Where's the Computer? The New iMac G5 is No Bigger than a Flat Panel Display

Author's Rating:

Pros: Ultra-modern operating system, elegant user interface, uses little desk space, fast. Fantastic web browser.

Cons: Somewhat expensive, loud fan, problems upgrading from OS9, poor help, susceptible to electronic interference?

The Bottom Line: 
An easy-to-use all-in-one desktop computer based on an ultra-modern operating system and an elegant user interface.

Author's Review
I’ve been using nothing but Apple personal computers since I got a job at Apple back in 1977. I’ve owned an Apple II, Apple ///, Apple II GS, a first generation Macintosh and several generations of Mac followons. My last computer, bought in late 2000, was an iMac DV Special Edition Graphite running Mac OS 9 at 500 MHz.

I’ve just upgraded to a brand new 17-inch iMac G5 1.8 GHz, and I couldn’t be happier. I had been considering a switch to the PC world because of the availability of software, but when I assessed my usage pattern--mainly web browsing, Quicken, email and productivity software--I decided the Mac more than met my needs. The prospect of porting 10 years of Quicken data over to a PC sealed my decision.

Overall Package

The most amazing thing about the iMac is that it’s an all-in-one desktop computer system that looks like nothing more than a slightly-too-thick flat panel display. The “box” is about 17” wide by 14.5” high by 2” deep. With the remarkably slender stand included, the overall height is only 17” and the depth is just 7”--an amazingly small footprint that saves tons of desk space.

The system arrived with Macintosh OS X (Panther) Version 10.3.5 installed. Using Apple's automatic and free online update system, I've kept up to date, and am now running version 10.3.9.

The most significant hardware features are:

- 17-inch widescreen color LCD display with resolution up to 1,440 x 900
- 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5 CPU
- 512 MB RAM (an upgrade, 256 MB is standard)
- 64 MB DDR video memory
- 80 GB hard drive
- Slot-load SuperDrive (DVD / CD)
- AirPort card (an upgrade)

The machine comes standard with a USB keyboard / numerical keypad / 16 function keys and an optical mouse. Wireless bluetooth keyboard and mouse are available at extra cost.

The power cord plugs into the middle of the back, and there is no inconvenient external "brick on a leash" power supply. The expansion ports (3 USB, 2 FireWire, 1 EtherNet, 1 telephone, 1 VGA, 1 headphone, 1 microphone) are stacked on the right side of the back, and the slot-loading DVD/CD drive is on the right edge. The keyboard provides an additional USB port.

The startup button is on the back near the bottom, right. This turns out to be good ergonomics because it puts the palm of your hand on the lower front of the CPU while your finger reaches behind to press the button, thereby creating opposing forces that keep you from changing the display angle or pushing the whole computer, which could happen if the button were on the front. And the featureless front just looks more elegant.

LCD Screen

This is not a top of the line display, but it is more than adequate for most uses. Like many such displays, it exhibits some minor variation in brightness from place to place, but this isn’t really noticeable unless you look very carefully. The worst thing you can say about the display is that the viewing angle is fairly restricted, and that the brightness and colors change dramatically as you change the angle.

Setup

It took less than five minutes to get the computer out of the box, hook it up, and boot up to the desktop. Getting onto my existing internet and email account took another five minutes with help from the setup assistant.

That’s when the new computer headaches started.

Apple provides an automatic data transfer from your old computer using a firewire connection. Unfortunately, it requires a firewire cable and that the old computer be running OS X, neither of which was the case. So I just hooked up a computer-to-computer EtherNet cable with the intention of using file sharing to make the data transfer. It took me a couple of hours to figure out how to get it running, and I’m still not sure exactly what I did, but I was able to transfer all my files from my old computer. The Apple Help feature did not help at all.

My most important need was to get my Quicken data converted from Quicken Deluxe 2000 on my old computer to Quicken 2004, which was installed on the new computer. Through no fault of Apple, this took many days of scratching my head and trying various tricks. My data file, which worked fine with 2000, apparently had some subtle problems that stymied 2004. After some fudging, I was almost there, but not quite. I finally bought and installed Quicken 2005, which pretty much worked, except that it posted a system error when making certain reports. I downloaded the free R2 upgrade from the Intuit web site, and everything now seems to work OK.

I was able to handle these problems because of years of work as a software engineer, but I can’t imagine a “layman” solving them without expert help.

Software

The machine came loaded with Mac OS X Panther (Version 10.3.5), a powerful modern multitasking operating system running on top of a version of Unix. Although it is not the same as the older OS 9, anyone familiar with Macintosh or the PC will feel at home very quickly.

One of the highlights of the bundled software is Safari, Apple’s web browser. It’s fast, provides paged and tabbed browsing and the most esthetically pleasing rendering of web pages of any browser I’ve seen. It also allows you to turn off popups. Microsoft Internet Explorer is also bundled, but it looks lame by comparison. Apple also provides a very nice email program which is fully integrated with its address book program. The email program allows you to train it to recognize junk mail and then automatically route it to a junk folder rather than your normal in box.

