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Mac Hardware and Software |OT| - All things Macintosh
- Thread starter 3N16MA
- Start date
Bit annoyed.
I phoned up Apple store to ask if they had 8GB Macbook Air models (128GB SSD) and they said there was in the store near me.
Went there today and they said they don't do them, they are only on the online website, and that they only had the 4GB RAM models. Because delivery was 4-6 days, it won't arrive in time for the start of uni.
Pissed off a bit, hopefully down the road I won't need that extra 4GB.
Well at least I save a bit of money, I was over my budget anyways.
I phoned up Apple store to ask if they had 8GB Macbook Air models (128GB SSD) and they said there was in the store near me.
Went there today and they said they don't do them, they are only on the online website, and that they only had the 4GB RAM models. Because delivery was 4-6 days, it won't arrive in time for the start of uni.
Pissed off a bit, hopefully down the road I won't need that extra 4GB.
Well at least I save a bit of money, I was over my budget anyways.
Deku Tree, what's your stance on criticizing Japanese games on GAF? Unlikely to be read by the devs or publisher...seems completely unnecessary, right? POSITIVE POSTS ONLY! #positive
I agree with most of what you're saying, especially re: component choices, but I do want to point out that you can still order iMacs with VESA mounts.
So we got a quieter, cooler, more powerful computer with a better screen for $100 more. I don't mind that tradeoff. I'm guessing the cost increase was mostly due to the screen, however.
We can?
They do?
Maybe a used Mac Pro?
So in the interests of actually seeing how overpriced the iMac might be...
I went looking for the "best all-in-ones" and found the Dell XPS 27 and Samsung 7, retailing at $1600 and $1700, respectively. Compared to the $1800 iMac SKU:
*The iMac has an actual GPU that beats the XPS' integrated and is on par with the 7.
*It's got a faster i5 than the Dell, and most likely the Samsung (the 7 has a much slower-clocked i7, but it's harder to compare directly.)
*It's more expandable than the Dell (4 vs 2 DIMM slots.)
*Higher rez screen than the Samsung.
I wouldn't give the iMac the clear win in this, but it's also clearly competitively priced with its competition. Right now an extra $100 or $200 will get you .ac wifi and more expansion than the competition (the Dells seem to max at 16GB with the two slots.)
I think you can argue that the iMac would be a more attractive machine if it were more easily serviceable and had even more expansion options, but that hasn't stopped it from being the most successful PC in America...
I went looking for the "best all-in-ones" and found the Dell XPS 27 and Samsung 7, retailing at $1600 and $1700, respectively. Compared to the $1800 iMac SKU:
*The iMac has an actual GPU that beats the XPS' integrated and is on par with the 7.
*It's got a faster i5 than the Dell, and most likely the Samsung (the 7 has a much slower-clocked i7, but it's harder to compare directly.)
*It's more expandable than the Dell (4 vs 2 DIMM slots.)
*Higher rez screen than the Samsung.
I wouldn't give the iMac the clear win in this, but it's also clearly competitively priced with its competition. Right now an extra $100 or $200 will get you .ac wifi and more expansion than the competition (the Dells seem to max at 16GB with the two slots.)
I think you can argue that the iMac would be a more attractive machine if it were more easily serviceable and had even more expansion options, but that hasn't stopped it from being the most successful PC in America...
Holy shit this trackpad is.....
INCREDIBLE!
I advised my sister to buy a Yoga 13 on sale because it really was better than what the competition was offering at the price point, and I kind of liked the direction of Windows 8 laptops with touch compensating for the terrible touchpads (yes the touch pad on the Lenvo Yoga 13 was surprisingly bad-ok). Multi gesture support was ok but was erratic.
But this, this Air's trackpad is just leaps and bounds ahead. Wow.
The two click substitute for right click works surprisingly well, and dare I say, even better.
I have been using this for 10-15 mins literally.
INCREDIBLE!
