Apple 20" iMac Intel Duo Core
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon X1600/256MB VRAM (Add $75)
Processor: 2GHz Intel Core Duo
Hard Disk: 250GB Serial ATA drive
Memory: 512MB 667 DDR2 SDRAM
MSRP: $1699.00

----- Introduction -----

I’d never considered myself an Apple user until 3 years ago, in fact I was avidly anti-Apple whenever the subject came up. I’ll have to give a bit of information to explain myself and the reason I'm writing this on my new iMac. When I started shopping for a new laptop I allowed myself to be persuaded into a Powerbook G4 17" back in 2003 when they first came out. After using my new Apple I was blown away by the smooth OS 10.2 interface, the fully functional included programs, and the complete lack of internet bugs or system slowdown due to online glitches. Thanks to the Unix-based operating system there’s none of the registry errors and Microsoft Internet Explorer loopholes for hackers to exploit.

After these last few years of using my Windows XP based PC as my main desktop system and my Apple laptop as my on-the-road system, I decided the next system I purchased would definitely be from the company that took a bite out of Microsoft.

----- Apples and Intels oh my! -----

After all these years of preaching the perfection of the PowerPC G4/G5 processors Apple has finally decided there’s more power to be found in the halls of Intel than anywhere else. With the new Duo Core 2.0Ghz processor found in the 20” iMac Apple claims 2X – 3X graphics processing speed increases over the last generation G5 systems. System bus speed is an impressive 667Mhz, there’s 2MB L2 cache available for faster and smoother computing experience, and hard drive options are super-sized, 250GB standard and 500GB optional. On the software front Apple has included the excellent iLife software bundle with every new iMac. iLife includes the new-and-improved iPhoto 6, the home-movie maker’s dream program in iMovie 6, user friendly DVD recording software iDVD 6, for the music junkie in us all there’s GarageBand 3, and last but not least is the iWeb HTML designer and publisher. Also showing up for the first time is the new multimedia suite known as the Front Row media experience.

----- What’s in the box besides fruit? -----

While the current generation iMac tends to look light and insubstantial, don’t be fooled as it’s over 30lbs. As usual Apple knows the details are what makes their products different from other generic systems, this is very evident in their box design. From the tough plastic handle on the lid to the subtle white exterior color, it’s clear that this isn’t just another computer system. Screened onto each side of the box is a full-color image of the iMac from different angles. Opening the box reveals the usual careful packaging and as usual everything is shrouded in plastic bags and twist-ties. Inside you’ll find a software and manual box, power cord assembly, the new-style two-button (well, almost two buttons) infrared scroll-wheel mouse, and the standard Apple 101 key number pad keypad. Installation is extremely simple, making even Dell’s color-coded system setup look old school. First you plug in the USB keyboard into one of the three available rear USB 2.0 ports. Next plug the Apple mouse into either a rear USB port or one of two USB ports located at the rear of your keyboard. Plug the oversized power cord (sans the huge power brick thank God!) into the wall then into your iMac. Push the power button located in the rear at the bottom left corner of your iMac and the system starts up for the first time.

----- Using the iMac -----

For those of you unfamiliar with Apple’s hardware and operating systems over the past 5 years or so, this isn’t the same quirky company that was so easily marginalized in decades past as manufacturing “computers for geeks” or “those computers in the lab at school”. Instead of going after specific demographics and stereotypes for its customers Apple has built a fanatical user base using their unique and timeless exterior designs and the stability of their OS-X operating system. Because of this technique Apple has really taken the home user market by storm with their iMac and Mac Mini models. While still nowhere near the volume of Gateway, Dell, or Compaq, Apple has been steadily growing their home-system user base helped along by mainstream acceptance (and at times addiction) to each new generation of the portable music solution, Apple's iPod. While there's not a direct sales-connection between iPods and iMacs, the media attention given to these small white MP3 players has raised Apple's public image and created a 'Name' to be desired among young professionals. This newest iteration of the mid-pack iMac is poised to take even more market share from the PC clones and prove again that the house that Bill built (Microsoft) isn’t the only kid on the playground flexing muscles.


