• Apple iMac 24-inch: Brilliantly Designed Desktop

    Apple iMac 24-inch: Brilliantly Designed Desktop

    Prasad Naik, Jun 23, 2009 1526 hrs IST

    Brilliantly designed desktop

    Superb design, excellent display quality, good quality built-in speakers, adequately powerful for home usage

    Expensive compared to comparatively specced PC, awkward position of ports, display reflects a lot of glare, no Blu-ray drive, no wireless keyboard and mouse

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Design & Construction


 


 


The design of the iMac has always been its hallmark. The pioneer of the All-In-One (AIO) design, the iMac has spawned many a rivals with similar design from competing brands, which includes Sony, Dell, Lenovo, HP and ASUS. However the iMac design is still the most elegant and beautiful of them all. You just cannot take your eyes away from it. The simple lines, typical of all Apple designs, with plain grey surfaces with the black glossy display and matte black rear looks simply superb.


 


Over the years the iMacs have gone slimmer and the current line up is nothing short of astonishing. How Apple manages to include all that hardware, which usually fills up a huge towering cabinet, in that beautiful body, neatly tucked away out of sight, is amazing. The iMac is slightly thicker than many of the standalone monitors that you get and people are often shocked when they are told that what they think is just any other monitor is actually a full-fledged computer.


 


The entire front body is made of anodized aluminium. The aluminium makes the body strong as well as light. On the couple of occasions that I had to move the iMac around, I was glad that the iMac was light enough to be moved around without breaking into sweat. The front side is dominated by a huge glossy panel, beneath which lies the iMac's display. The glossy nature of the display means it reflects a lot of glare. This can be really annoying and also attracts a lot of fingerprints, which makes you glad that Apple provided a cleaning cloth. The front side also has a glossy aluminium Apple logo which once again attracts fingerprints. The iMac wouldn't have looked nearly as great without the glossy surfaces and as you can see this beauty comes at the cost of additional task of keeping it clean.


 


 



 


You might notice that at the centre of the top edge of the display lies the iSight web camera used for video chatting and taking self portraits. The iMac also has a built-in microphone at the top. On the right side of the iMac we can see the slot loading SuperDrive. The iMac can read and write CDs as well as DVDs but unfortunately can neither read or write Blu-ray discs, which in today's day and age is a major omission, no matter what Apple's view on Blu-ray is. Even the ability to read Blu-ray drives would have been better, if not write. Most of the competitors of the iMac have this ability.


 


 



 


From the rear, the iMac looks just as good as it looks from the front and clearly Apple leaves no stone unturned to make sure their product looks great from every angle. You can see all the ports, which includes four USB 2.0 ports, Firewire 400, Ethernet and headphone and microphone jack at the bottom left. However, the ports are very inconveniently placed and whenever you have to plug in a drive or connect headphones you have to reach out to the back or turn the unit around to connect it. Also, you need to hold the unit while plugging in a drive as the drive takes some effort to slot into the port and the iMac tilts at the slightest pressure.


 


 



 


 



 


 


The stand allows the unit to tilt and has a hole in the centre to route the power cable though it. Unlike some other AIOs that we have seen, the iMac does not have a huge power brick hanging outside and is included inside the case. The fan lies just above the power input and sucks in air for ventilation. The hot air then blows out from the horizontal strip at the top. The iMac does get a bit hot at the top edge, but it is never too much to worry about. Right in the middle, above the stand hinge, lies the large glossy Apple logo.


 

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Discussion Board
(7) Comments
Vinod
,Mumbai, on Jun 26, 2009 10:43 AM
too expensive under any condition. during these times of cash crunch to even look at such a product is blasphemous. It is high time we moved away from such companies who are just preying on our hard earned money.
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imac_guy
,mumbai, on Jun 24, 2009 01:08 PM
You forgot the durability. You pay more for that. An assembled PC wont last as long as this machine. (under any working condition)
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Karthik
,New Delhi, on Jun 24, 2009 02:57 PM
That's BS.. Anyone who knows how to assemble a properly speced PC also knows how to take care of hardware niggles that creep up over time. It's not a big deal to open up a assembled PC, take it apart, clean everything and put things back together. Nothing beats assembled in mods and piece by piece upgrading
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suresh kuamr
,chennai, on Jun 23, 2009 04:29 PM
can't believe how mac can able to put such a hefty price... damn if i had 1000 hundreds INR in my hand then i would have bought a power desktop pc for 40k and net book for 30k and a smartphone for 30k... :) anyhow design is awesome and compact
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Anonymous
,Guess what Chennai... are we in the same office, on Jun 24, 2009 11:51 AM
And that exactly is the reason Apple is not made for you.... anyways feel free to offer more uses for ur 100,000 rupees
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Yaser Suhail
,Bangalore, on Jun 24, 2009 10:15 AM
Apple iMac does supports wireless keyboard and mouse. Its the Customer Options to purchase a wireless keyboard or mouse.
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Prasad Naik
,Mumbai, on Jun 24, 2009 11:42 AM
I know it supports wireless keyboard and mouse. What I tried saying was that Apple should have bundled their wireless keyboard and Mighty Mouse along with the iMac and you shouldn't have to pay extra for it. At this price, it is the least that you expect.
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