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Apple updates its iMac line

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Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#81

Still selling brand new machines with 5400 rpm HDs. In 2019. It undermines the brand. Any Mac a customer buys should have good enough performance. 5400 spinning disk hasn’t been fast enough for a decade.

Yeah, I bought my wife an iMac 4-5 years ago with the standard HD config and it feels almost useless being so slow. My even older MBA with half the RAM and an SSD is much more usable.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#82
post #4

The price for upgrading remains as ridiculous as ever (especially if you're not in the US). RAM: 8 GB -> 16 GB is 2200 SEK (239 USD) 8 GB -> 32 GB is 6600 SEK (717 USD) You can get 32GB as low as 1689 SEK (183 USD) on Newegg.

I would never buy an iMac but from what I hear, storage options and their pricing are even more frustrating than RAM (which you can upgrade yourself on the iMac 5K). While a neat trick when it first came out, I don't think fusion drive makes sense in 2019, so you're left with very expensive NVMe SSDs, when a 500GB or 1TB SATA SSD would be plenty enough to most people, for a fraction of the cost.

Why use a sata SSD as your primary boot disk and not a M.3 drive which is the goto primary drive for performance PC builds

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#84

My 2017 MacBook pro is definitely my last Apple laptop because it's just too expensive and unreliable (for reasons well discussed on HN). I have definitely considered getting a Mac Mini, but the new iMacs are definitely interesting. One thing I'd be concerned about is cooling. I know the iMac Pros are not ideal from a cooling perspective - I can't imagine an 8 core processor @ 5GHz plus a Radeon Pro GPU runs cool. I'…

I've been saying for 10 years, that I am going to switch from a Mac to a ThinkPad running Linux. Yet I keep buying Macs. My latest was a MacBook Air. It really wasn't that much more than the ThinkPad I was looking at.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With current SSD prices being at rock bottom, can a 128GB SSD cost more than a 5400RPM 2.5" drive?

128GB fills up quickly. A 1TB 5400RPM 2.5" drive is $45-50 on pricewatch.

Pricewatch is still around? I used it back in the early 2000s but forgot about it.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#86
post #63

I find it curious that Apple is starting to communicate major product updates decoupled from an event. Just good old press releases. Maybe they already have too many announcements to fit into the narrative of the handful of events per year.

They want to talk about services. I guess arguably small iPad and iMac refreshes don't fit into that.

I'm curious whether they take this PR option with AirPods 2 / AirPower as well or if those make it to an event.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#87
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No touch bar is a win IMHO. I'm not against it per se, but a soft `esc` was a mistake.

I get that people don't like that. I do, however, have no problems with it, coming from a developer perspective. It's in the same position, but without the tactile feedback. You'll get only visual feedback in the app you're running. I love the touchbar, mainly because you can customise it any way you want. I have a lot of macros and shortcuts put on there for while I'm programming. Of course, I did that with the F1-F…

I would like to hear your thoughts on why a tactile device, the keyboard, is better when tactile feedback is replaced with visual clues. And why a device you touch and don't look at is more aesthetically pleasing when you remove the bits that the way you use it more pleasant.

For my money the innovation we're missing is more tactile feedback. A device that allows you to modify the click of a key, the amount of force required, the position and shape of those keys.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#88

Still selling brand new machines with 5400 rpm HDs. In 2019. It undermines the brand. Any Mac a customer buys should have good enough performance. 5400 spinning disk hasn’t been fast enough for a decade.

Yeah, I bought my wife an iMac 4-5 years ago with the standard HD config and it feels almost useless being so slow. My even older MBA with half the RAM and an SSD is much more usable.

Worth popping an aftermarker SSD (or Fusion Drive) in there.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the improvement in technology, you would expect a decreased price in that case.

Not if the cost savings went into other stuff, like the 4k/5k displays.

Or the CPU. But we're talking an $1800 machine with a 5400rpm disc and 8gb of Ram. That's one hell of a screen and CPU.

Re: Apple updates its iMac line

#90

re: RAM, I bought a 2015 iMac with a 1TB drive on Craiglist last month, thinking it might be the perfect machine to edit and store/serve family photos (mac --> Google Photos and mac --> BackBlaze). It never in a million years would have occurred to me that 1) 8GB on a 2015 machine would be utterly, pathetically underpowered for even browsing the web, or 2) that an iMac would be sold in 2015 that would not let you upg…

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