Apple iMac G5

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What would compel someone to buy this thing? It is like a PowerBook that lost its keyboard and was hung on a fancy little machined aluminum stand. It has all the problems of a notebook (with miniaturized components) but none of the benefits (portability, freedom from wires).

Now Sage can jump in and let me know that a PowerBook is thinner, you can't get it with a G5 processor, etc; all the subtle differneces I failed to notice. My point is, just a Power Mac G5.

But it does look sexy, so I bet they will sell.
 
skip0110
Now Sage can jump in and let me know that a PowerBook is thinner, you can't get it with a G5 processor, etc; all the subtle differneces I failed to notice. My point is, just a Power Mac G5.
Nah. ;) What I will tell you is this – a 17" G4 PowerBook costs $2800; a 17" G5 iMac costs $1300. If you only need portability for around the house, then why pay twice as much for a (slower) PowerBook? And you'll be paying a minimum of $2300 to get a Power Mac G5 and a display – If you don't need the slight advantage in computing power and some of the expandability, then why pay $1000 more for it? This is absolutely perfect in so many ways for people like me who need the bare minimum of portability (taking it to a different room in the house, or in the rare case, taking it to school for a presentation), but who want a decent desktop system. You have no idea how perfectly this fits the bill for me (even removing the "made by my favorite company" aspect). And lucky me, my dad even likes it, and is considering buying one.

BTW skip, you cite the problems of a laptop as being "miniaturized components" – what exactly did you have in mind? The only things that cross my mind as being miniature on most laptops these days are screens and keyboards, and obviously this isn't the case with the iMac (17" and 20" screens, external full-size keyboard), unless of course I'm missing something obvious.
 
Sage
And lucky me, my dad even likes it, and is considering buying one.
Lucky indeed.... ;)
Sage
BTW skip, you cite the problems of a laptop as being "miniaturized components" – what exactly did you have in mind? The only things that cross my mind as being miniature on most laptops these days are screens and keyboards, and obviously this isn't the case with the iMac (17" and 20" screens, external full-size keyboard), unless of course I'm missing something obvious.
I was thinking of two things....
  1. Laptop hard drives are normally physically smaller and slower (both the RPM and the seek times) than desktop hard drives in the Intel world. I would assume that the iMac has a slimmer and thus slower hard drive than the Power Macs.
  2. The fans and heatsinks, of course. Power Mac G5s have big windmill-like fans and lots of holes in the case. I heard rumors that rackmout Xserves were overheating, so I wonder how Apple was able to keep temps down in the small confines of the iMac. (I speak from experience with my P4-powered laptop, which gets very hot compared to similar desktops.) The same heating concerns apply to the video card, you have a lot of heat being generted without much space to dissipate it.
 
skip0110
Lucky indeed.... ;)
Laptop hard drives are normally physically smaller and slower (both the RPM and the seek times) than desktop hard drives in the Intel world. I would assume that the iMac has a slimmer and thus slower hard drive than the Power Macs.
Actually (this surprised me too), both the base iMac and Power Mac have an 80 GB Serial ATA HD running at 7200 RPM, and both have higher models with 160 GB drives (also at 7200 RPM).
The fans and heatsinks, of course. Power Mac G5s have big windmill-like fans and lots of holes in the case. I heard rumors that rackmout Xserves were overheating, so I wonder how Apple was able to keep temps down in the small confines of the iMac. (I speak from experience with my P4-powered laptop, which gets very hot compared to similar desktops.) The same heating concerns apply to the video card, you have a lot of heat being generted without much space to dissipate it.
If I recall correctly (I'm going off of memory, so I could be wrong), the Xserve doesn't have the same "cooling zones" system as the Power Mac (where the computer is divided into 5 different zones instead of trying to cool the whole thing with two fans that will hopefully suck air throughout the whole unit)Â… the iMac has 3 cooling zones:

designcoolingb08312004.jpg


I trust that it won't be a huge problem – my iBook is less than an inch thick and has very, very tiny grilles, yet doesn't experience any problems with overheating.
 
Well, I was talking to my dad last night about this, and he thought it was quite the " engineering marvel", when I asked him what price he thought it was he gave me a simply $2500. I surprised him when I told him it was only $1700.

:p
 
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