Cube thoughts; August 2000 New Mac Keyboard & Mouse
Written: Aug 11 '00 (Updated Sep 08 '00)
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Pros: The mouse is fantastic ...
Cons: but the keyboard is still cheesy.
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| daviddennis's Full Review: Apple Power Macintosh G4 Multimedia |
This is not a complete review of the G4, but I thought my impression of the new Mac keyboard and mouse might be of interest.
I was in Fry's today (August 11th, 2000), and the first of the new iMacs and multi-processor G4s are in at long last. No sign of the top of the line G4/500s, but there were dual processor G4/450s and new iMacs. Hopefully a dual G4/500 will land in the store at about the time I can afford to buy it :-).
I was quite impressed by the smooth performance of the dual G4/450 - it was quite slick at running iMovie, Apple's free video editing application. I also thought the Aqua interface elements looked just stunning - I was quite impressed to see them in real life.
I didn't have enough experience with the machine running different applications to make a final verdict on the it, but I did get enough of an impression of the new keyboard and mouse to come up with a final verdict.
The Good: The Apple Pro Mouse
I went to the new machine. I grabbed the mouse and started using the computer. At first, I didn't even realize I was using it; it was just totally smooth and natural. Then it filtered into my brain: "Hey, this must be the new mouse, coolness!" I checked it over, and it is truly a thing of beauty, an instant aesthetic classic. The look and feel are both fantastic; it nestles under your hand as though it was born there.
So, to the fellow who said he found it easy to click the mouse incorrectly (who largely inspired this review), no, sorry, the mouse is a fantastic experience.
The mediocre: Apple's new keyboard
It's not as compact as the old keyboard, so it loses a few points for the spece-challenged. Unfortunately, the very strange short-travel black keys are still there, and still provide a poor-quality touch. For the serious typist, this is still awful. When I buy my new system, I'll wind up getting a third-party keyboard. Perhaps I can sell the original version on eBay?
Some thoughts: G4 versus Cube
The Cube is very close in price to the G4 - just $ 200 separates the 500mhz Cube with the Dual-450mhz G4. The Cube offers style and a tiny footprint. The G4 offers style, too, although some might perceive the design as a shade outdated. The G4 also offers far more computing power for your heavy-duty applications and a lot more expandability.
If you're considering video editing with iMovie as one of your main uses for the machine, I'd advise against the Cube. Video editing requires about a gigabyte of disk space for every 9 minutes of tape saved to disk, and it's often useful to save clips many times the size of your original production, at least temporarily. (In professional production, shooting ratios of 10:1 are common - 10 minutes are shot for every minute that makes it on the screen in the final version). I believe the cube is not expandable past a single drive, a near-fatal consideration for this kind of work. True, you can get an external FireWire drive, but then you damage the style that is the Cube's main advantage.
If you want a Cube for style reasons, you may want to choose the stock in-the-box 450mhz version. There are reports on http://www.macintouch.com/ that suggest cracks and imperfections in the case of the 500mhz model. It looks like what may happenis that the case is removed for custom orders and potentially damaged. So you'll probably want to put the memory and extra hard drive space in yourself. These things are painfully expensive at the Apple store in any event.
Although not all applications can use the power of multiple G4s, Photoshop does, and that's probably enough for most Mac buyers. With that in mind, I don't see any rational reasons for buying the cube; if you're in love with it, go ahead, but otherwise get a dual-processor G4 tower for greater expandability and more bang for your buck.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): None, yet
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor: PowerPC G4
Processor speed: 401-500
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Member: David Dennis
Location: Woodland Hills, CA
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