When is imats 2011

Update: Reader emails have alerted me to an iFixit teardown of the new iMac , which reveals that they're shipping with the new Intel Z68 chipset. We wrote a little about Z68 earlier this year - no word on whether OS X supports or plans to support any of its unique features at this point. At least these iMacs continue to offer four RAM slots, versus the two slots on older iMacs - if 4GB is not a suitable amount for you, adding another GB is easy and relatively inexpensive if you don't pay Apple's prices.

The Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt upgrades are more or less known quantities at this point — what impressed me most about the new iMacs was the GPU upgrade, especially in the entry-level iMac and the high-end iMac.

Post Your Comment Please log in or sign up to comment. Been a while since I've found the iMacs interesting. Purchase from the Apple Online Store to upgrade processor, graphics, memory, and hard drive, or to swap Magic Mouse for Magic Trackpad.

Storage 1 2. Graphics 2. Click and double-click anywhere. Ambidextrous construction accommodates left- and right-handed users. Magic Trackpad Solid-state scrolling trackpad for precise cursor control; supports inertial scrolling, pinch and expand, swipe, three-finger swipe, four-finger swipe, tap, double-tap, rotate, screen zoom, scroll, click and drag, click drag and lock, secondary click A and B Wireless Wi-Fi In the meantime, the dual Thunderbolt ports on the iMac can be used to hook up two external displays, and other Thunderbolt-equipped Macs can use the iMac as an external display in Target Display Mode, so the ports aren't totally useless -- just think of them as plucky Mini DisplayPorts with a dream.

Given our experience with other Sandy Bridge-based systems, it's no surprise that the new iMac shines in the performance department as well. As you can see from the benchmarks, it's a thoroughly capable machine -- we never experienced any slowdowns while working with it, and we clocked a rock-solid 60fps in Portal 2 at x resolution and well over fps in Half-Life 2: Episode 2.

It's an interesting dilemma if you're considering a high-end Mac: do you choose the gorgeous inch display, or take nearly the same performance in a portable and sacrifice some screen resolution and a Thunderbolt port? These are good problems to have. Oh, and speaking of options, you can also configure the iMac into the stratosphere: we created a monster 3. That's creeping up into serious professional territory, and I wouldn't be surprised to see pros start looking at the iMac as production-capable machines, especially if Thunderbolt peripherals can reduce or eliminate the need for PCI capture cards and storage controllers.

Apple played pretty coy when I asked them about that possibility, but it feels like the door's being nudged open -- we'll see if Thunderbolt takes off enough to make it happen. Every year I review the iMac, and every year my conclusion is the same: the iMac remains the single best all-in-one computer available. There's far more competition for the I'd call that matchup in Apple's favor, especially given the near-useless state of Windows 7 touch overlays.

That's not to say that the iMac is perfect: it's still frustrating that Apple ships such beautiful displays but doesn't offer a Blu-ray drive, which is the best way for the average consumer to watch high-quality p content. And iTunes movies are still p!

And we're pretty sure Apple's displays get glossier every year. But these are the same faults the iMac has had for years now, while the positives have gotten substantially better. It's a winning formula that's thus far eluded Apple's competitors -- and we imagine the company will eventually decide to change the equation entirely. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.

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