ptarmigan Posted October 22, 2009 Share #1 Posted October 22, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) New iMacs detailed and the 27" looks pretty tasty with the Quad core. I'm in the market for an update to my 2006 model. Any thoughts on these new ones? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 22, 2009 Posted October 22, 2009 Hi ptarmigan, Take a look here New iMac 27" from November. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
archi4 Posted October 22, 2009 Share #2 Posted October 22, 2009 The glossy screens make this absolutely a NO for me. maurice Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted October 22, 2009 Share #3 Posted October 22, 2009 Yes, glossy screen is also a big turn off for me. I'm more interested in the new mini with Leopard server and two internal drives. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
archi4 Posted October 22, 2009 Share #4 Posted October 22, 2009 Ian, That is what my dealer suggested and with an Eizo monitor if I don't want the large size of a pro computer. maurice Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
microview Posted October 22, 2009 Share #5 Posted October 22, 2009 New iMacs detailed and the 27" looks pretty tasty with the Quad core. I'm in the market for an update to my 2006 model. Any thoughts on these new ones? I'd second the size: great for C1 processing and CS3. I would have thought the LED screen would be better than the LCD (I have the previous generation 2.8GHz Intel Core Duo, now no longer made). Check out any problems with Snow Leopard and programs you will want to use. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted October 22, 2009 Share #6 Posted October 22, 2009 27"! Whoo, you could get a sunburn from that! I was going out today to look at 24" (enough for my needs) - and maybe they are discounted, now. Thanks for the heads-up! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericperlberg Posted October 22, 2009 Share #7 Posted October 22, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) I had a quick play with the 27" iMac at the Regents Street Apple store today. Sadly, there was no graphics software on it so I couldn't do any tests like banding and eveness of illumination. (Banding test in photoshop... make document which is the size of the screen. grab the gradient tool and choose a regular right to left gradient and drag across the screen. Most monitors will show banding, a non-smooth gradient). If you don't like gloss screens, well, this is a glossy screen. I have one on my Macbook Pro, it doesn't bother me at all. Obviously YMMV. With my desktop MacPro I currently work on an Eizo CG 210. The only real "test" I could make was to look at my own web sites and see how the images looked compared to what they look like on my Eizo and laptop. They looked very good. I noticed that some of the saturated colours were more subtly saturated and I saw saturated tones I haven't noticed on my Eizo particularly in the greens and yellows (a good thing in that it implies the colour gamut is wider than my Eizo but my Eizo is 3 years old and maybe the most modern pro monitors are better than it). Someone should be doing gamut maps soon and we'll know its real limitations and capabilities. Apple monitors (at least at the Regents Street store) have shown a pinkish magenta hue which from everything I've read is impossible to get rid of even with profiling. I didn't see any signs of this on the iMac 27. There's certainly a lot of screen real estate. My overall impression of the monitor over 10 mins or so was that I could easily live with it. Unless you're doing colour critical work professionally (matching coca cola red in your images to the real thing for example) I would think its a good deal, especially as an Eizo monitor costs almost what the i7 iMac will cost. It may even be good for colour critical work, we'll just have to wait to see what the tests show for gamut and accuracy. I agree that the i7 quad core model should really scream. It's possible with a Drobo Pro external data robot for all kinds of backup data and music and music backup and images and images backup etc to attach up to 8 hard drives running at iSCSI speeds through the gigabit ethernet connection. That should be faster than firewire 800 and virtually internal drive speeds. Maybe you don't need so much backup... in which case you get 1 or 2 tb internal drive and a time capsule and bobs your uncle. The only small issue I thought of was that USB 3.0 spec has been passed and over the next year most machines will be switching to USB 3. USB 3 is backward compatible with USB 2 but USB 3 is very much faster than 2 so waiting does have that value. On the other hand your 2006 iMac is not capable of using OS X Snow Leopard in 64 bit mode. This computer will run software in 64 bit mode. The next Photoshop (Spring 2010) and current Lightroom already run 64 bit so that is an incentive for upgrading at some point (assuming you use either of these). It's nice that the new iMac can take 16 gig of memory. 