iMac Cooling

[lurch]

The backs of iMacs I have seen in stores feel quite hot. Is that a good sign that the heat is escaping through the aluminium casing or a warning of something else? Does anyone know why iMacs running for prolonged periods of time in stores seem to be much hotter than MacBooks or Minis?

Phillip

[fos]

I read somewhere in Apple's documentation that the aluminum cases are a central part of the cooling system. In the iMac the cpu and gpu are supposed to be on different sides of the case to separate minimize their combined cooling.

I am curious about this issue is well. I am considering an iMac purchase. When looking at their desktop specs, the iMacs seem to be a better bargain than the Mac Mini or the Pro.

Jeff

[fos]

I visited BestBuy this evening. I checked the temperature on the back of both the iMac 21" and the iMac 27".

The 21" was warm to the touch, definitely not too warm.

The 27" was warmer than the 21". Again, it did not seem unusually warm or anything to be concerned with. I checked with the sales person that works the Apple section. He said that the iMacs had been operating the entire day.

I don't think the temperature of the iMacs would be detrimental at all. I have a 26" flat screen TV that I have had for over three years. Its operating temperature is much higher than the 27" iMac. The TV is quite hot at the top. The entire back is noticeably hotter than the iMacs. When standing in front of the screen on the TV you can feel the heat radiating from the display.

The iMac 27" did not radiate any heat from the front, even when I touched the screen with the back of my hand.

Jeff

[lurch]

I am considering an iMac purchase. When looking at their desktop specs, the iMacs seem to be a better bargain than the Mac Mini or the Pro.Jeff

Jeff, thank you for your research information. It is encouraging. I suppose the question for me is whether a 21" iMac standard configuration might be a better value purchase than the Mini equivalent?

Phillip

[fos]

I have looked at the numbers. If you have a good monitor on hand, the Mac Mini would be the best buy. If you need a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, go with the iMac.

I particularly like the space saving configuration of the iMac. It has a very small footprint. I hope to buy a 21" within the next month or so.

Jeff

[lurch]

I have looked at the numbers. If you have a good monitor on hand, the Mac Mini would be the best buy. If you need a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, go with the iMac. Jeff

I have a 2 year old 19" Dell monitor, a Viewsonic keyboard and Logitech wired mouse that are about 6 years old. I suppose it comes down to whether I want to part with the extra cash for the more contemporary components. The iMac has a very nice looking monitor. The choice should be clearer after I visit the Apple Store in Sydney tomorrow.

Phillip

[fos]

With the Mac Mini, you can always upgrade the components as you need or want to.

If you are going to use your existing monitor, be sure to get an adapter while you are at the store.

I'm sure you will be impressed! Let us know how it goes.

Jeff

[RedAlpha3]

If you are going to use your existing monitor, be sure to get an adapter while you are at the store.


Jeff

Absolutely vital to get the correct connection as third party add-ons didn't work for me. From a hardware point of view I have yet to find any fault with the Mac Mini. It is surprisingly fast and the version I have is only 2.26 GHz with 2Gb ram.
Good luck in the big city.

[lurch]

The Store: A fascinating experience visiting the Apple Store in Sydney yesterday. Very impressive tri-level, trendy layout (thick glass stairs to each level), lots of people coming and going on all 3 levels, banks of iMacs, MacBooks, but only one Mac Mini. The sales people resplendent in light blue T shirts (no suits), very friendly, ready to help, quick to say "I don't know" but then show initiative to find answers. What a pleasant contrast to my early 1990s experience in Sydney.

Hardware: The only Mac Mini in the place had 4Gb RAM and a speedier CPU. It seemed as as iMacs with a similar configuration. I tried several iMacs, all with 3GHZ CPU. I did not notice a discernable difference in speed between those with the Nvidia integrated graphics and those with the Radeon card. On the MacBooks, I was impressed with the large track pad and the ease of zooming and scrolling using one or two fingers. The screens on iMacs and MacBooks were very attractive to the eye and made my 19" Dell monitor look like a poor cousin.

