iMac 27" i7 Pre-Review

I am typing this on a working Core i7 iMac. It took in excess of a month to get the machine: was it worth the wait?

First, some background. I order the i7 after four days of planned dithering following the announcement of the new iMac range on the 20th. A review of my blog will find that until recently I have had, as my primary Macs, a MacBook and iMac 20" (among countless other computers; I am rather hardware obsessive).

As part of house move I decided to consolidate and upgrade my Macs. The first thing I did was to sell my MacBook as the opportunity arose to do so. The iMac has primarily been my mother's for many months now so instead of buying a her a new machine when I move out, she can keep that.

This planning started back in September; I sold the MacBook around the start of October.

So what was I going to buy? My initial thoughts were to get a new MacBook Pro. For nearly a year that had been my plan; the unibody Macs are magnificent machines. My other thoughts were to get the best possible. Apple's pricing certainly does encourage upselling - I found the top-end 15" to be ideal, but once you look at that then the basic (and only) model of 17" starts look affordable. And what a screen the 17" has... true HD resolution.

So that became the plan for few weeks. I was going to get myself a top-end, ultra expensive MacBook.

Then I started looking at MacPros. Do I really need a laptop? No. I am rarely in a situation where one makes sense. The best use I made of the MacBook was to watch TV in bed. Once you start to look at MacBook 17" prices, you start to realise that you can get a hell of a lot of power for that money. Now, I'm not in the market for a PC so granted that a built PC is cheaper again. But the low-end Pro has a quad core Xeon which is something like twice as fast as the high-end MacBook.

So that became the plan for a week or two. A MacPro running with my existing 20" HP monitor followed by a 30" monitor upgrade sometime in the future. But I held off; the rumours were circulating about an iMac refresh and while I try not to consciously make purchasing decisions based on rumour, my subconscious was all too aware of the two grand expense at stake.

And so that brings us to the 20th of October 2009 and the relatively quiet announcement of the new iMac range. It was perfect; everything I wanted from fast CPUs to big screens and at a price point lower that the Mac or MacBook Pro with the extra of the huge 27" display. So that was that; I waited for 4 days just to check whether I would change my mind, but I didn't and got out the card for the financial pain.

The quad iMacs shipped quite a while after the Core2Duo models. I received mine on the 14th of November. Unfortunately, after the excitement of the unboxing and setup the machine was dead. No matter how I pressed the power button, nothing happened. So we entered the RMA process for a new machine.

Forward to the 3rd of December when the replacement gets here and is thankfully working. I did see the screen flicker issue on the night of the 4th (this has also was widely reported on forums along with DOA and smashed screens), but that disappeared and has not come back so far (the machine has been on for 8 hours a day on the 5th and 6th); I don't really want to go through the pain of the RMA wait again.

So that is the background and experience of the buying process. What is the machine like to use?

First impressions: the screen. Wow. Moving up from a 20" to this is really something. The colour is even as you'd expect of an IPS screen; the TN screen of the 2007 20" and MacBook has terrible colour distortion if you move your head. The 16:9 ratio fits broadcast TV and screen is big enough for a good film experience in the living room.

Next: speed. Hmm, well. Somethings are indeed lightning fast. I'm loving Eclipse on this. However, the reality is that much of what I do, such as browsing the web, is perfectly happy on the old 2.0GHz C2D of the iMac and MacBook. That is to say, I generally can't tell the difference. That's not to say anything about multi-core or i7 speed but simply that current software is really well designed and suited to current hardware.
As for the graphics speed with the ATI 4850, I've only tried 2D so far and that is perfectly smooth. This was my main problem with the MacBook and the main driver of wanting to upgrade it - the 20" iMac's ATI 2400 was smooth in 2D in nearly all situations but could drop frames with Exposé with many open windows. The MacBook bogs down with any intense use (at least the improved Intel GMA X3100 does, which both my personal and work MacBooks have; the Nvidia 9400M should be much better).

Keyboard and mouse: the wireless keyboard is a MacBook laptop keyboard in a hard aluminium casing. I like it a lot. I have a full (with numeric keypad) aluminium keyboard on the 20" iMac and at work and would prefer that for work purposes. But for home use, the lack of keypad is not an issue.

The Magic Mouse is quite good. Like any new mouse, it'll take getting use to. The lack of a middle mouse button is actually the biggest issue so far (but I am aware of the patches to add to functionality). Accidental swipes are another issue. I'll let you know in a month or two. But so far, I'm not turned off it.

That sums up my first impressions. The main thing to say is that the quad core 27" iMac is genuinely good machine, but there are teething problems in Apple getting a working one shipped out to you! Once you have it and it works, it's everything they advertised.