Buying iMac: any advice?

We're not getting a replacement. We're getting this one repaired. As the screen was borked out of the box, I don't have confidence that a new one would be any different (it might be worse). Rather than risking a lengthy cycle of getting new iMacs until one is right, I'd rather have this one fixed correctly.

More precisely, this is my wife's choice; I agree with her. :)

what exactly is the glass defect issue?

as for the stuck pixels, apple has a "pre-determined" number of pixels and sub-pixels that it considers within spec.  if they are still going to go ahead and repair the issue, i think you're sort-of being hooked up.  it's also very cool of you to allow apple to try to repair this instead of yelling and screaming.

ps: i work for apple as a level 2 tech (i take problem calls that other apple agents can't resolve) ... so i hear these kinds of calls all day long.  :D

pss: if you really run into issues send me a pm ... no promises but i can try to assist if possible.

Ted, thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

It looked to me like the glass was scratched in two places on the inside. It might be trapped dirt. There were also a couple of stuck (hot) pixels. My anxiety was over the pixel-count issue; to me two or three hot pixels in the upper left is not acceptable in a $2300 Mac for a graphic designer. Thankfully, the Genius seemed ready and able to help us.

Hopefully all is good later this week.

That's not going to happen Dave. In over 20 years of using Apple products, the only issue I ever had was a HD that croaked a few weeks after I bought the computer.  Of course, Apple doesn't make the HD.  Either way you go, you should be good.

In two years of using Apple products, I've had three serious hardware failures out of the box in two products.

I don't trust Apple to deliver working hardware.

Note to self:  Do NOT buy any of Dave's Macs used.

No, it's all working after AppleCare fixes it for me! (Anyone want a previously enjoyed dual G5 that was bought *before* I was married to the owner?)

Then why keep buying them?  

Because it it took two computer purchases to realize this. And because I've found their service to be top notch and to get it right. And because I'd still rather use OS X over Windows at home. And obviously I'm the outlier; Apple can't possibly ship every new computer with the hardware failures I've experienced and stay in business.

And the iMac is back in the house, the LCD replaced and glass screen properly cleaned, and ready for my wife to set it up.

Updates applied. Wireless network connected (couldn't get ethernet working; might be bad cable). External hard drive partitioned and TimeMachine doing initial backup. I'll do SuperDuper! next and declare victory for the night!

Edited by DaveF - 7/17/2009 at 01:55 am GMT

We ran Migration Assistant...and it was a bust.

We had created my wife's account with the same name as she always uses, and also expecting MA to migrate account to account. We ran it and it said the current computer account name was the same as the old computer account name and it can't cope with that.

WTF? What is the point of a migration assistant but to migrate an account?

We created a new account with dummy name, logged into it, and re-ran MA. Now we can select the "overwrite" option. Ran MA.

It transfered all applications.

It transferred NO personal data. No photos, no music, no data, no preferences. Nothing. And it screwed up the network settings.

?????

So, we're going to try again. Maybe it will play nice this time.

Deleted all user accounts; created a new, dummy account. Logged in, reran MA, transferring only user data (no applications).

This time it worked, properly created the transferred account, got all the data, desktop settings, etc.

So, Migration Assistant seems quirky or buggy or something. But after a few hours of trying and a couple MA processes, it seems to have fully transferred everything.

My wife is very happy now.

Dave,

I was going to stay out of this.  The last thing you needed to hear from me right now was
"Migration assistant worked perfectly the first time out."

I have no idea what limitations MA has, but it is good to hear that you finally got everything
transferred.

Look forward to hearing further observations about the new iMac.

Ron,

I don't understand what went wrong the first time; it did half a job. And it's not documented well, especially for trying to transfer an account when the computer has already been partly setup.

It might have been easier if we had done MA first thing, during the out-of-box powerup as planned (I didn't due to  to initial h'ware problems).

But we got it to work completely. And it did work very well. And in the end, even with confusions, it was certainly easier than any manual transfer process. It took four hours to do what would take me several evenings to do manually. It even transferred Adobe CS3 wholly, apps and settings and preferences and all.


As for the new iMac: my wife loves the bright glossy display! And she's appreciating the 24" size over her previous 20" monitor.

