My new iMac rocks (and so does Windows 7)

by Robert Scoble on October 24, 2009

Last night I bought the 27-inch iMac. Sitting next to it is a 24-inch screen. It is totally amazing how freeing this much screen real estate is.

The new iMac? You can’t even tell it’s not just a monitor. It is just barely thicker than my 24-inch monitor. It is faster than my MacBook and it automatically imported all my items from my MacBook. All without hooking up any wires. It’s nice to see how much better the setup process is on these new computers.

The engineering that’s gone into this is just totally amazing. It’s an “all in screen” computer and it sure makes my desk look cool and clean. It’ll be the centerpiece of my home studio as I build that out. The new mouse is actually my favorite thing. It has no buttons. You just touch it to scroll or click on things. It takes a few minutes to get used to it, the same way that it took a few minutes to get used to the iPhone but now I’m already tired of my old mouse on my Dell.

I also have a pretty new Dell laptop that I loaded Windows 7 on. Both computers are so much better than the previous generations it isn’t even funny. If you are running older Windows I HIGHLY recommend getting the new Windows. It is much nicer than either XP or Vista and runs faster and hasn’t crashed in two days, either (my Vista used to crash every few hours). Congrats to Microsoft.

Anyway, in previous years I wouldn’t have considered an all-in-one computer like the iMac but this one gets me totally over that fear. It’s fast, quiet, and looks ultra sexy.

One thing I’d recommend, though, for the iMac, is to get an Ergotron arm for it so you can position it higher on your desk. Or, do what we did at Microsoft: get a few reams of paper and put the monitor on those (the Ergotron arms look a lot nicer and free up your desk space).

I got the dual core version of the iMac. The quad core will be out in six weeks (my boss has ordered one of those). This one is pretty speedy, though.

  • Windows XP is also very stable - I generally only reboot for Update Tuesday, and it never crashes.

    Recently I even had an overheating graphics card, which was causing games to stutter and eventually crash, but the machine was still responsive, logging in with ssh when necessary.

    Windows 7 x64, which I've got on the new machine I've just built, is quite a change from XP. The fact that it's a change means it starts out at -100 - change, on its own, is not good. My scanner doesn't work. I'm still waiting for the IT helpdesk to find a VPN client. I know from various game review sites that classic games like Thief don't run on it. This hassle adds up to maybe -200.

    On the positive front, it's got a whiz-bang new interface, worth maybe 30. It's a properly supported x64 OS, so I can use my 12GB, that gives it a good 60.

    It's got more support future ahead of it, and that's probably the real win - if I could have a 64-bit XP that worked transparently (not all this magic System32 directory, hidden Sysnative alias, magic ProgramData / My /Documents / etc. redirections), and didn't break any apps or hardware, I'd choose it in a heartbeat over Win7. But I can't, because MS must justify the price they charge for the OS, and compete with Apple for the people who like shiny fascist things.
  • @scobleizer: who is your boss?
  • Thanks Robert, I want one now :-/
  • Better than reams of paper, old college textbooks. Sturdier and no longer necessary (never know when you'll run out of paper and boom, there goes your monitor stand).
  • niels
    Show us your desk and post some pics! :-)
  • "Win7 runs faster and hasn’t crashed in two days... Congrats to Microsoft." Two days? WOW! Can't believe it.
  • YOUDONTWANTTOKNOW
    I have a vista on my comp for over 2 years and crashed once. That was because of a bad driver. You sir are a liar.
  • Sid
    I think it's funny how we congratulate Microsoft on how little Windows 7 crashes compared to Vista/XP.
  • raysasso
    I've run Windows XP on over a dozen desktops since 2001, and am currently running it on 3 machines.

    It's rock-solid stable. None of my machines have crashed in years. I only reboot monthly for Windows Updates. All of my software runs very well on these machines, and since they are built from the ground-up from the Microsoft CD's, there's no vendor crapware to slow things down.

    There's no reason for me to move to 7 that I can see, and no one who's written about their 7 experience in the blogosphere has put forward any useful reason.

    I've been using a Mac since my 128K in 1984, starting with System 1 and upgrading all the way thru Mac OS 9, and then OS X since 2001 and the Intel Mac's since 2006. Each version of the operating system has come out with features that I use, and are worth using--including Snow Leopard--which I upgraded on both my traveling MacBook Pro and my everyday desktop Mac Pro in early September.
  • Michael
    May I ask how did you manage to let iMac automatically import all your items from your macbook wirelessly? with Migration Assistant via Time Machine?
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