Apple iMac MB418LL/A 24-Inch Desktop

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5 Reviews

1. DISCLAIMER: If you’ve already owned a Mac this isn’t much of a review. If you’re thinking of moving from a PC platform, read on.

   For the last 15 years I’ve used a Mac at work but always kept my PC at home. I had felt felt there was an “elitist” attitude from Mac users. It rubbed me the wrong way and I was content knowing my PC’s were less expensive and had much more software for me to choose from. Then I bought an iPhone and I started to succumb to the force. I’m starting to think that Mac users aren’t elite, they’re just mystified as to why people would want to deal with the problems that seem built into PC’s. The primary problem of virus’s and hacker-made destruction programs may have been finally dealt with in Windows 7. I wish it had come 10 years earlier.

   When Windows 7 came along I thought I was saved. Finally a really good OS for PC’s so I needed to buy WIN7 software, more RAM, a new video card, might as well just buy a whole new PC. This was an important time to make a big decision and I chose this iMac. I’m about four months into my first iMac and I’m sorry I didn’t do it years ago. The PC always made me feel like an idiot, giving me techo-speak reminders that I did not understand and had no desire to learn. Anyway, I was so happy with my purchase that I also dumped my daughter’s PC and got a used iMac for her.

   One of the first neat things I experienced was installing my printer. I went to the HP site to look for the Mac driver and found the driver was already in my iMac. Plugged it in and that was it! After I bought my daughter’s Mac I selected the “sharing” function on my computer but told my daughter she’d have to wait till the next day when I could set her printer function. I came home the next day and my daughter told me thanks for hooking up the printer. I had only allowed sharing of the printer but that was all there was to it. Her iMac found my iMac and then found my printer. It all worked so easily.

   I also bought the stand alone Apple Airport to replace my old wireless router. It was so much easier than the old router and actually allowed me to provide my own 15 digit password code. With my old router that I had to enter a list of letters and/or numbers that are virtually impossible to memorize and even harder to enter correctly.

   Things I don’t like…or need to deal with:

   1. Unless you run a very lean system there aren’t enough USB and/or firewire ports. Yes, it’s also a problem with PC’s but the iMac just seems like it “deserves” to be decked out with more IO’s. I bought both firewire and USB hubs.

   2. When you purchase a Mac from an Apple Retail Store they offer a package called “One-To-One” for an extra $99. It allows the buyer to take a one-on-one hour long class each week at an Apple store. You can bring a kid, a wife, a friend and get a very personal technical assistant to answer your Apple questions. You make appointments for a specific application, like iPhoto or Word or Garage Band. I went to couple of these with a friend before purchasing my iMac and they were incredibly helpful in making my transition to a Mac. I did not not buy my iMac from an Apple retail store and you can’t get one-to-one unless you buy from their store.

   I think a PC with Windows 7 is probably a good, solid system but I can not see myself ever going back to a PC. jmho

2. I work with computers since the Commodore Vic-20 was introduced. I have built computers since PC clones were available and 30MB hard drive costs $300. I have used DOS, Windows, Mac, various flavors of UNIX and all kinds of other things in my computer career. I have to say that the form factor and ease of use of the iMac as well as the logic, simplicity of the OS makes it the best computer I have ever used, and honestly the first computer that I have ever had that is really a huge boon to my productivity.

   I can do everything on my iMac that I could do on my PC more, better and faster. The OS has been rock solid. There have been no viruses or attacks from the Internet.

   The wonderful 24″ screen of my iMac along with the bluetooth mouse and keyboard that I bought makes my desktop the least cluttered and so easy to work with I never cease to be amazed just looking at it.

   There are some drawback to the Mac, the mouse trackball “clogs” up regularly … that is very sad, but using isopropyl alcohols cleans it up pretty well. Still the mouse when it works works better than any other mouse I have had, and it has 3 buttons.

   The screen is beautiful, fantastic, fast and huge, also develops some shadows and marks on it that are irritating, but again, they can be removed, they are not permanent.

   The OS is nice as well … I love UNIX, I love the command line and shell programming, and Mac does this better than PC … and it does it in a user friendly way that Linux cannot touch.

   Some things are kind of irritating left overs from Mac tradition, like the only way to resize a window is from the lower left … which is really crazy. There are other things as well, but al computers have problems.

   I think this is finally the computer that can help anyone who is not a computer expert to make the best use of a computer, and not only that … this machine is an absolutely wonderful media player. DVDs, MP3s, music, video, podcasts, and programs to use cameras, videocameras, etc. I ended up finally getting an iPod and much as I criticise the iPod it works the best of about any of these kinds of devices.

   The danger here is that Apple will take this overwhelming lead in design and ergonomics and not continue to improve and drive forward. But now and for the near future, there is hardly any reason to buy anything else … not even when you consider that you can buy a very powerful PC for less money …. money is not the only criteria here, the iMac is worth the money and I thank myself everyday for what was basically a whim to explore what Apple was doing with computers. I bought the iMac sort of on an impulse and I am very happy I did and will never go back to anything else.

3. CONSIDERING CHANGING FROM PC TO MAC? HERE’S THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE……

   I won’t bore you with a ton of detail, but here’s the biggest advantages.

   #1. Quick start up and shown down. (alot quicker)
   #2. No virus software needed…..period.
   #3. If you’ve operated Windows, you’ll learn Leopard within two days. Very similar.
   #4. No freezing up when you open or shut down windows (no matter how many).
   #5. THE AREA WHERE MAC IS FAR SUPERIOR IS…….creating movies or slideshows, with music. Far superior than windows while being very simple.

   I’ll never go back to windows. I dropped by several “computer repair” stores. Here’s what I heard from the
   repair people “Never get Mac’s in here due to software problems, if we depended on Mac’s for our business, we
   wouldn’t be in business very long.

4. Ok first I do love these computers. Our entire school district replaced all of our computers with them. Frankly as their technician i was drueling over how wonderful they were/are. One little problem… the have some weird major power issue rendering them useless when suddenly they will not power on. With about 300 of them on campus about 1 in 15 have this issue. As a school we could not afford the service warranty. So we are stuck with beautiful, lovable, DEAD computers. Buyer beware… if you have this issue take care of it asap!!! Also it was said there was a firmware issue with them. if that is true make sure you get the firmware updated asap as well. Sorry folks. I do adore them. Just not the 1 in ever 15 that i cry for.

5. In the first eight months I’ve had this thing in the shop on three different occasions for three different problems: bad superdrive, built in microphone does not work, and an awful sound from the fan that was never fixed and I still have to live with everyday. Don’t think I’ll ever buy an Apple again. Hope you don’t get a lemon like I have.