iNtel iNside, is it better? As of this writing the iMac Intel Duo isn’t the fastest iMac out there for most current programs, for that you’ll still have to stick with the G5 PowerPC… now I’ll explain why. As much as they hated to admit it, Apple’s beloved PowerPC chips had reached the end of their evolution; easily attained power upgrades just weren’t in the cards for the venerable G5 series. Intel seems to have given Apple a perfect solution with their Duo chipset. This chipset allows the Intel to insert two individual processors onto one piece of silicon. IBM used a very similar process to boost the G5 chips included with current Dual & Quad Power Mac tower systems, however the heat output and energy consumption of these uber-G5 chips was too much for the confined spaces of an iMac or iBook/Powerbook.

Moving on to this new generation of iMacs, the 20” Duo is fitted with the 2GHz processor while the 17” Duo is given a slightly slower 1.83GHz chip. Surprisingly both these Duo chips are slightly slower than their older G5 stablemates. However, both new iMacs are faster graphically and in sheer crunchability thanks not only two twin processing chips (hence the Duo moniker) but also because they both come with 2MB of Level 2 on-board cache. This is 1.5MB more (or four times more) L2 cache than last generation G5 iMacs were equipped with. The system bus speed (bus speed determines how fast everything communicates; processor to ram, ram to mainboard chips, etc.) is a neck-straining 667MHz, which places it square in front as the fastest bus-speed Apple ever shipped… faster even than Dual and Quad processer Power Macs. Included on the mainboard is 512MB of DDR2 SDRAM, and while this is adequate for most tasks an upgrade is strongly recommended.

Software: Here is where the full-throttle capabilities of the iMac Duo runs into its first speedbump. Included with each Duo is a newly Intel-tuned version of OS-X (version 10.4.4 if you’re counting) and a optimized version of the iLife software suite. All the standard programs we’ve come to love are speed upgraded as well, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, all work faster and smoother than before. For your browsing needs a new version of Safari is included, also optimized for Duo hardware. But… current and older programs will run somewhat slower than you’re used to as they were designed and optimized for G5 technology. For example, I’m not a big fan of Safari’s interface so I decided to download the latest Mac version of my favorite browser, Firefox. After dealing with slower page load times, cold-maple-syrup-speed page refreshes, and general intolerable sluggishness I relented and went back to Safari. Bingo, everything was back to full speed (dare I say faster than ever before?) and I was more or less happy. I run Quicken Mac '06 for my personal finance management and even though it’s the most current version it’s not optimized for Intel Duo and consequently suffers from some slowdown during loading and operation. On the productivity front I’ve noticed no real deal-breaking problems with my Microsoft Office:Mac suite of programs. Excel and Word take a while longer to load than I’m used to, but once running they function fine for me. Games are much more system-specific and I decided to try out my old standby, Warcraft III. It plays reasonably well on my three-year-old Powerbook G4 1GHz, so I naturally assumed it would play better on the iMac Duo. I was right, but barely so and I wasn’t immpressed by the miniscule difference. The screen is absolutely perfect and the graphics were as good as it gets, but I still found noticable slowdown when in the middle of a three-player battle involving hordes of units.

Most (I can’t say all) up to date programs which worked smoothly on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) systems will still function on Intel Duo systems thanks to Rosetta, Apple’s on-the-fly conversion feature built into all new Intel systems. Rosetta converts all instructions and return data from programs expecting to find a PowerPC chip inside, this allows older programs to function acceptably under new management. Don’t get too excited however, programs that work with Rosetta will be roughly 50% slower than when running natively on a PowerPC Mac. There are however a few important downsides to Rosetta that need to be said, first of all Classic software written for OS-9 and before will no longer work at all on Intel Macs. Many graphically intensive PowerPC-based games, third-party OS-X kernel extensions which include device drivers for many Microsoft interface devices and hardware, Microsoft’s all-important Virtual PC software, all recent versions of Apple’s own professional applications, and various programs demanding high processor tasking and instant access to memory will be nearly unusable on Rosetta.