I advised my sister to buy a Yoga 13 on sale because it really was better than what the competition was offering at the price point, and I kind of liked the direction of Windows 8 laptops with touch compensating for the terrible touchpads (yes the touch pad on the Lenvo Yoga 13 was surprisingly bad-ok). Multi gesture support was ok but was erratic.
But this, this Air's trackpad is just leaps and bounds ahead. Wow.
The two click substitute for right click works surprisingly well, and dare I say, even better.
I have been using this for 10-15 mins literally.
Love MAc trackpads. I bought a desktop and got it with a magic trackpad.
Wait until you start using all the gestures!
Man, going in browsers and going back and forth pages with swiping is genius.
The swiping overall is just great. No wonder there are now influences in windows 8 from it. Shame most Windows 8 touch pads are lacking in response and quality.
I'm having trouble with the launchpad 4 finger swipe, and can swipe in to make it appear, but swiping out is harder. I must be doing something wrong here because everything else works just dandy.
I'm still concerned abut the 4GB RAM, I'm quite a heavy internet user/multitasked sometimes. Hopefully OSX can handle my needs.
Gaming should be fine for 4GB as steam is only limited to a number of games on my list, and none are really intensive in large environments.
Damn that two finger press, I just love it.
I was very sceptical when I opened it that I made the wrong choice between this and the Vaio 13 Pro, but I'm now a believer.
Download BetterTouchTool, man. It's free, and once you set up gestures for opening, closing and switching tabs and opening links in new tabs, your browsing experience will get even better.
Also, I have a Mac mini with 4GB of RAM, and I'm definitely going to upgrade the RAM soon. OS X loves some memory, and Safari even more (I need to quit Safari every now and then because it doesn't know to purge memory from closed tabs). Mavericks is supposed to have Memory Compression, which should help, but as of right now (Mountain Lion), I wouldn't recommend a Mac with 4GB to anyone
edit: also, downlaod Smooth Mouse. Also free, and it's a tremendous tool. It improves the feeling of moving the cursor and you can turn off mouse acceleration if you feel like it (although I wouldn't recommend that for touchpads).
Download BetterTouchTool, man. It's free, and once you set up gestures for opening, closing and switching tabs and opening links in new tabs, your browsing experience will get even better.
Also, I have a Mac mini with 4GB of RAM, and I'm definitely going to upgrade the RAM soon. OS X loves some memory, and Safari even more (I need to quit Safari every now and then because it doesn't know to purge memory from closed tabs). Mavericks is supposed to have Memory Compression, which should help, but as of right now (Mountain Lion), I wouldn't recommend a Mac with 4GB to anyone
edit: also, downlaod Smooth Mouse. Also free, and it's a tremendous tool. It improves the feeling of moving the cursor and you can turn off mouse acceleration if you feel like it (although I wouldn't recommend that for touchpads).
Thanks for the tips! I'll just have to try and be conservative with open applications a bit, although just messing around with stuff atm, it seems fine.
At least historically, the other all-in-ones have been even worse than the iMac. As long as you stay inside that category, the iMac looks good. The problem is that iMac fares poorly against other desktops in general, and that is the actual competition. Almost no one specifically needs an AIO. For general productivity/office/etc. stuff, even the Mac mini is a better deal because you can get a lot more display at the same price as the iMac. And when you are after GPU performance, non-AIO desktops just wipe the floor with AIOs.
So your complaint is basically that Apple doesn't have an xMac between the iMac and the Mac Pro? That's the mythical Mac that is never, ever going to exist--it's been 15 years since that was even a remote possibility, and the cratering of the PC market means there's even less of a reason for it now.
I don't think you can fault Apple for not catering to what is evidently a minuscule market that would actually want such a computer. The Pro at least has some interesting tech behind it. Not sure what they'd get out of this supposed new category.
Close programs. Turn down the brightness. Use Safari instead of Chrome or other browsers. Turn off things like Bluetooth. Check you activity monitor to see what processes you have running. Run your battery all the way to zero once or twice to see if this resets your battery percentage gauge which could be misaligned.