As the 24" iMac is my wife's machine, I don't have much experience with it. My "review" comments are tidbits I get from her. The sense I've got so far:

• She loves the 24" glossy screen. The size, brightness, and saturation really wow her. (And she's a professional graphic designer, works with Pantone color chips, and is a hobbyist photographer.)
• It's quiet. The dual G5 roared. This is silent, like a laptop, which is also likes. The external harddrive we bought is far louder (I my may have to move it).
• She discarded the mouse and plugged in her faithful trackball. (trackballs, I do not understand)
• She likes the looks of the new Mac keyboard, but doesn't really like its feel. She says it works badly with longer nails. We'll probably replace it with a MS Comfort Curve 2000. I have that and she prefers it.
• After sorting out Migration Assistant issues, the migration was complete. I was worried about the Adobe software, since she's two upgrades beyond her original CDs and I didn't know how that would work. But it all came across. Her desktop and user account was 100% recreated.
• The Command-Tab feature for task switching isn't working right. She's found reports in Apple Discussions about others have this problem. I don't know if it's specific to the 24" iMac, to having used MA, or just one of the various OS X glitches that people have.
• I think it feels faster to her. She's not really commented on it, which is probably a good sign. 
• It remains to be seen whether the video card upgrade was worth the $150. If it pays off, it won't be until next year with Snow Leopard (and maybe Adobe CS5)
• It takes up much less space. There's a big cubby opened up on the floor where the old tower went.
• I personally don't care for the ergonomics of the non-height-adjustable big screen, but home offices are never perfect.
• She wasted a night playing with Photobooth, enjoying her first ever iSight camera. I suggested she see if her best friend (out of state) could get a webcam and they could videochat. She's intrigued by that prospect.

This is the dilemma of modern computing. Stuff is big and fast and capacious. It mostly works well. There's not much to say about it. If you're a Mac user and need a new computer for personal or professional use, the iMac 24" is great. Get a non-Apple keyboard and mouse and connect a big honkin' external drive to it for backups, and you're off to the races.

If you could put bigger hard disks internally in them then I would never have made the jump from iMac to MacPro.  They are wonderful machines, quiet, beautiful and amazing.

I've put drives in computers. I've plugged in USB drives. I'm pretty content now using external drives. It's easier and faster and the price difference is negligible. And when we upgrade a computer, we upgrade the external drive and pass the older one to the older computer. So my wife got a new 1.5 TB drive and I got her previous 500 GB drive.  The cabling is a downside, true. And I hate cabling.

But overall, especially given the exorbitant cost of a Mac Pro, I think external drives are a neutral issue now. And a strong positive for "most" people.

Of course, I'm thinking about backup drives; not the case where you need the speed of an internal drive. But even then, perhaps FireWire is close to internal speeds?

I suggest doing a cost analysis on an iMac vs Mac Pro including additional drives and see if your opinion is swayed at all.

Oh, for most people, absolutely.  For those of us burning 100GB a month+ in video and pictures, not so much.  I've only got 4.5TB in storage right now and with one drive bay open and one drive pretty much cleaned off, can easily add another 4+TB internally no sweat.  When bigger drives come out its a simple matter of moving stuff around and then a quick case open and close.  To do that externally you'd need at least 4 separate drives all with their annoying wall warts.

Of course having 8 cores and 10GB of RAM is pretty handy for video rendering, and I can't wait to let Snow Leop chew on that.

I use external drives (FW 800!)  for backup of course. 

The new iMac is going well, and my wife gave me permission to wipe it and sell it. The eBay ad is up and the old G5 is boxed for shipping.

I've not really played with the iMac so I can't really review it. I wish I could get my wife to put together a mini-review...I'll ask her about that.

The challenge now that my wife also has a "modern" Mac is how to better deal with our duplicate data. We've got photos on both our computers. Finances are on my MBP because I've got Parallels / WinXP and there's not OS X finance app for us. So a long-term goal is to reduce needless duplications and cross computer usages.

A small comment on the new iMac.

Built-in WiFi is great. While normally networked by ethernet, we tore the office apart this weekend for painting. No problem, set up the iMac temporarily downstairs and then turn on its WiFi. Not loss of internet for my wife.

Keyboard: While I have utter disdain for these new slim keyboards, my wife has taken to it. I offered to buy her a new, sensible keyboard, but she's fully content with Apple keyboard. (she's a trackball user, though, and hasn't tried the mouse)

I'm constantly impressed by the screen's vibrancy. I like matte for my laptop, but after seeing the iMac, I'd be very tempted by glossy on a future purchase.

24" is definitely a great desktop monitor size today. And I think even if given the choice, she'd prefer a 24" to a 30" for daily use; going above 24" could be too much for the home-office desk setup.