Cooling: I was mainly interested in the 21" iMacs - they seemed quite hot at the top. Sales people pointed out that the iMacs run 24/7. If that is true, it makes the relative coolness of the MacBooks and Mini even more impressive and astonishing. The heat emanating from the front of 27" iMac monitors suggests a good place to stand in winter but that also applies to my 32" Samsung LCD TV.

Software: Having a play with OSX and some of the apps quickly showed me the polish and ease of use of the Mac software. X11 is supposed to be installed with OSX by default but I did not have time to experiment with that.

Sales Know How: I told one salesman that I had tinkered with Linux for 12 years and was now looking for something with more polish and less time to tinker. His look suggested a "that's nice" thought and "how do I get off this unfamiliar territory". Sales people could not tell me for sure where the GPU and CPU were located on the iMac; did not know how to transfer mail from Thunderbird to Apple Mail (sourced a 2005 article on the internet and left me to read it on a MacBook - ); did not know which iMacs in the store had integrated graphics (but did find out); assured me that there was adequate cooling on the iMac but could not really tell me what might be happening to the components inside except that they were less likely to become brittle if I left the machine all the time.

Price: The Apple Store had room for price negotiation but only if competitors were offering discounts. At present, the store offers a 10% discount off iMacs plus free iWorks and Apple One to One for 1 year if you buy Apple Care for the iMac. Collect the goods from the store.

Where to Now?: I was very impressed by the hardware and software. A difficult choice between a basic Mini and iMac. I shall have to think on it.

[lurch]

I particularly like the space saving configuration of the iMac. It has a very small footprint. I hope to buy a 21" within the next month or so.
Jeff

Jeff, are you leaning towards an iMac with or without integrated graphics?

Phillip

[fos]

Hi Phillip,

I purchased the iMac 21" yesterday. Now that I'm getting used to OS X it didn't take me long to set it up.

I purchased the "low end" iMac with core 2 duo 3.0 GHz, 4 GB ram, 500 GB HD, and the Nvidia Geforce 9400M graphics. It was $1199 as advertised.

It is functionally the same as the MacBook Pro 13" laptop with a 21" screen. The screen is very nice. It is the only screen I have seen that comes close to my old Gateway 22" Sony Trinitron with .24 mm dot pitch. I considered the 27" version but that screen is just too large. Since I have to use magnification, I would have had to cover all of that real estate by neck motion. :redface:

The included wireless Magic mouse is a very close copy of the MacBook touch pad. You use virtually the same finger swipes and finger combinations. It is a very nice interface. The included wireless keyboard was virtually the same keyboard that is on the MacBook, including size. I used it for a day and then purchased the full size USB keyboard. When sitting at the desk, I prefer the extra keys that the full size keyboard provides. In addition, the full size keyboard includes two USB ports. They are much more convenient than having to go to the back of the monitor on the iMac.

Cooling is not an issue at all.There is a slot running along the top back of the display. A very small amount of air flows out of that vent. The monitor is staying very cool. Much cooler than the display machines.

The monitor I have is also perfect with regard to color rendition. On the internet, there were reports that some of the iMacs had a yellowish hue toward the bottom of the display. Mine does not have that problem. The brightness level was set at 90% as installed. That is too bright for my tastes. I lowered it to 50%.

I ordered the educational version of Adobe Creative Suite CS4. It should arrive next week. I am anxious to see how the new Mac performs with the Adobe software.

So far, I am very pleased with the new purchase.

Jeff

[lurch]

Jeff: Thank you for your detailed description of your new iMac which is very helpful to me particularly in terms of the cooling aspect and keyboard.

Some more price bargaining today at a non-Apple store. Your model imac without Apple Care (after currency conversion) will cost me some US$230 more to buy but that is how it is. I shall report my purchase decision which I hope won't be too far away.

The salesman today said the the internal location of the wireless device is behind the plastic Apple logo on the back. He claims that wireless is more effective via plastic than aluminium.

Phillip

[danieldk]

Jeff: neat!

I just replaced my 20" screen connected to my Mac Mini by a 24" screen. It was no fun having 24" at work, and then downgrading at home...

[fos]

I forgot to mention that the full size keyboard was $49. It has an aluminum chassis that matches the iMac.