64 bit should show real speed improvements, especially with Apple's new Grand Central technology which makes simultaneous multi processor use much easier for programmers to access and thus more likely to use. No point having fast multicore processors if the software programmers can't figure out how to programme for it. If you do video or 3D or have a medium format digital camera or use lots of layers in photoshop this should make a big difference over time as new software comes out and that it will work in an iMac is pretty incredible. This machine will bury MacPros from a year or so ago in speed. The only advantage a macpro has these days is to add specialty cards for music or video or e-sata, etc. The new mouse is a bit like using the iPhone as a mouse. I seemed to have a discovered a gesture by accident that had web pages changing on me without explanation but I'm sure with time I'd get used to it. I have a callous from the Mighty Mouse Scroll ball and will be glad when its gone. Hope that helps Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptarmigan Posted October 22, 2009 Author Share #8 Posted October 22, 2009 Thanks one and all. Eric, great info. I just did your 'banding' test on my current iMac screen and guess what - some banding but not that bad. I am keen to check out these new iMacs. I like my current one save a few niggles but my biggest concern is about the screen brightness - I hear some of the last iMacs couldn't be turned down low enough without using something called 'shades'. Anyway, I hope to get in to see them some time soon. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted October 23, 2009 Share #9 Posted October 23, 2009 Sitting at my new 27" now - went to buy the 24" on closeout (or "end of life" as Apple so gently puts it - see previous post) and there were none left. But the 2-core 27" was $500 less than the top-end 24" (with identical specs) was last week, and probably not much more than it would have been on closeout. Cool feature - the new iMacs have an SDHC card reader built-in (on right side below the CD/DVD slot) The iMacs do not come with numeric keypads, though, so I bought an extended keyboard (USB) and have just plugged in a wired mouse - I don't trust Bluetooth not to burp just when I'm making a critical touchup in Photoshop, and the wireless keys/mouse require batteries yada-yada-yada so the heck with them. As to brightness, under Snow Leopard the default screen gamma is now 2.2, instead of the 1.8 Apple has used for 20 years. The new iMacs are true HDTV (16:9) format, so a 27" is not much deeper top to bottom than the old 24" - mostly wider. Love that built-in Terabyte drive! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
archi4 Posted October 27, 2009 Share #10 Posted October 27, 2009 Andy, I use i1 pro to calibrate my matte screen iMac (last type) and wonder if your new glossy screen can be calibrated with i1 hardware. regards maurice Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptarmigan Posted October 27, 2009 Author Share #11 Posted October 27, 2009 Sitting at my new 27" now - went to buy the 24" on closeout (or "end of life" as Apple so gently puts it - see previous post) and there were none left. But the 2-core 27" was $500 less than the top-end 24" (with identical specs) was last week, and probably not much more than it would have been on closeout. Cool feature - the new iMacs have an SDHC card reader built-in (on right side below the CD/DVD slot) The iMacs do not come with numeric keypads, though, so I bought an extended keyboard (USB) and have just plugged in a wired mouse - I don't trust Bluetooth not to burp just when I'm making a critical touchup in Photoshop, and the wireless keys/mouse require batteries yada-yada-yada so the heck with them. As to brightness, under Snow Leopard the default screen gamma is now 2.2, instead of the 1.8 Apple has used for 20 years. The new iMacs are true HDTV (16:9) format, so a 27" is not much deeper top to bottom than the old 24" - mostly wider. Love that built-in Terabyte drive! Andy Have you calibrated the screen and if so how? I am concerned, not about gamma but the backlight which I believe in iMacs later than mine has caused some issues as you can't set the luminance value low enough. Mine is currently set at 80. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobey bilek Posted October 27, 2009 Share #12 Posted October 27, 2009 Set up your work enviornment properly and you will not notice the glossy screen. I have put up a glass screen Mac laptop next to an iMac matt and can not see the difference. Now if you allow light to bounce off the screen, that is a different story. Use a small corner light bounced off the ceiling and room darkening shades which you ought to be using for any product. Knowing what I know now, I would get the better mini and separate screen. Or a laptop plus separate screen and keyboard and mouse. I really can`t see tying a computer to the screen, but it is a nice clean set up and never gave me trouble. There is the issue of not being able to darken the screen properly to 80 cdl per sq meter. If you judge print brightness by screen brightness, you get dark prints. Shutterbug magazine has written up an easy and a more sophisticated work around in two issues the past 6 months. My matt screen goes dark enough that prints match if I turn it all the way down. http://www.shutterbug.com/searchresults/index.html?stype=X&terms=prints+too+dark&x=9&y=4 Look at the two articles by David Brooks shown in the link Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted October 27, 2009 Share #13 Posted October 27, 2009 Still in progress re profiling/calibration. I'll post back if my Monaco Optix works. About all I notice with the glossy screen is that it is very contrasty - just as a matte print picks up contrast when framed under glass. Less diffuse reflection lightening the shadows. Especially with my pigment printer, the onscreen image needs to look very "hot" to get good saturation and contrast in a print. But that may be partly the fact I'm still not fully profiled. The w-i-d-e screen format gives lots of space for palettes and toolboxes and such - almost as good as a second monitor. Only negatives I've seen so far: The system (Snow Leopard) occasionally seems to siphon off a lot of the CPU for the wireless connection, and Photoshop (and my flight simulator) performance sag badly. If I turn off Airport, they zoom along nicely. 4 USB ports but only one FW800. But I guess I can get a hub when I get a second external TB drive for double backups. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted October 27, 2009 Share #14 Posted October 27, 2009 OK Monaco Optix worked - it told me it calibrated for 0.34 cl/m2 for black, BTW Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptarmigan Posted November 3, 2009 Author Share #15 Posted November 3, 2009 Checked a 27" out at the Apple store. Fantastic BUT that glossy screen is gonna be a nightmare! I will have to completely re-arrange my workstation to get rid of all the likely unwanted reflections. Bugg@! Why no mat screen option! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericperlberg Posted November 15, 2009 Share #16 Posted November 15, 2009 FWIW I went to the Apple Store today and had a play with the colorsync utility on a 27' iMac because I wanted to get a sense of the display's colour gamut. Using the stock profile for the display I used the colorsync utility compared the default monitor profile to sRGB and Adobe RGB. (open colorsync utility in the utilities folder and click on profiles. then find the monitor profile called iMac and click on it. The right click on the gamut map and select hold for comparison. then select sRGB and you'll see the one overlaid on the other for comparison) The display's colour gamut is somewhat bigger than sRGB except (from memory) in the greens and blues where it matches sRGB and nowhere near Adobe RGB. So let me put this in perspective. The best monitors today today come in at about 10% more than Adobe RGB though they are quite pricey. For example a NEC Spectraview 30' monitor has 106% of Adobe RGB and costs £2100. An Eizo Coloredge 30" monitor has 97% of Adobe RGB and costs £3300. I'm using a 3 year old former top of the line Eizo Coloredge monitor 24" monitor and its stock profile from Eizo has a gamut just short of sRGB. So all in all that works out pretty well. Now before anyone thinks "yes but most printers can't even print the full sRGB gamut except in one or two areas, just remember that printers are constantly changing and you don't want to have to redo your files from RAW everytime you change printers. It's best to get the best out of a file and then save it and then tweak it to your current paper/printer using softproofing knowing that if you upgrade later you don't have to start over again with the raw file. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptarmigan Posted November 15, 2009 Author Share #17 Posted November 15, 2009 I too tried one and was pretty impressed save the glossy screen which is a killer. It is so shiny I will have to totally re arrange my office/ workspace. The real estate is awesome though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
spylaw4 Posted November 16, 2009 Share #18 Posted November 16, 2009 Description of the new 27" iMac here! . Up to 16Gb RAM and 2Tb HD! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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