If you believe Apple, then you should also buy and install the new Mavericks OS whenever it is released.
Also try reading this thread: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1607742
Not exactly. A new model would certainly be one way to fix the gaping hole of performance and value in their lineup, but it's not the only way. If they just put out a thicker iMac model, they could probably have a GPU in there which would be faster than the 780M they are currently offering, while being something like half the price. By offering the 780M at all, Apple is recognizing that there are users who buy their computers and want GPU perf. It's just that trying to cram even that mediocre level of performance in the current anorexic iMac is incredibly wasteful.
But I also already voiced a number of complaints that adding a new model next to the iMac would not fix: bad ergonomics on the iMac, bad component choices on the iMac base models, failing to offer a reasonable machine at the low end of the range, ridiculous differentiation that fails to actually differentiate the machines, failing to offer a really thin machine (while implying extreme thinness is somehow desirable in a desktop).
How is it "evidently"? For instance, if you look at the Steam HW survey and add up all the GPUs that have been around the same perf or better than the top iMac GPU of their time, you end up with a vast amount of users. The same survey also shows that the 27" iMac's resolution is in the top 2% of survey participants. The inability to pick a display resolution to match the mediocre GPU power makes the iMac GPU deficiency even worse. The GTX 775M of the 27" model would be far more respectable in the 21.5" model, for instance.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
Yeah, right now I only have Safari open with 2 tabs, 1 iA Writer document and 1 Pages document open. Bluetooth is always off, but I can't see anything if my brightness isn't over 75%.
I'll try run my battery to zero sometimes, does that really align the percentage gauge?
I'm also gonna read that thread, thanks for the link.
So on point. The iMac's new 'thinness' is merely designer masturbation. My last Dell monitor (U2410) wasn't nearly as thin but offered a height-adjustable stand,tilt, swivel, pivot besides cable management and being vesa mount compatible. I could stack two side by side in a portrait rotation. The iMacs and Apple Cinema Displays are a straightjacket in comparison. I'm still pining for something like the iMac G4 design:
:/
So on point. The iMac's new 'thinness' is merely designer masturbation. My last Dell monitor (U2410) wasn't nearly as thin but offered a height-adjustable stand,tilt, swivel, pivot besides cable management and being vesa mount compatible. I could stack two side by side in a portrait rotation. The iMacs and Apple Cinema Displays are a straightjacket in comparison. I'm still pining for something like the iMac G4 design:
:/
While I'm not sure it's an insurmountable design issue, the massive size of monitors these days pretty much precludes a design like the G4--at least in allowing the same level of screen control without straight tipping over.
Yeah, right now I only have Safari open with 2 tabs, 1 iA Writer document and 1 Pages document open. Bluetooth is always off, but I can't see anything if my brightness isn't over 75%.
I'll try run my battery to zero sometimes, does that really align the percentage gauge?
I'm also gonna read that thread, thanks for the link.
Were either of those two tabs running Flash? That'd do it.
But yes check your activity monitor for strange background activity.
The lamp iMac G4 and G4 Cube are still Apple's best designs, IMO - sure, they were definitely form over function, but their form was so unique and distinctive that I'm perfectly OK with it.
Also, I'm pining for Apple advertisements that are actually clever and funny like the one for the lamp iMac instead of most of the recent ones, many of which just come off as being pretentious and obnoxious (though still not as bad as some of Samsung's efforts).
Also, I'm pining for Apple advertisements that are actually clever and funny like the one for the lamp iMac instead of most of the recent ones, many of which just come off as being pretentious and obnoxious (though still not as bad as some of Samsung's efforts).
If they came out with a niche model that's all about the visual design and abandons all concern of value and performance, I think the lighter components of today could let them pull off something very much like the Sunflower iMac, maybe with a 21.5" screen. I'd like to see them try. For everyone else, a proper foot with a range of adjustment that sits in a VESA mount is just better. At this point, insisting on doing it differently seems a lot like insisting on using a different wheel than the round one everyone else is using.
