Aug 20, 2007, 19:19
I can sum up the initial iMac experience:
H U G E !
The 24" screen is just massive. My TV is "only" a 23" widescreen, and I watch DVDs on it from across the room. My MacBook has a 13" screen. My biggest complaint is that the screen is very glossy, and when combined with the higher viewing angle, reflects a lot more than my laptop ever did. (Does. I'm using it now.) I will probably re-arrange my workspace to put the computer against the window.
As expected, it's significantly faster than my dual 2GHz MacBook, even though I haven't swapped out the extra ram into the new iMac. Working in Lightroom is significantly faster, and it's great to finally have a hard drive big enough to handle the entire library. I've also added a Kensington trackball, which is one of the biggest things I missed when I moved from my beige G3 to my old iBook. I have all three USB ports in the back occupied (keyboard, trackball, and a hub with a printer, slide scanner, and multi-card reader) and the firewire port is spoken for too (a hub with two hard drives and a compact flash reader). That may sound like a bad thing, but for me it's fantastic -- after a year of shuffling ports every time I move my laptop, now it can all stay put!
And the transition was easy. Using a firewire cable to connect the two, the new machine mirrored my old drive and copied over all of my data, applications, network settings, and preferences. It took a couple of hours to run (36GB to transfer) but I hardly had to do anything. Wirelessly networking the two computers takes nothing more than typing in the names and a password. The new computer's less than ten hours old, but it's fully set up, completely networked, and even has all of my vacation photos on it.
I'm very happy.
H U G E !
The 24" screen is just massive. My TV is "only" a 23" widescreen, and I watch DVDs on it from across the room. My MacBook has a 13" screen. My biggest complaint is that the screen is very glossy, and when combined with the higher viewing angle, reflects a lot more than my laptop ever did. (Does. I'm using it now.) I will probably re-arrange my workspace to put the computer against the window.
As expected, it's significantly faster than my dual 2GHz MacBook, even though I haven't swapped out the extra ram into the new iMac. Working in Lightroom is significantly faster, and it's great to finally have a hard drive big enough to handle the entire library. I've also added a Kensington trackball, which is one of the biggest things I missed when I moved from my beige G3 to my old iBook. I have all three USB ports in the back occupied (keyboard, trackball, and a hub with a printer, slide scanner, and multi-card reader) and the firewire port is spoken for too (a hub with two hard drives and a compact flash reader). That may sound like a bad thing, but for me it's fantastic -- after a year of shuffling ports every time I move my laptop, now it can all stay put!
And the transition was easy. Using a firewire cable to connect the two, the new machine mirrored my old drive and copied over all of my data, applications, network settings, and preferences. It took a couple of hours to run (36GB to transfer) but I hardly had to do anything. Wirelessly networking the two computers takes nothing more than typing in the names and a password. The new computer's less than ten hours old, but it's fully set up, completely networked, and even has all of my vacation photos on it.
I'm very happy.
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