Posted by Pitstain at adsl-63-195-100-139.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net on January 20, 2002 at 04:02:25:
In Reply to: Should I get a Dell Laptop or a new iMAC? posted by Oi-not so Punk on January 19, 2002 at 13:49:12:
so i'd say go with the iMac.
If you don't need "pro" gear (i.e. ProTools TDM hardware, high-end video hardware (media 100/avid/etc)) then the iMac is all you will need. and unless you REEEEEEAAAAAAALLLLY can't afford the high-end, DON'T get the middle or you'll regret it. The price difference between the 2 is only $300 and as far as Macs go, the difference between the machines is HUGE. It's an extra 100Mhz o' processor, 20GB more HD, AND the DVD Writer... The dvd drive alone sells for 2x that... If i didn't need multiple monitors, i'd have ordered a couple already... i'm getting one for my mom on mother's day...
as for games, I get great framerates on my current system (which has the same video card as the new iMac)... people who are so geeky about games that they build their computers SPECIFICALLY for games should have all computer privileges revoked.
and since you mentioned the iPod...
it RULES. people are complaining that the hard drive is too small (4.6GB formatted), but i have no interest in anything bigger... I've got about 3500 CDs which i'm in the process of converting to MP3. It only took a couple minutes to fill my iPod (since it's FireWire, it transfers files at up to 400Mb per second which is 50MB per second... at firewire's full speed, it would take only 100 seconds to transfer 5000MB... versus USB's 12Mb per second which is 1.5MB per second (firewire is 33x faster) which would take 3333 seconds to transfer the same files... 55 minutes. now imagine filling a 20GB HD... 13,333 seconds for USB, which is 222 minutes or 3.7hours... the iPod (if it manages the full 400Mb) would do it in 400 seconds, or 6.66 minutes. Even if the iPod only transferred at 1/4 of its top speed, it would only take 27 minutes... versus the max speed of USB
yr computer should still be yr primary storage for all yr music... then transfer whatever you think you might want to actually LISTEN TO to the iPod... it takes less time to put 700 songs on my iPod than it does to file a couple dozen CDs...
so basically... yr not fucked if the HD in it gets scrambled. since the iPod is also a standard FireWire HD, you can also copy regular data to/from it... AND you can run any disk utilities you may need to... DiskWarrior and Norton Utilities will not only keep that drive healthy for many moons, but if something DOES happen and it gets hosed... you can most likely still recover it... not only THAT, but you can put a complete system folder on it and boot yr computer with it... the iPod is a many splendored thing...
and any "boo hoo, there's no software for the mac" arguments are hollow... all the major developers make software for the mac... so you don't get a billion crappy shareware programs... big whoop... oh, and games... bigger whoop.
the only program that i use that i'd like an update for (but the assholes won't make me one) is Quickbooks. they haven't updated it since they fixed late late late December, 1999.... they had a Y2K bug that would INSTANTLY crash yr computer when launching : )
Adobe, Macromedia, Microsoft, and most importantly, APPLE are writing and supporting software for the mac..
Apple's "digital hub" software is fantastic... iPhoto makes managing all yr digital photos easy and does all the editing that 99% of consumers will ever want to do with their photos... remove red-eye, crop/rotate, and e-mail/print... iTunes manages yr music library and integrates seamlessly with the iPod.... iMovie makes editing a breeze (even for grandma)... and iDVD takes yr home movies places they've never been... total combined price for those 4 apps? $0. time it takes to learn? not much.
hrm... this has gone on long enough... i should stop typing before i really annoy myself.
hope any of that was helpful to you... otherwise, i just wasted a whole buncha time.