I wonder how much of this suckage is happening because Apple planning/marketing thinks it will result in more sales and money, and how much of it is happening because their internal politics are dominated by visual designers whose mission in life is wanking over millimeter-class reductions of a desktop computer chassis. Apple has tons of talented engineers and usability professionals who see the problems and the easy ways they could be avoided; the only question is who are overruling them.
infiniteloop
Member
What's the build number of 10.8.5 on the new iMac?
CrudeDiatribe
Member
How is the lamp-G4 form over function? The function was brilliant on the 15" one my dad had.
Given that the iMac has used desktop CPUs and mobile GPUs for a while now, maybe the thin-edged iMacs were a response to "we have empty volume inside the iMac", which resulted in: "let's get rid of it" instead of "let's fill it with something"?
(I happen to agree with you about the relative importance of thinness in a desktop monitor)
Yeah, I can't see this working for the 27" without creating another set of issues. Meanwhile it would improve the 21.5" significantly.
Dr. Feel Good
Banned
Will we see any kind of price drop on Retina Macbook's in October? I can;t justify $1,500.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Probably not until they drop the normal MBP and streamline the product line so the rMBP is the only machine left. Which probably won't be this year. (It's the last Apple machine with an optical drive though so it could happen any time.)
I just wonder if we'll get an event for it, or just an update unannounced. I'd say if it's a big update, say they do remove the old Pro line, they might have an event. But probably not. It'll probably be an unannounced update on a random Tuesday. Either that or they'll tack it onto the end of the iPad event like they did last year at WWDC.
I just hope SOMETHING happens in October. Hopefully both. My money is ready.
Pros I imagine will hit in October. Would make sense to add in MacBook updates there.
Wired 360.
A mini with a dedicated GPU (or at least the same CPU as the new 21.5" iMac, with Iris Pro 5200) would be nice...
Definitely agree about the GPU. That's why I picked up a 2011 mini instead of buying new. Hopefully Iris shrinks the gap.
Dreams-Visions
Member
If Apple ships a mini with Iris. No idea if the current thermal situation will allow it to happen, because Apple wouldn't ship a BIGGER mini, might let a louder one out though.
sweetvar26
Member
Will get a 15inch Retina MBP with the Haswell upgrade. I am sure they will come out before the years end.
CrudeDiatribe
Member
Unless you want to play a mix of games that either require you to have the third-party driver installed so it works as any other game pad, or instead require to not have that driver installed as they've got some sort of built-in driver.
....
uh cant decide with the new imacs so some questions:
1. how mouch of an overall speed diference is it if i choose lets say a 32gb imac with a ssd versus a 32gb imac with a normal (3 tb) hdd ??
2. I can't decide between the base 27" imac with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M 1 GB GDDR5 and the better one with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M 2 GB GDDR5. So is the 1gb more graphic ram actually worth the higher price? computer will mainly be used for design.
3. fusion drives - opinions?
thx guys
1. how mouch of an overall speed diference is it if i choose lets say a 32gb imac with a ssd versus a 32gb imac with a normal (3 tb) hdd ??
2. I can't decide between the base 27" imac with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M 1 GB GDDR5 and the better one with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M 2 GB GDDR5. So is the 1gb more graphic ram actually worth the higher price? computer will mainly be used for design.
3. fusion drives - opinions?
thx guys
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
SSD/Flash is always going to be so much faster. In this day and age, always opt for SSD at least for base storage of the OS and applications.
If you can afford it, go all out.
I don't really understand them personally. Especially if the SSD portion is 128/256GB. I'd rather split them in two pieces and use the SSD and HDD separately. For me it would just make things easier in the end. I mean if it were something like 32GB Flash instead, I'd understand, but with 128+, that's more than enough to just install the OS and any apps on and then use the HDD for everything else. Don't really know why they need to be fused together. But that's just me. (I'm sure there's tools that can separate the two drives into separate devices. Personally I'd rather have it that way.)
