in IE" stuff - I'd say three nice usability/comfort counterexamples from XP (not present in OS X of course) would be great. Let's see what you got ;)


RE: 24"
By lopri on 9/11/2006 11:49:22 PM , Rating: 2
Umm.. How often do you use Windows? :~)
"when Mac is connected to Internet Safari picks up all the pages that were open before connection was made and silently reloads them.."
Apparently you know much more about OSX than you do about Windows. Firefox, Opera, and even IE7 can do that. I like OSX's simplicity (for people who like such) but the Safari is honestly a joke, a slow one in that, especially with one button mouse. (can you flip through the tabs with just mouse buttons without scrolling around?)

At least you're honest here. Your first try as a pretending-to-be-neutral Macster was somewhat pathetic.


RE: 24"
By retrospooty on 9/13/2006 1:00:54 AM , Rating: 3
OK... Top ten list

10. I can save a file and send it to people I work with in Mexico, Singapore, and China, or anywhere else worldwide and they can all read it, except for this clown in Finland that uises a MAC.

9. I can play games better than Xbox, playstation and Nintendo combined.

8. I can build my own system using my own components that I hand picked.

7. I can buy any case I like.

6. My 8 button mouse

5. Literally thousands of laptops to choose from.

4. OVERCLOCKING

3. Cheaper better hardware

2. In my opinion a better OS and better UI.

and the # 1 reason I like PC's.

None of my money goes to Steve Jobs. :D

Happy now? :P ;)



RE: 24"
By Hare on 9/13/2006 8:21:12 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
10