I also asked the salesman the difference between the two graphics adapters and if it actually made a difference in the higher priced iMac. He said he had used both for gaming and couldn't tell any difference. (At least he didn't try to make some claim just to sell the higher priced model.)

I left the iMac running all night to check for heat. No difference. I do keep my thermostat pretty low in winter - 66 F so that may be a factor. It will be much warmer in the summer, so I'll monitor the temperature level then. I hate sending money to the power company!

Jeff

PS. I really like Apple's magic mouse. It would be nice if they made a wireless version with a USB dongle for PCs.

[lurch]

Hi Phillip,

I purchased the iMac 21" yesterday. Now that I'm getting used to OS X it didn't take me long to set it up.

I purchased the "low end" iMac with core 2 duo 3.0 GHz, 4 GB ram, 500 GB HD, and the Nvidia Geforce 9400M graphics. Jeff

Jeff: I will purchase the same model but first I need to sell my near new Dell notebook to offset much of the cost of the iMac.

Phillip

[lurch]

After 7 months of waiting and researching I finally went and bought an entry level 21.5 inch iMac 3 days ago. It feels a bit strange after 12 years with Linux (11 years before that with DOS and Windows). I feel a sense of disloyalty to Linux. A dual boot with Ubuntu should help to remind me what I have gained with OS X and what I am missing (or not) in Linux.

I will probably start a new thread to post questions I have about OS X. Meanwhile, I must say that the quality of the screen is first rate, it is nice to have vastly fewer cables cluttering up the floor and nice to have a more compact desktop footprint and all so quiet.

Phillip

[danieldk]

After 7 months of waiting and researching I finally went and bought an entry level 21.5 inch iMac 3 days ago.

Congrats! :)

I feel a sense of disloyalty to Linux.

Time heals. Using OS X for almost three years, I don't look back that often. And if I do, I miss the polish of OS X and its applications (on the desktop).

A dual boot with Ubuntu should help to remind me what I have gained with OS X and what I am missing (or not) in Linux.

I keep Linux in VMWare Fusion for testing.

I will probably start a new thread to post questions I have about OS X. Meanwhile, I must say that the quality of the screen is first rate, it is nice to have vastly fewer cables cluttering up the floor and nice to have a more compact desktop footprint and all so quiet.

Yes, it's all top-notch.

[fos]

I have been spoiled by my iMac 21.5".

I am forced to use Win XP at school. If I didn't know the tech pretty well it would be "frozen" by the security software that rolls back the settings and files to the original installed setting.

The Dell LCD screen is terrible compared to the iMac. The Dell keyboard is also torture. It must be an inch thick. At least I was able to purchase a Mac keyboard that matches the one I use at home for the computer at work.

When I first purchased my iMac, Firefox would cause a freeze from time to time. After an upgrade I no longer had that problem. The iMac just works, all of the time and it is very fast. It runs rings around any version of Windows I have tried. I still have a Dell laptop that is comparable to my Macbook Pro. The Macbook is at least twice as fast as the Dell and much more energy efficient. I get a realistic 5+ hours with the Mac. I'm lucky to get 2 hours with the Dell's long life battery that sticks out the back.

I would buy the Macs for the screen quality alone. Everything else is icing on the cake.

Jeff

PS. I still experiment with Linux on Mini-ITX mother boards and very small boxes. A new version of Linux From Scratch is just about to be released.

[danieldk]

The screen part I miss on my desktop. I have a Mac Mini at home and work, because I like to be able to replace the monitor. At work I have 'inherited' a nice 24" high-end Dell monitor (not so nice as an Apple Cinema screen, but still pretty good). At home I use a run of the mill Samsung screen, not very impressive, but it works. On my MacBook I can enjoy Apple display goodness (with LED backlight, etc.), and it's a very enjoyable experience, the colors are really beautiful. Who knows, maybe my next machine will be an iMac, but I still hope to get plenty of mileage from my Mini (maybe I'll upgrade the memory).

For me, besides the excellent hardware, OS X makes the difference. It really gives the best of both world: a UNIX system, but you can still run all the nice commercial software.