Apple iMac (24-inch Penryn)

The Apple iMac (24-inch Penryn) ($1,799 direct) is the iconic all-in-one desktop that others try emulate. Its aluminum-and-glass face evokes the iPhone and iPod Touch, a look that works well. A successor to the aluminum 20-inch iMac, the last model I reviewed, it upgrades the screen to 1,920 by 1,200 pixels—big enough to view true HD video content. This newest iteration of iMac is powered by the new Intel Penryn (45nm) Core 2 Duo E8235 processor, which allows lower energy usage and offers greater computing power than the Merom chips in older iMacs. The extra power helps the iMac maintain its place in the vanguard of all-in-one PCs.
Styling and software on the iMac (24-inch Penryn) are much the same as on its immediate predecessors. The new iMac improves on them mainly by using new processors and other components, like the speedier DDR2 memory. All iMacs now ship standard with 2GB of memory, except for the base 20-inch model ($1,199), which still has 1GB. You won't need to upgrade if you already have a fourth-generation aluminum iMac, but the new iMac is an attractive purchase if your current Mac or PC is more than three years old. Certainly, now is the time to upgrade if you're still using a PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) Mac. The screen itself is so beautiful, it could push you to plunk down a cool $1,800 if you see it live at your local Apple Store.
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Other components include a large, 320GB hard drive and an ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO graphics card, the same as in the previous aluminum iMacs. Apple describes the processor simply as the "2.8-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with a 6MB L2 cache." Windows identifies it as the Intel Core 2 Duo E8235, and that's confirmed by the freeware utility CPU-Z, so that's what we'll go with. As usual, there are build-to-order options available, like larger hard drives (up to 1TB for another $300), upgraded nVidia GeForce 8800 GS graphics ($150), 4GB of RAM (an additional $200), and an uprated 3.06-GHz Core 2 Duo (also $200). Apple isn't confirming, but other parties are calling the latter an overclocked chip. It's not a Core 2 Extreme part, even though one at that speed is expected shortly.

Our test unit came very well equipped, and it costs just under $1,800. About the only piece of hardware that can't be upgraded is the optical drive. In fact, all the iMacs—from the $1,199 20-inch to the $2,199 24-inch configuration with a 3.06-GHz Core 2 Duo processor—come with the same dual-layer DVD burner (aka SuperDrive). I'd have liked a Blu-ray option, now that the format war is over.

Compared with the 20-inch version, the 24-inch iMac is huge, but it still takes up less space than even a small-form-factor PC with an external 24-inch widescreen monitor. The black bezel around the screen minimizes the effect of the "Jay Leno chin"—the expanse of material below the screen that holds some of the iMac's machinery and the speaker—that was conspicuous on the 20-inch model. The slot-loading SuperDrive is on the right side of the iMac, and it looks and feels great when you use it. The new iMac is EPEAT Silver and Energy Star 4.0 certified. You can still run the iMac almost completely wirelessly using the optional Bluetooth keyboard ($30 extra) and mouse ($20 extra), and the standard 802.11 draft-n Wi-Fi. The only cable that's absolutely necessary is the standard power cable.

Like all Macs, the iMac is bloatware free. Just about the only sales pitch iMac owners are subjected to is the offer to sign up for a .Mac subscription (which provides online services such as photo sharing and 10GB of online storage, at rates starting at $99.95 per year) when you first set up the system. You don't need to worry about 30-day subscriptions to antivirus (not needed on a Mac so far, although you'll still need to watch out for spam, phishing, and ID theft). Software updates of OS X and the preloaded programs, including iLife '08, are free; and if you use your own XP or Vista setup disc, your Boot Camp partition will be free of bloatware, too. This leaves you more space for music, photos, and videos.

Nits (however minor): There are no media card slots for downloading your pictures to the iMac; there's no Blu-ray; and you have to deal with that Apple Mighty Mouse (wonky right mouse button, no navigate back key). Although you can download HD trailers from the QuickTime Web site, you can't buy or rent HD movies or TV shows on the iMac. You can rent HD movies from the iTunes store only if you use Apple TV. You'll need a third-party TV tuner if you want to watch broadcast HDTV on the iMac; with Apple, it's all about buying and renting programs from iTunes. This is unfortunate, considering that the 24-inch iMac's 1,920-by-1,200 screen is perfect for viewing "true HD" (1,920-by-1,080) videos.

The iMac's E8235 processor is one of the new 45-nm Penryn models, and as such it has a little more oomph than the Merom-based T7700 processor of the 20-inch iMac I'd last reviewed. Our Photoshop CS3 test results show this performance boost clearly. Although the 20-inch had scored a still-quick 42 seconds running Mac Os X, the latest iMac finished in a mere 34 seconds. In Windows, the 24-inch finished in a blazing 30 seconds, barely half the time it took the older iMac (58 seconds).

This means that even if you're a Photoshop wiz, you don't necessarily need an Apple Mac Pro. The new 24-inch iMac has the same screen resolution as an Apple Mac Pro with an Apple 23-inch Cinema HD screen, and it's fast enough to do real work. The Apple Mac Pro is thousands of dollars more expensive and is more of a serious professional workstation, with dual quad-core processors and higher-end graphics cards. The only reason to get the Mac Pro these days is if you absolutely need expansion cards for components like multiple monitors, higher-end workstation-class graphics cards, and more internal hard drives—or you must have the power of eight CPU cores working on your time-critical rendering project. Compared with the latest iMac, working on most photos, illustrations, page layout, and general office projects on a Mac Pro is overkill.

Running Windows, the iMac finished the Windows Media Encoder test in 1 minute, 3 seconds, a swift score for a dual-core system. Speedy dual-cores (like the Falcon NW FragBox 8500) have been hovering around times of 1 minute, while the fastest quad-core systems, like the Polywell Poly X3800, are closer to the 30-second range. Put simply, the iMac is one fast Windows PC.

Our review unit completed BAPCo's SYSmark 2007 Preview test with an overall score of 130 points. This is a very good score for a performance PC, matching powerhouses like the Dell XPS 630 (145) and coming in just short (relatively) of the Falcon NW FragBox 8500 (174). The iMac even bests quad-core-powered multimedia PCs like the Velocity Micro Edge M40 (128) and the Gateway FX7020 (104). The iMac's 3DMark06 scores were middling at 4,278. PCs I've seen with the power to play today's games, such as the FragBox, are scoring above 12,000 points on 3DMark06. Likewise, the iMac's Crysis (15 fps) and World in Conflict (23) scores are for the most part unplayable. Of course, the iMac won't be a 3D gaming champion with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO graphics card (it's more of a light- to medium-duty 3D graphics card); if 3D gaming is important to you, go for the GeForce 8800 GS upgrade.

Though silver and black, the iMac represents "green" with Apple's take-back program, which means that Apple will help you recycle your old PC or Mac when you buy a new iMac. (This also applies when you buy other Apple computers.) The new iMac has EPEAT silver and Energy Star certifications. I tested the iMac with our Kill A Watt meter and found that it's efficient both in sleep mode (5 watts) and when off (zero watts). When in idle mode, the iMac consumed 108W, a decent number considering that has a huge screen in addition to all the computer components. When running CineBench R10, the iMac consumed an average of 135W, again a nice score. Overall, this is a little higher than desktops marketed specifically as "green" but still really good. (I've tested green PCs recently that consume less than 80W under load and fewer than 50W while idle).