The reasons:
My friend had been very little to do with computers. While your previous Vista notebook ran pretty neat, but she felt some things such. As installing programs to be cumbersome and / or complicated and was often insecure. In addition, you felt your notebook slower (compared 2.26GHz Vista Notebook vs. 2 GHz MacBook Alu - both Core2Duo, 2GB RAM). I always smile when I see the current Windows 7 advertising in which a young woman is invited to Toshiba. My MacBook is as certainly not slow down when you wake up. ;)
It was soon discovered that there with her also should be a Mac. After weighing the cost / benefits and requirements, we opt for the iMac with 21.5 "Full HD display and ATI graphics card (there is already a mobile device available and MacMini ausstattungsbereinigt too expensive).
The experience iMac:
Apple is typical of the iMac chic and efficiently packaged. After removal of various protectors, keyboard, mouse, power cord and iMac were released from their packaging.
Expectantly turned my girlfriend her iMac. After the brief welcome film only the language was to choose to register the device (Tip: this step can also Cmd + Q skip) and a user to create. Thus, the iMac was already fully furnished and ready-to-use. The built-in speaker can be heard quite.
I let them take over the complete device itself, which she managed easily. In order to increase the sense of achievement yet, I let you install some programs (Thunderbird, NeoOffice, Skype, ...), and the first system update perform - what you also succeeded in quickly and easily. At least in their case, confirmed the statement, the Mac OS is probably the most user-friendly operating system. To be fair, one must however point out that they have no power users was in the Windows world - so no real transfer passengers and therefore not biased great.
System Settings (multi-user, shared iTunes library, ...) incl. Boot Camp I've taken. Here I can say straight away that the installation of XP has absolutely no problem working with Bluetooth Keyboard and Magic Mouse. So far, I noticed only an occasional jerking the mouse pointer at a higher load, which einbekommt again after a few seconds. However, this still seems to be a problem of the Boot Camp 3.0 drivers that there are so far only in conjunction with Snow Leopard. I assume that this problem with the next Boot Camp drivers (including official Windows 7 support.) Will be fixed. A normal USB mouse works fine.
Games:
This iMac you may very well play the latest games. I once tentatively Modern Warfare 2 installed and played. It was here at a 1280 resolution smoothly absolutely. What else I did not even expect - the game running on my MacBook in a 800 widescreen resolution liquid with medium details, and since only a Nvidia Mobile 9400 is installed, which still makes use of for my 2GB RAM.
The cooling works very efficiently. Below cold air is sucked, blown up warm air out. The entire aluminum rear also serves as an oversized heatsink. The iMac is therefore above but very warm in the area of the air outlet and the back is also quite lukewarm - this should therefore be taken into account when setting up. As for the housing temperature, you have to but do not worry - there is a front only warmer because metal conducts heat better times now than plastic. Under OS X the fans during normal operation runs at around 1000 rev / min (CPU usually below 40 °) and thus practically inaudible. If it is very quiet in the room, you can hear the hard drive occasionally, but this is absolutely harmless. My girlfriend fell forward to after the initial power that the hair dryer is missing. ;)
Upgrades:
The memory is not a problem - especially since it is provided and described by Apple. Somewhat more problematic is the hard drive. That's not impossible, but you have to open the entire lid and not just a small slit down - which is not prohibited, but cumbersome and logically gives Apple no guarantee when making this broken, but so does any other manufacturer. Now of course you can discuss it if that's good or bad to be able to replace the hard disk only with some effort. At least in this configuration (1TB hard drive, 4GB RAM) are Aufrüstgedanken probably rather the exception - that is likely to be rather interesting in the case of a failed disk.
Conclusion: My girlfriend is extremely enthusiastic and regretted their decision one bit. Windows is now on only for 2 things because - Turbo Lister and games. For everything else there's OS X. :) In all other respects - it's a Mac and therefore runs as expected. While I have criticized a lack of FireWire port on my MacBook, there is absolutely nothing to fault in this iMac. Sounds strange, but is true. :)
This review is deliberately not purely technical. But I hope those interested to give a little Entscheidungshife for or against this product - Feedback is welcome in the comments section.
Yet a little history on the edge: in my daily newspaper was even a few months ago a report on an elderly couple who commissioned a DSL connection with installation service. At the Anschluss, the technician came into the house and wired devices. Then he wanted to bring the computer to the Internet. For this he took a CD. After a while, the technician noticed that he could not install its program because the couple has a Mac and informed them that with this PC no DSL is possible because you look so could not connect. Completely outraged, the couple went to where the port was commissioned and asked how that could be since. There they were told that the couple would have it to point out that you have an Apple PC and confirmed them that it's - with a Mac, you can not use a DSL. :) No April 1 article! Well to reassure all readers of this article (or the like): it goes - otherwise this review would appear here via telepathy from Amazon - but would also be handy to. ;)
