Apple iMac Desktop with 24" Display MA456LL/A (2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Driv

Apple MA456LL/A 24 Inch iMac - With a huge 24" widescreen LCD monitor, this iMac is the biggest yet from Apple. Compared to the previous 20" model, the 24" LCD is 40% brighter and provides 30% more screen real estate. Powering this iMac is an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, which gives you up to 50% faster performance over the previous 20" model. You also get Apple iLife. A suite of Apple designed applications that has everything for, well, your life - your digital life that is. Seamlessly integrated with the Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger operating system, it lets you easily edit, share, and store your digital photos; play, edit, and create both audio and video, including your own DVD movies. 250GB SATA 7200 RPM Hard Drive Slot-Loading SuperDrive - (write speeds) up to 2.4x DL DVD+R, 8x DVD-R, 8x DVD+R, 4x DVD-RW, 4x DVD+RW, 24x CD-R, & 16x CD-RW Slot-Loading SuperDrive - (read speeds) up to 8x DVD-ROM & 24x CD-ROM 24 Widescreen LCD Native Resolution - 1920 x 1200 Built-in iSight Built-in 802.11g Wi-Fi Wireless Network Adapter Built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) module NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT with 128MB of GDDR3 of SDRAM Port - 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet, 3 USB 2.0, 2 USB 1.1 (on keyboard), 1 FireWire 800, 1 FireWire 400, Optical Digital Audio/Headphone Out, Optical Digital Audio In/Audio Line-In, Mini-DVI Out with support for DVI, VGA, S-Video, & Composite Video via optional adapter Built-in Stereo Speakers Built-in Microphone Built-in IR Receiver Unit Weight - 25 lbs.

Customer Reviews:

Fast, Quiet and Beautiful
This is my 12th Mac in 22 years of owning Macintosh computers, and it has to be the most beautiful design so far. This 24" iMac replaced a hot and noisy 2.3Ghz G5 MP Tower and older style ADC 23" monitor. I don't think I will ever go back to a tower model again. The core2duo also runs very cool.

The iMac screen is much brighter, the whites are truely white, and the system runs totally silent. It's also faster in the benchmarks that I have run compared to the 2.3GHz MP G5 tower. 24" is slightly larger than 23", so you get 92 dpi instead of 96 dpi, making text slightly larger and easier to read. Monitor resolution is 1920x1200.

Photoshop CS3 (beta) flys on this system. Load times are 10 seconds compared to 23 seconds on the G5. About 95% of my software is already Universal Binary, so this has been a very move from PPC to Intel software.

This computer is excellent for watching DVD's on, and with M-Audio's USB-Fiber Optic adapter, you can pull Digital Dolby 5.1 sound off the movies to your stereo, or connect a fiber optic cable directly to the iMac.

The new Mighty Mouse took a few days to get used to, but after a while, I found myself looking for the little scroll wheel on my other mouse.

I have 2 Gigs of RAM (recommended for power users) and the faster 7600GT video card (optional).

The 24" model adds pro features like Firewire 800 (super fast), 24W stereo amp with larger speakers, and an external monitor plug (just in case 24" isn't big enough).

Make sure you have a solid desk for this model, as it is fairly heavy, and will bounce around if you put it on a lightweight desk.

I would highly recommend this system to anyone with an older tower model.
--2006-12-18

all I can say is WOW
I have been a died in the wool PC modder/user for years. I have built and maintained my own high-performance PCs since my dad gave me a 486/66 back in the early nineties. My last PC was a tricked out P4 with ALL the best mods. dual SLI, water-cooled, etc..the works.

But it still was: unreliable, noisy, inconsistent, tedious to tweak and repair.

I went to an apple store recently and played with a 24" iMac w/ the dual core 2 duo chip.

I was totally hooked by the elegant styling, amazing OS, and sheer performance of this beast. It's silent, fast, efficient, powerful...

PC go bye bye. This is the computer for computer people. AND non computer people.

--2006-12-13

Converted!
The very first computer I ever owned was the original 128K (yes K) Mac, the one that spoofed the PC in an Orwellian Superbowl commercial that remains a classic.

My Mac wasn't that much of a classic as far as work applications go and when I started my own law firm I bought PCs because that was where the software was. Now nearly 20 years later I bought a Mac for my home office. It won't be my last Mac. In fact, my experience with this is so good I am thinking about replacing my almost new Toshiba Satellite M65-S821 17" laptop with a big Mac Book.

This iMac is a beast. The Tiger OS is much more stable than Windows XP. Furthermore I have the ability to load a concurrent Windows OS onto this machine. My brother has actually done this with his Mac, and from what I have seen it integrates very smoothly. I have not found that software is the kind of problem it was in the 80s and 90s, but if I really need a particular PC-only application, then I will install Windows. Hopefully Vista will be a friendlier OS than XP has been.

I am operating this machine wirelessly along with an HP bluetooth/Wi-Fi printer. What this means practically is that there is no tangle of wires coming out of my computer and I can move it to another room (though at 24in this portability requires much more care than moving a laptop). The only connections I have are the power cord and my keyboard. My cat ate my wired MightyMouse (true story) so I solved the pet-knawing problem with a wireless MightyMouse.

On the negative side, Microsoft Office for Mac, installed as a 30-day trial is not full-featured, and you cannot print with it. Obviously Word documents need to be created, edited, and printed, and while I bought the full-featured version, I shopped around and did not buy it from either MS or Apple who are jointly responsible for this less than useful demo. I might add that my Toshiba Satellite M65 had a fully featured 60-day trial of Office. And you get no discount if you own the PC version of Office.

[...]
--2006-12-10

Apple does it again!
Gorgeous display and a very solid machine...and did I mention fast?
Once you go Apple, you'll never go back!
--2006-12-01

Very Happy With It!
I used to manage desktop and server support for an IT department within a large international bank, and for a change, purchased an iMac flat-panel in 2002. Nowadays I earn my living as a VBA programmer for Access/Excel on Windows. When I first got my iMac in 2002, OS X would crash, and I've been bugged by the slowness, but that's expected after 4 years. I recently purchased the new 24" iMac and have been very happy.

Besides being a beautiful computer, transferring all my old data and configurations was cake using the Migration Assistant, since I had some firewire cables. Almost all my programs transferred with licensing intact, as well as all of my passwords stored in the Keychain. The only issue I've had has been setting up bluetooth with my Treo 700p. It is likely a conflict with the wireless keyboard and mouse, although it's more likely I haven't set it up correctly. It works fine if I use USB. The machine flies, and using virtual and remote desktop software, I can work simultaneously on both Windows ansd OS X.

Comments and Suggestions:

- It's a great machine, but be prepared to put a TV-sized monitor on your desk.
- Get the wireless keyboard and mouse to reduce clutter.
- I love the Mighty Mouse. I've always enjoyed the Microsoft 2-button optical mice, I hate heavy mice, and the beauty and ease of the Apple mouse is simply amazing.
- I don't care about limited upgrades - mine is purchased with 2GB RAM - and I don't expect to have to upgrade much, other than daisy-chaining more storage. I currently have two external firewire drives.
--2006-11-18

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