1. How much storage do you actually need?
SSDs make the computer feel much nicer and snappier, but whether they make your important tasks go faster depends on what you are doing. If you are multitasking and doing things that hit the disk heavily, touching hundreds of small files, you definitely want a SSD. If you just load a giant file in Photoshop once in a while and then sit there working with it, a SSD isn't as important. A good productivity and value oriented solution would be to get the Mac with the minimum (256GB) SSD and, if you need a lot more storage than that, buy an external storage drive separately. I see Fusion Drive as a compromise for home user types who need a decent amount of space for media and can't make decisions of which disk to put their data on, or users who for some reason absolutely don't want an external drive.
2. The graphics memory isn't the only difference between those models. The actual GPU is a lot faster on the more expensive model - note it's 755 vs 775. If the apps you use are heavily hardware accelerated, you probably want to get the latter, or even upgrade to the 780M. If your apps only have light hardware acceleration, and you don't plan to do gaming on the computer, then spending extra on the GPU is a total waste and you want the base model.
3. See 1.
I don't agree with that. If you aren't running out of GPU performance, then adding more does nothing.
Unfusing a Fusion Drive is possible by spending a moment on the command line; it's a shame that is not an officially supported, one-click operation from Disk Utility. People have also successfully fused unrelated drives into a Fusion Drive.
CrudeDiatribe
Member
Fantastic, work as advertised.
For Joe Consumer, they offer all the benefits of having both a SSD and a HDD, as well as making accessing some of the stuff you would have put on the HDD faster.
There are more 'pro' uses as well, I am tempted to make one for my Aperture library.
I've personally never had any issues with gamepad support; hell even the random tiny Mac emulators I use support it fine with no drivers. What games are you playing?
It works great. I think I've only really noticed that I'm not using a straight SSD once. However, when I bought my iMac the 256 GB SSD wasn't an option, so to get a SSD I had to buy the Fusion Drive (or spend like a billion dollars to get the 768 GB SSD). I probably would have gotten the 256 GB SSD instead of the Fusion Drive if they offered it. I keep all my big files on an external hard drive anyway.
But I'm happy with the Fusion Drive.
CrudeDiatribe
Member
Honestly I can't even remember; have used the 360 controller off and on since 2007 with the third party driver letting games use it as an HID device. More and more though, games need the driver to not be installed (off the top of my head: Borderlands 2, Dirt 2, Batman AA). I know there's a game I played in the last year that needs the driver though, and when I removed it for Borderlands, I thought 'well, won't be using a controller for x'. Maybe Castle Crashers?
Going a bit off the top of my head here, but I think the current (and past few) Mac minis have used Intel's ~35W level processors, with the quad core models being ~45W. For Haswell there's some Iris parts at 28W (which will probably be in the 13 retina MBP), while Iris Pro stuff (all quad core) is at that same 45W range as the previous quad parts. So if they don't rock the boat I'd expect Iris Pro for the high end config, hopefully Iris for the mid level, and who knows for the low end, maybe HD 4600 going by the part cost.
Of course they could do a surprise revamp the machine, the current one was designed with an optical drive in mind after all. The issue of Intel part cost is still the same though, so if they want to keep the same or similar price points the likely options are still the same.
1. well 3 TB would be nice. I currently have a 2 TB disk around 80% full. But i also have a MB air with 128 GB SSD and nearly nothing on it but still only 10 gb left :/ . So i know a ssd for my main mac (the imac) is not it.
well the thing is i want my new imac to last for as lon as possible. As i said before iam currently using a imac from 2007 daily. I only added more ram (now maxed out at 6 GB) and a new (3TB) HDD over the years. So i want my new iMac to be as awesome as possible. But i don´t want any updates that aren't cost efficient. You know like the update from i5 to i7 on the mb air. (the little speed increase - and same time batter decrease aren't worth the 132 Euros)
So that said if the fusion drive is all cool i might take a 1TB fusion drive which costs as much as a ssd only upgrade. Seems to be the best compromise