The Apple iMac has always been a good choice, with good performance, looks, and acceptable value. Now, there’s a new 27 inch iMac out, so is this one as good as all those before it?
If looks matter, then this new iMac is simply beautiful. Its front, though not full attractive to all, seems ideal to most. The body and screen are extremely high quality and composed of glass and aluminium, with no plastic in the way of that classy feel. It is well balanced, as only one finger is necessary to tilt it, however there is no height adjustment in the stand, that being a slight drawback for several users.
iMac 27 Inch Desktop
The front is, following the Apple tradition, very simple and free of any buttons, controls, or ports. In fact, all there is the display, and the new display is significantly improved from the older versions, as it is now backlit by LEDs, and has much more vivid and accurate colours. In fact, the only problems here are a slight backlight bleed emanating from the corners, which may be slightly distracting, and a beautiful glossy finish, meaning fingerprints stick to it extremely easily.
Connectivity is not very much a necessary thing, as the iMac only requires power, and you’re ready to start. There is no need for complex cables of any sort, though if you do want to plug some more connections in, there are enough ports to go around. At the back there is audio input and output jacks, 4 USB ports, a FireWire 800 port, a mini display port (capable of being used either as output or input), and an Ethernet port. If you need wireless, that’s built in, and as for DVD and card reader, you will find that on the side of the iMac.
As a new feature of this iMac, the wireless keyboard comes as standard, and so does the wireless mouse. The new mouse, now called the ‘magic mouse’ is capable of multitouch on its front, so you can perform gestures with your finger, or fingers. The mouse is a rather unusual shape compared to most computer mice, so it may take some getting used to. The specs will change with size; however this basic iMac is easily capable of all the jobs you will probably need it to perform, with its 2.06GHz dual processor and 4GB of RAM.
It also includes a 1TB hard drive, more than enough for your storage needs, and a rather good dedicated ATI HD 4670 graphics card, which is enough for your usual games, and will help speed up processing on many applications that support it. You will not be left wanting more speed, and this is helped even more by Apple’s amazingly quick OS.
The big deal here is the price, and at £1359, it may not be the cheapest PC on the market, but it is most certainly worth it, and it would be seriously difficult to get anything near this quality for a cheaper price. All in all, the new iMac can easily be summed up as a great buy, for all those that do have £1359 to spend on a PC.