Apple’s core software is the iLife application suite, which includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand and iDVD. iTunes provides comprehensive manipulation of digital music, including music downloads from CDs and the Apple music store and burning of music CDs. iPhoto provides analogous capabilities for digital photos. It even recognized by old Canon A10 right away. iMovie is a production system for digital movies, and GarageBand is a music authoring system.

For its productivity suite, Apple is still shipping the venerable AppleWorks, which contains a word processor, spreadsheet, database, drawing, painting and presentation program of modest capability. Many people will stick with AppleWorks, but some will feel the need to upgrade to Microsoft Office, a sneak preview version of which is included in the bundled software. The sneak preview is pretty obnoxious, inviting you to buy the full version at every opportunity and not allowing you to print out anything.

Impressions

Speed. This machine is clearly much faster than my 500 MHz iMac DV SE for most tasks. It’s always very crisp and responsive. However, before I boxed up my old machine for sale on eBay, I noticed that some Quicken tasks took about the same time or even longer on the new machine. I can think of two reasons for this. First, the task may be disk bound and, although the processor is faster, the disk may not be any faster than on the old machine. Second, Quicken, realizing that the Mac’s market share is so low, may just have spent much time optimizing performance.

On the other hand, it’s clear that compute bound tasks are about three times faster than on my old machine.

Fan Noise. When the machine is just idling along, the internal fans are barely audible. However, when it’s performing a heavily compute bound task, they get louder and louder. It seems that Apple has designed the processor to run at high speed (and consequent high temperature) only when the speed is really needed. But, when the fans really get going, they’re definitely not quiet.

Help System. The online help system, although seemingly very comprehensive, isn’t really very helpful--at least to me--and it seems to have at least one serious bug. The overall system and each application has a Help menu item which takes you to a standard help viewer where you may browse or search using keywords. I have found it very difficult to get relevant results from keyword searches. Furthermore, the help for the overall system (Mac Help) seems to go into a useless mode in which it takes forever to respond to any query. Apparently, the problem is widely known, but Apple’s suggestions for correcting it don’t work on my machine. If you intend to become a serious user, I suggest you buy one or more of the popular third party books such as Mac OS X Bible or Mac OS X: The Missing Manual.

Price

The price seems very competitive compared to PCs with similar features, maybe a tad high, but not by much. If you’re a student or educator, a $100 education discount is available. Unfortunately, much Mac software comes at a price premium to the equivalent PC software.

Who Should Buy This Machine

First, any Mac afficionado who doesn’t need Apple’s most powerful processor, would probably be happy with this machine. It’s also an excellent compromise for the frugal, because the 20 inch display version costs about $400 more.

Second, a first time computer user will find this machine very easy to set up and use compared to a PC.

Third, someone who’s finally gotten fed up with PCs will find this machine a pleasant change.

Best Things About this Machine

1. The user interface is beautiful, elegant and simple.

2. The 17 inch display provides plenty of space for your work.

3. The form factor uses a minimal amount of desk space.

4. All of the software needed by most first-time users is included.

5. Software updates can be performed automatically over the internet.

6. Your friends will look at it and ask, “Where’s the computer?”

Worst Things About this Machine

1. Standard memory isn’t enough. You should upgrade to 512 MB, like I did.

2. Fans can get quite loud when the machine is performing CPU intensive tasks.

3. The built-in Help system is subpar.

4. Transfering your files from your old computer is not as easy as it should be.

Ongoing Impressions

January 20, 2005. After a month, I'm even more impressed than I was at first. This computer has not crashed once. My old HP DeskJet printer works perfectly with both OS X and OS 9 applications. Furthermore, the processor speed combined with the truly multitasking operating system make it possibly to do other work without frustrating slow downs while time consuming processes (like printing a large document) go on in the background.

April 19, 2005. During the period from February through mid-April, I had my first problem with my new computer. Every time I tried to get online using my dial up connection, the dial tone sound was accompanied by a strange crackling that made it impossible to get a reliable connection. This happened on both phone lines in my house, but didn't happen at my downhill neighbor's house or another friend's house. It also didn't happen with my wife's iMac G4.

Apple support was almost completely unhelpful. Both telephone support and online chat support were slow to understand the problem and proposed common sense solutions that I had already tried. They finally sent me an entire replacement midplane, which I didn't install because the problem temporarily stopped on its own. But within a week or so the problem reappeared. Doing my own detective work, I finally traced the problem to a defective fluroescent light in my uphill neighbor's house. I don't understand the technical details, but I believe this flickering light generated electromagnetic interference which was picked up either by my telephone wiring or directly by the computer's circuit board. In either case, this hints at a possible fault with the electromagnetic interference shielding of the G5 since other computers in my house didn't have the problem.

April 30, 2005. All along, I've been using the Software Update capability of OS X to download system upgrades. I'm now running OS X version 10.3.9 and updated versions of most of the important system software. All of the upgrades downloaded and installed flawlessly. My only complaint is that, on my dial-up line, some downloads took as much as five hours. Of course, I just started them up when I went to bed.

May 15, 2005. We finally made the switch to DSL at our house. My iMac is connected wirelessly via a wireless router talking to my built-in AirPort Extreme card. Setup took less than five minutes, and the wireless data transfer rates are as good as the transfer rates on our other computer, which is connected directly by an Ethernet cable. Software updates are also much faster with DSL by approximately a factor of 20.