iMac Test Drive - Conclusions in Breif “1”

With spelling-error amany. A veritable flow of consciousness.
  • I pestered the Apple centre in Bristol for about an hour today.
  • They don't have the new ones in, so I made do.
  • The iMac G5 20" is too big and heavy for me. Sort of. I like the 17"'s size and weight. I want to be able to take it with me to Uni, etc, so it can't be massive.
  • I also have issues with big screens and cursor control, especially when you're using a completely new OS.
  • Windowage in Dreamweaver worries me. I like the integrated, slidey approach. Having lots of mini control windows sort of freaks me out a little, but I can deal I'm sure.
  • Mighty mouse is rather good. Not entirely better than the trusty old MS optical Intelimouse (or whatever it's called). You have to release your left finger to right-click (or it all goes down as a left-click), and the ball in the middle isn't a ball. It's like a tic tac, fixed at the bottom. Sort of like a joystick. And it's easier to go up and down than any direction, so it work's quite nicely. Side button isn't so good. Too awkward for me. I'm unlikely to use them that much (although you never know).
  • Tiger is boring. Without a task, a bit like Windows, you won't be able to enjoy yourself.
  • Spotlight aint that fast. You have to click the little icon, the box drops down, and the default highlighted option is 'show all', so pressing enter doesn't launch/open. A google advantage, but also probably a changeable setting.
  • iMacs are very nice in person. They've got a 4mm (ish) clear plastic cover and opaque white rest. Nice looks.
  • They're a bit thick. Perhaps I'm not used to reaching behind the screen, but it is odd to do, and they're not all that thin.
  • Wigets can go mental if you don't get an instant response and you press F11 of whatever it is over and over again. You get the picture.
  • The bar at the bottom also causes some distress to the neat freak in me. He seems to raise his head every now and again (like in a minute with my room). He feels the visual clutter and changing, unorganised nature of the dock is a bit unsettling, and would like to find a way to fix it all the way along at least. Perhaps.
  • The 30" display Apple does is ridiculous. You have to move your head significantly to see from one side of the screen to another. Performs stunningly with a power mac, though.
  • The old isight looked nice. The image was quite small in reality, and I thought it would be larger (a setting? certainly wasn't 640x480 when I used it on the power mac). Great white balance, though.
  • I don't get a good vibe off of the mac shop keepers, even though I made off with their loot (an iPod shuffle :D).
  • He even said that 17% wasn't true. We'll see about that, sunny jim. Methinks your after a sale.
  • The smallest iBook is stupidly small. You can't do a thing on that machine. Don't buy them.
  • Mac minis look nice. I wish it was available for me to play with (they had a screensaver on).
  • I don't like the one button pro mouse, but I can get on with it.
  • Some parts of the iMac G5 experience did seem a little laggy. I plan to shove an extra 1Gig of ram into mine. Hopefully that will pep things up :D
  • Word is ug-lay.
  • Personally I'm looking forward to being an iCal master.
  • The mac can do waaay more out of the box than the PC can, but Google...
  • Lovely icons
  • I didn't win the lottery again. Bugger. Got number 5 though.
  • The Mac magazines in WHSmiths are now interesting!
  • The weirdos were out in force from 4pm today.
  • My rear is totally numbed by the bus, but springs back to life when I get off. Unusual.
  • Overall, nice. I feel less 'wow this is amazing' about apples. Certainly don't just go on hype... try them out and get a feel for it yourself.
  • I think I'm ready to leave the PC, although I am worried about not being able to play some games I want to.
  • But, I hardly ever play games on my PC now. And they port the best ones to the mac, like doom 3 and B&W 2, both of which I'm looking forward to.

wow. One of the perks of moving to a new OS is that I can really go to town with my inner geek and learn the hell out of it. It's what I think is most fun about computing, learning new things and doing new stuff. Plus, it would be nice to be totally 'up' with both systems.

Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I haven't actually had much of a nice day, otherwise. Missed my bus back back by 30 seconds (saw it going) and had to wait two hours. Left at 9 and got back at 6. Rubbish! Didn't even eat anything until 2/3!

1 Comments ~ Post a Comment

Blogger Leon: Lots of info here Fin. It looks like you had a good look.

There are differences to get used to but they aren't insurmountable. The biggest issue for me is software and that is/will be an issue with future releases of windows too.

Your "inner geek" will have fun. When I was new to computers I went wild learning things. This happened again when I switched to Linux.


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