Apple iMac 2009 review

Posted by T3 Online on Mon 26 Oct 2009

Apple's latest iMac upgrade isn't a radical overhaul, but it's more than an upgrade

The iMac range now boasts four standard configurations, with custom options available if you order through Apple’s online store. The two smaller machines boast 21.5-inch screens and 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors, with the more expensive of the two offering a bigger hard drive and faster graphics card.

A couple of 27-inch behemoths are also available, with the top-of-the-range model giving you a quad-core 2.66GHz Intel Core i5 processor and a ATI Radeon HD 4850 GPU with 512MB of dedicated memory. We tested the cheaper of the 27-inch models, which costs £1,349 and is based on a 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with graphics powered by a ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 256MB of memory. For storage, there’s a 1TB hard drive.

The late 2009 iMac’s most obvious update is its screen. The new models offer an edge-to-edge glass design, with no aluminium bezel on the left, right or top edges. This makes for very comfortable viewing, with no distractions. There was some controversy over the quality of the display in some of the last-generation of iMacs, but Apple seems to have put its problems behind it with this release. The new iMac offers incredible viewing angles, with colours remaining constant even when viewed from almost side-on. The gradient ramps are smooth, and the colours accurate.

Unfortunately, there’s still no available alternative to the glossy screen finish. While most Mac users have made their peace with this design, some would still prefer a matte screen, which is far less susceptible to glare from lights and windows. It’s a real pity there isn’t a custom option available on the Apple Online Store, as there is with the MacBook Pro range.

When it came to using iTunes we got some very surprising – and unwelcome – results. For several months, every new Mac has been sluggish to encode CDs, due to the speed of the optical drive becoming the limiting factor, regardless of improvements to the CPU. The new iMac was, unfortunately, even slower. The new iMacs didn’t get a Blu-ray drive as many predicted as Apple ‘doesn’t see any great consumer demand’ in this respect, but no one expected a slower DVD drive.

As has been widely reported, the 27-inch iMacs offer video-in, so you can use the huge display as a monitor. This facility is only available when the Mac is switched on and for some reason, has not been extended to the 21-inch iMacs. A potentially-useful function that’s been imperfectly implemented.

Another useful enhancement that’s only available on the 27-inch models is wall-mounting, using the VESA standard. There’s still no vertical adjust on the stand, which is especially annoying given the size of the screen. As wall-mounting requires the stand to be removed, the door is open for third-party manufacturers to release a replacement which offers this function, but it’s about time Apple upgraded its own stand.

All machines in the new iMac range give you four RAM slots, allowing for up to 16GB of onboard memory, and come supplied with a Bluetooth keyboard and new Magic Mouse as standard. If you dislike the Bluetooth keyboard’s lack of a numeric keypad, you can replace it with the full-sized USB model at no extra cost when ordering from the Apple online store.

Overall, the new iMacs are a win for Apple. Useful incremental component upgrades combine with solid enhancements to make for a welcome new release. There’s still some work to do. It really is time the iMac range offered height-adjustable stands, especially the 27-inch models, and we’d like to see wall-mounting and video-in across the board, not just on the larger builds.

It will be interesting to see how things develop as the Intel Core i-series processors filter down throughout the Mac range too. Even so, this is a useful new release for the computer that turned around Apple’s fortunes over a decade ago. It seems the iMac is still going from strength to strength.

Link: Apple

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User Comments

By freebieconsoles

28|10|2009 03:22

You can't fault apple on the aesthetics of their products, it's a shame that functionality sometimes lets them down. Non matte finish on the screen is still a real kicker for me, although I still want to upgrade.

www.freebiegadgetsuk.co.uk

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27|10|2009 19:33

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