Apple iMac MC309LL/A 21.5-Inch Desktop
- 2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with 6MB on-chip shared L3 cache
- 500GB Hard Drive, 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM, DVD SuperDrive
- 21.5″ LED-backlit display with a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, 1920×1080 HD resolution
- AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR5 memory
- Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard, Magic Mouse
Introducing the new iMac. The ultimate all-in-one goes all out. The new iMac features next-generation quad-core processors and the fastest graphics ever in an all-in-one computer. It also brings Thunderbolt I/O technology to the desktop for lightning-fast data transfer. And a new FaceTime HD camera lets you make full-screen HD video calls.* All from a beautiful widescreen LED-backlit display that takes up just a sliver of your desk. It’s everything you want in a desktop. Now more powerful, mor
List Price: $ 1,199.00
Price: $ 1,199.00
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WOW!!!,
I have been considering an Apple computer for a while now, and have been reluctant to buy because of the high price tag, compared to PCs with similar technical specs. For example, a Dell Inspiron All in One with 4GB SDD3 RAM, 500GB hard drive, 2.8Ghz processor, comparable graphics card and larger, brighter 23″ screen retails for 599. For 1199, you can get the same Dell model with a touch screen, 1TB hard drive, 8GB RAM, 1GB video card, and a bunch of other stuff, running Windows 7. That’s twice as much computer, right?
Maybe not. I went into a Best Buy store to play with a Mac, and spent almost two hours comparing this computer to the ones I just mentioned. I ended up buying the Mac, and am entirely convinced that it is well worth the price tag. First of all, even with less RAM, the Mac was faster and performed much better than a tech spec superior PC. It ran several memory draining and intensive applications, like video editing software, iTunes, and web browsers playing video SIMULTANEOUSLY without any noticeable lag. The programs all started up almost instantly, and everything just seemed to work. The PC that had 8 gigs of RAM could not perform all of those tasks at once without slowing down. Second, the Mac doesn’t require a seperate anti-virus software purchase. It’s supposed to be virtually unhackable, and you won’t have like a dozen McAfee processes running in the background to slow your computer down. That peace of mind for internet security alone is worth the extra money to me.
One of my other reservations for buying a Mac was having to use a different operating system, and after years of running Windows, I didn’t want to have to learn how to use a computer again. However, after playing with the Mac even for just a few minutes, I realized that it was very intuitive, and as easy to use as a PC. For example, when you want to print a document on a PC, you click the tab on the upper right hand corner, find “print” and click- same thing as on the Mac. All of the menus are pretty much identical for the word processors and internet browsers, and unless you’re planning on writing or editing the DOS, there isn’t much you’ll have to adapt to.
Finally, the software that comes with this thing is AWESOME. The photo/video software is amazingly useful, and I can’t imagine anything out there that you can buy that is as good as this stock software. There is music editing, and a bunch of other stuff that is just as good as the photo software, and while I haven’t had the opportunity to really try everything out yet, I don’t think I will be disappointed with any of it. To top it off, everyone raves about the customer support you get when you get an apple product. I hope I’ll never have to use it, but it helps to know that Apple stands behind their products. Bottom line is, I’m really happy with my purchase.
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|Apple iMac MC309LL/A 21.5-Inch Desktop,
I first bought an iMac in 2006. It was the same first model out of four. Not only it lasted me until now, but since I bought this one few days ago, I gave my old one to my wife’s sister. I’m sure it will keep going and going for years.
Right now, it is better than ever to buy a new iMac. I remember when I bought mine, the whole line-up was good. But then they gave lower-priced iMacs much worse specs than higher-priced ones, especially in terms of video cards. So, if you wanted something good all around, you had to spend more money and buy third or even fourth one in iMac’s line-up. Not anymore. Every single one has the same RAM, all of them have descrete video cards, and even Quad-Core processors. Not only that, but they are the newest i5 Quad-Core processors, Intel Sandybridge. Even if you take a look at various tests done by different websites, they will tell you that there is not that big of a difference between iMac line-up nowadays. It’ll be about 10% or so in speed increase between this iMac and top of the line one. Also, this iMac is faster than top of the line iMac from previous generation, so yeah, it’s that good!
Like everyone are saying, don’t look at the numbers. That’s the game PC plays, and people believe them. Read comparison reviews between iMacs and PCs and you’ll see that in most tests iMacs go head to head with PCs that have twice the RAM and twice the video card and even higher clocked processors. In some tests, iMac still come ahead.
Besides nice specs, iMac has a really good screen. Yes, it is 21.5-inch, but is is beautiful. People might say that you can buy all-in-one from Dell with 23-inch screen. Again, those are numbers, and also, Dell’s specs are a joke. iMac has a high quality screen, extremely accurate colors, which is perfect for anything, especially photography and editing, specifically color-correction. And just to show you where those two companies stand, Apple went for higher resolution on their 21.5-inch display, because they’re about quality. Dell on the other hand, chose to have the same resolution on a 23-inch display, because for them it’s more important to say that their display is bigger, rather than talk about quality. Same with HP, just recently they chose USB 3.0 over Thunderbolt. It just shows how low quality they are to choose already outdated technology for their machines. Yeah, we all might have to wait for a month or two for Thunderbolt accessories to become available, but it’s a fair price to pay for the fastest of the fast.
iMac itself is a piece of art. There are no rough edges from all the cheap plastic, it’s just two pieces, aluminum enclosure and a piece of glass on the front. All ports are nice and neat and it does come with a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse. Both are very comfortable.
As usual it comes with iLife, so it is ready for photos with iPhoto, movies with iMovie, creating music with GarageBand, creating DVDs with iDVD and creating websites with iWeb. Also, sometime during this Summer, new Operating System is coming out, but it will be a cheap upgrade for those who want it, it’s not like buying Windows and choosing between 10 different options, all at the premium price. With Mac, you get just one OS, which has everything. Also, for all of you out there who like to edit, Final Cut Pro X is coming out this Summer as well, in June, unless if they’ll move it to a later date. It will go down in price from $999 to just $299. So, it’ll be an excellent editing machine.
I also have Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, via BootCamp, to play games. In Windows everything is noticeably slower. Not only that, but as usual, Mac came with everything out of the box, I can zip/unzip files, view PDFs and so on. Windows doesn’t have any of that. I would have to download all of those programs to be able to fully use my computer. Game-wise, I think it’s pretty good. I play Mafia II on all high settings and it runs just fine. Let me remind you that although Mafia II is not the latest game ever, but it does recommend Intel Quad-Core 2.5Ghz, 3GB or more for RAM, and most importantly, 1GB for a video card. Like I said I have all setting on high with 1920×1080 resolution. The only setting that makes it somewhat slow is when I turn on anti-aliasing. On one of the levels it was a little slow, so I put Shadow Quality on medium and it was fine. After completing the level I turned it on high again.
**ALSO, for all of you GAMERS out there, I found a pretty cool website that shows how well different video cards can handle games. It’s not necessarily Mac related, just video cards in general. Amazon doesn’t let you to post links to websites, so, I just put it in the first comment. Just to give you an idea, the site says that Crysis 2 plays good on High settings, Call of Duty: Black Ops plays good even on Ultra settings, Metro 2033 plays good on Medium settings. You can check out the rest**…
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