New iMac G5's WOW, where's the computer?
 

The new iMac's are out. Take a look.

Looks like a laptop on a stand?! I guess the G5 Powerbook will be coming soon....it's the iMac without the stand!

Murph

I hope so, but it will have to go on a diet. The 17 inch weighs 18+ pounds. Of course the includes the power supply and stand, which would be eliminated from a PB. A smaller 15 inch screen will save a little also, but I don't see it getting to 5 pounds real soon. I'm also told that heat and power consumption have been real issues in the PB design. It would seem at least the heat issue has been solved for the iMac.

Wow, that is very cool. Looks a lot more attractive to my eyes than the old iMacs with that ugly domed base. Nice value at $1,299 for the 17" model as well. I continue to be glad that I held onto my AAPL stock :-)

Now it will be interesting to see if IBM can really provide them with G5's in the quantity that they need. I'll also be surprised to see a G5 laptop anytime soon. They barely solved the heat issues with the G4 - have you ever tried to use one of those powerbooks on your lap while wearing shorts?

I just got my daughter a 12" iBook with a 1ghz G4 processor and must say that it's an impressive little machine for the money. I went all over town and tried several online vendors but they were backordered everywhere. It finally arrived after almost a two week wait.

Apple is certainly on quite a run these days... it's about time!

Speaking as a PC person, I think it's cool. At under $2k, the price is surprisingly low, especially for Apple. Now if it came bundled with FCP for that price, I could almost overcome my aversion to Macs, and go to the other side.

One question- The Apple site mentioned a 16:10 aspect ratio... Is that a stretched 16:9? Why that ratio?

Not sure of the origin of 16:10, but their other wide panels have been like this for awhile, and so are some other LCD's. I think my 15" powerbook would also work out to this aspect ratio.

What? You didn't hear that if you buy the 17" iMac they throw in FCP for free? And if you buy the 20" model they also include a free Hummer to transport it. ;-)

(just kidding, for the humor-impaired amongst us)

SO will these things run Motion?

Boyd- Thanks! I was looking at the 20" model anyways!

hehehe...

But seriously, FCP has always peaked my interest. If I'm ever going to use it, I'd have to either switch to Mac, or wait for the PC version. Hmmm... Anyways, how well would this system work for editing and compositing?

> or wait for the PC version

Jjajajjaja speaking to the humor-challenged too?

It always seems like I'm speaking to the humor challenged, but I try to have fun anyways ;)

Is this computer good for editing on AE, and FCP????

Another question- Will it do HD?

the 20" doesnt have that much RAM, so an upgrade will be needed when you buy the computer. I really want to get it.

The new iMacs do have G5s but the bus is much slower than the G5 towers, so while they are probably much more powerful than G4 iMacs, they are still less power than the towers. For those interested in Motion, the video card is "NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra". So it meets the minimum requirements, but that might not be the best for it.

They only come with 256 MB of RAM (which is just silly these days) but can be upgraded to 2 GB. The two base models have 80 GB serial ATA and the 20" has 160 GB. So these aren't bad machines after a RAM upgrade.

They have built in stereo speakers, but I'd guess they aren't all that great. They have analog/digital audio out and analog in so you can hook it up to a nice system if you'd like.

They are VESA (or whatever) compliant so you can get a wall mount and put it on your wall, completely off your desk. Add the Airport Extreme and Blue tooth and this machine could be almost completely wireless with a wireless keyboard and mouse. That would be a pretty cool set up I think...

Yet another remarkable design from Apple. I loved the quote in the keynote address, "Our computers look better from the back than most do from the front."