My conclusions? Don’t expect 3rd party software to kick into overdrive and blow away your older Mac until Intel Duo specific versions emerge. I don’t expect it to be very long until this happens, however if you own costly full-versions of existing productivity and business software you may want to wait until all costs can be considered. NOTE: More opinions on Intel Duo native apps can be found in the OS-X Tiger discussion.


iMac 20” Functionality: I have to say it, I think this computer is completely gorgeous! How Apple managed to fit a whole computing system into what essentially looks like a slightly thicker flat-panel monitor is amazing to me. You’ll be amazed at the desk space you’ll save over your old CRT monitor, I went from a 19” NEC to this iMac and had an extra 14” of space. The look of this new iMac is definitely space-age and graceful, yet it’s not one of those ‘trendy’ items that will look out of place in 2 years. Style was definitely in mind when designing the iMac, however Apple didn’t put form in front of function with this generation. The 8x CD/DVD SuperDrive is easily accessible on the right side of your monitor. Don’t worry, you can read and burn both CDs and DVDs, and I guarantee the first time you eject a disc in front your friends they’ll be quite surprised to see it pop out from your monitor. All ports are located on the rear of the iMac and are designed for easy accessibility and a clean looking desktop from the front. There’s a handy hole in the center of the system base to keep your cables hidden from view as they snake out the back and behind your desk. Included ports are: Three USB 2.0, two Firewire 400, one MiniDVI for camcorders and monitors, and one each headphone and microphone mini plugs. As part of the Front Row media experience all 17” and 20” include an iSight camera built into the top of your iMac, another welcome addition is the media remote which docks magnetically to the side of the monitor.

Screen Quality: The 20" monitor built into the iMac is very crisp and clear with no blending or blurring of text. The NEC 18" LCD monitor I use on my PC desktop is also crisp thanks to the DVI cable input, but the iMac is still noticabley better in every area. The primarily pastel color scheme of OS-X Tiger fits perfectly with the brightly backlit screen and sharp image definition. Photos seem to look 'fresher' and more alive on my iMac than they do on my PC when viewed side by side. Movies and DVDs look wonderful when played via Front Row, if you have an apartment or small home the 20" iMac is the only HDTV you'll need.


OS-X Tiger: The heart of the Apple experience is the operating system, which just happens to be the most stable user-friendly operating system available for personal computers. This stability and security is possible thanks to the UNIX backbone that OS-X runs on. Unlike WindowsXP there’s no system registry that can be tampered with, no open holes in the architecture for hackers and spammers to infiltrate, no hassles for you the user. I can’t explain the deeper reasons behind why OS-X is so superior to Windows, I just know it is because of my personal experience with it. In the three years I’ve used my Powerbook G4 I’ve NEVER had to reboot the system because of a crash, NEVER had to reinstall my operating system, NEVER had to recover from a system crash due to outside interference, this is all without any virus protection software. I had to re-install WindowsXP twice on my desktop PC over the same time span and deal with several system crashes. What I’m saying is I never appreciated the stability and security of OS-X until I used it side-by-side with Windows for an extended period of time.

To bring the discussion back to software and speed I must bring up the silky-smooth performance of all OS-X 10.4.4 native software. All the ‘i’ software runs better than ever before, iPhoto in particular works much better than its OS-X 10.3 counterpart. Garage Band is a welcome addition for musical types looking for their own at-home recording studio, iWeb is an excellent mid-level website creation and publishing tool you could expect to pay $100 for elsewhere, iMovie is faster than ever and really seems to take advantage of the newfound Duo power. A newcomer to the scene is iMovieHD for creation of High Definition movies. I have to take a quick minute and gush about two new features I’ve become familiar with and consequently addicted to.

