Product ReviewsDesktop computers
When Apple launched the first flat-screen iMac in 2002, it had a 15in LCD screen. Eight years later, this incarnation has a screen almost twice as big and a native resolution of a mind-boggling 2560 x 1440 pixels. The screen is a backlit LED display, just like the ones Apple uses in its MacBook Pros and Cinema Displays. Its glass front stretches the full width of the iMac and all the way to the top - there's no aluminium bezel. The only clues from the front that this a computer rather than just a display are the two inches of aluminium below the screen, and the iSight camera lurking behind the glass at the top. One of the benefits of backlit LED technology is its low power consumption and the consequent lack of heat. This allows the new iMac's vent to be even thinner than that of its predecessors. Spinning the iMac around reveals another change: the black plastic back has been replaced with a sheet of aluminium. So the entire iMac is now made of aluminium and glass. In keeping with the spare simplicity of the iMac's design, it now ships with Apple's wireless keyboard as standard and includes Apple's latest mouse, the multi-touch aware Magic Mouse. Like its predecessor, the Magic Mouse is buttonless. It's also missing the scrolling ball. Instead, the whole of its top surface is a multi-touch trackpad, allowing you to use gestures such as scrolling and swiping to control actions on screen. It works reasonably well: scrolling is easy enough, and pointing and clicking is more comfortable than with the older mouse. However, we found holding the mouse still while swiping across its surface awkward. If you prefer, the wired keyboard and Apple Mouse are available as build-to-order options, instead of the wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse. Inside, the iMac has been boosted by faster
The first reaction on removing the iMac from its box is one of surprise at just how large it is. The 27in display is so wide it will swamp your desk, and so bright that you need to turn down the brightness to avoid inducing a headache. We question the value of a 27in display for most tasks. Obviously, for editing photos, video and laying out pages it has tremendous advantages, but for most uses, it's simply too big. You really do need to sit quite far back to avoid the sensation of being swallowed up by the glare. The screen is also very glossy, so you need to position it very carefully to avoid distracting reflections. That said, high-definition video really does look stunning. We tested it with 1080p HD video scaled up to the full resolution of the screen and loved the result. In our benchmarks, the 3.06GHz 27in iMac performed marginally better in CPU and maths-based tests than the 2.93GHz 24in model that occupied the same spot in the last iMac line-up. However, we were disappointed to see that Quartz and Open-GL results were marginally worse. This could be because the 27in machine's ATI Radeon HD 4670 has to drive a much higher resolution display with the same 256MB Ram as the Nvidia GeForce GT 120 on the previous model. It's worth noting, however, that the 27in iMac is £150 cheaper than the 2.93GHz 24in model was just a few weeks ago. Unless you choose the Quad Core 27in model, this iMac upgrade is all about features rather than raw performance. It also makes the iMacs much better value than they have been recently. If we had to choose, we'd opt for the 21.5in 3.06GHz model, rather than this one, and use the spare cash to upgrade the Ram. Sadly, although the graphics processor on this model can be upgraded to a 512MB Radeon HD 4850, on the 21.5in one there's no graphics card upgrade option. By Kenny Hemphill
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