Dashboard is what Microsoft and countless other third-party shovelware companies have tried to sell and/or force you to download, yet it’s never been done right until Apple perfected it on their first try. Dashboard is a simple idea at heart, it just gives you four frequently used apps at the push of a single button, one more push and they all disappear again. The default way to access Dashboard is to push down on the scroll wheel, at this time the screen contents fade to grey and four apps appear. On the left is your fully functional calculator, at the top is current temperature and weather information as well as the forecast for the next 5 days, to the right is an analog clock, and lastly on the bottom is a fully searchable calendar. This single group of programs has saved me so much time I couldn’t be happier, thank you Apple!

Expose solves a problem I knew existed but didn’t think could be fixed, indeed if you're a PC user you'll have to read and weep. If you’re like me you'll often have several windows or programs open at once, as the day/night progresses more programs are opened and more are buried under the clutter. Pretty soon your desktop looks a lot like my kitchen counter, a disaster area where only a search party with bloodhounds could find anything. By gently squeezing both sides of Apple’s infrared Mighty Mouse you'll instantly cause all open windows to slide apart and arrange themselves in a tiled formation so that all are visible. Moving the mouse around highlights each window and displays text describing the program or open document. To select the window you want just move your mouse over the window and let go of the side buttons, presto you’ve got that elusive window right in front of you.

Spotlight is a system shortcut that will soon be a new Mac user’s best friend. Located on the right corner of the upper task bar, Spotlight looks like a little magnifying glass and can find just about anything in your system from programs to pictures. It searches your computer in much the same way as Google or Yahoo search does on the internet. Just in case Spotlight didn’t figure out exactly what you were looking for it also shows the Top Hit as well as other matches in descending order; Applications, Folders, Documents, Photos, etc. For new users not used to the OS-X way of filing things this little widget is going to make your life much easier.

Front Row: Here’s the real answer to a complete media solution, not some media player or Xbox for the TV. Apple’s Front Row media experience gives you all the entertainment tools you could ask for at your fingertips. Music, photos, DVDs, and Quicktime movies are all accessible via the standard RF remote. Large icons and oversized text make slideshows and music libraries easy to navigate. The interface acts much like a click-wheel on an iPod, it’s intuitive from the moment you see it operate and even grandparents can figure it out! The remote itself is the twice the size of an iPod Shuffle, that’s small enough that folks with large hands may have a little trouble. Clearly labeled buttons control volume level, play/pause, track forward & track back, and main menu access. With Airtunes for the Airport Extreme hub you can wirelessly stream audio from your iMac to anywhere in your house… how’s that for flexibility?

Another welcome component of Front Row is the built-in 2.3MP iSight camera included with every 17” & 20” iMac. Not only do you get full usage of the best free communications software available in iChat A/V, you can also play around in Photo Booth. You can manipulate the image using various filters and distortion tools until you have a carnival fun-house image you can be proud of. Photo Booth is also useful as you can take self portraits to use in either your personal login or as your avatar in iChat A/V.


========================
===== Update 2-14-2006 =====
========================

After solid week of using my iMac for all my computing needs, I've got a few more impressions I thought I'd put down. The Apple Keyboard included with my system is quite a bit different than the Ideazon ZBoard I was using on my PC. The Mac keys feel as though they are spaced slightly closer than I'm used to, part of this may be due to the curvature of the keyboard for ergonomic purposes. I do like the built-in USB ports on the back for easy access, although they are not powered ports and therefore I can't use them to plug in my PNY Attache´512MB Flash Drive. I still have to reach around behind the system and plug it in. This is only a minor complaint, so I feel stupid even bringing it up.

The Apple Mighty Mouse continues to impress me with it's accurate tracking and handy 4 button operation. I was very skeptical about the two-button functionallity since the Mighty Mouse only senses touch, it doesn't actually have two buttons. Thankfully the two-button operation works wonderfully, although it comes with both buttons set to button one operation and you'll need to change that in System Preferences. The scroll wheel acts as the 3rd button when pressed down, out-of-the-box this button opens Dashboard. Lastly are the two buttons on either side of the mouse which each act as button 4. Pressing either or both of these activates Expose. I tried switching my mouse to the Kensington Pilotmouse Bluetooth which I really didn't like. As an $80 purchase I don't recommend it.

I realized my computer gaming habit would be coming to an end soon thanks to the lack of availability of my favorite games for the Mac. My top 3 games are Half Life 2, Age of Empires 3, and Command & Conquer Generals. The only game available for Macs is C&C Generals which was ported by Aspyr Software. Unsurprisingly the Mac version isn't compatible with PC versions which is a big bummer for me. I love network battles with my friends on all the games I play, and they all own PCs. If you're a fan of the Warcraft, Civilization, or Sim City franchises you're in luck... ports or dedicated versions of those games come to OS-X quite quickly. However, if you're a first-person action gamer or RPG fan your choices are very limited. This may or may not have an effect on your purchasing decision, but at least you know.

The 512MB Memory which comes with the iMac is barely enough to run OS-X smoothly. I'm running 512 right now but I can see an upgrade in the VERY near future. I plan to add a 1GB chip to bring the total up to a much more useful 1.5GB. With iTunes, iPhoto, Word, and Safari open I have noticable slowdown when switching apps, it's not horrible... just annoying.

I'm still very happy with my iMac, as more programs are updated for the Intel Duo technology my satisfaction will be complete. For an updated lists and recent releases of program upgrades, copy and paste the URL below.

http://versiontracker.com/macintel/

===== END UPDATE =====

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----- Bottom Line -----
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I can only speak for myself on this one, but I’m completely satisfied with my iMac Duo and its possibilities. I’m at best an amateur photographer and iPhoto is a great companion for my Nikon D70 Digital SLR camera. It’s not the best editing program I’ll agree, but as a catalog, photo organizer, and distribution medium it’s great. I also enjoy recording digital video of my mountain biking using my helmet cam, iMovie gives me a simple and time-saving way to compile my hour or two ride into a decent 10 minute movie. I’m always using the web for searches, shopping, spending time on Epinions (of course), and occasionally playing a game or two. Being able to browse without the problems associated with Windows and I/E is wonderful, not having issues with Windows registry errors is even better, knowing I won’t have random system crashes is worth every penny. One thing I’ve noticed about Apple’s hardware and software is they don’t add junk just to add specs to the box label. Everything unique has a purpose and adds something that will make your life easier. Little touches make owning a Mac much like owning a Lexus, you’ve purchased a computer and it seems like Apple cares about your business.

If you’re someone running an at-home business or planning on using a computer for work right away you might want to wait until there’s more Intel Duo optimized software available. The good news is if Apple’s optimized OS-X is any example this new generation of software will be faster, smoother, and more user friendly than ever before. If you already own an iMac or recent Apple product I don’t see a need to rush out and buy a Duo, you won’t see huge differences for awhile yet. For everyone else I’d encourage you to consider the iMac Duo over competitively priced PC systems before purchasing, the short learning curve required to adapt to Apple’s operating system is worth every second. At $1700 the 20” model is a great deal, it’s extra screen size over the 17” and larger hard disc make easily justify a few hundred dollars more. For most families looking for a do-it-all solution for digital photos and video, music, and all around computing, this is your Apple… why not try a byte?

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Related links:

•Apple MacBook 13.3" 2.0GHz
•Apple iMac Intel Duo 24"
Apple iMac G4 12"
Apple Powerbook G4 17"
Apple iPod Photo 40GB
Apple iPod 20GB
Nikon D70 Digital SLR
Viosport Adventure Cam 2 Kit

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment!
Openroad


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 1880.00
Operating System: Macintosh
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50