I’m in the middle of my bi-annual quest to improve my computing power. Apple released a new iMac in the fall of 2007, and although I was initially not very impressed, I’ve begun to appreciate the styling and industrial design. I love my White G5, but the time has come to finally abandon the PowerPC and join the burgeoning Intel crowd. This isn’t technically my first foray into the Intel iMac side of things, since I did actually buy one of the original 1.83Mhz units 2 years ago when they were first announced. And then I promptly returned it a week later! I was shocked to find out that all my software, which was designed for the PowerPC chipset, did not run well on the new Intel-powered machine. It had to run through this emulation translator called Rosetta that made it even slower than my ancient G4 Titanium PowerBook. So I called Apple and said I didn’t like it. They promptly issued a return shipment label and refunded my money, all of it, including the shipping! I appreciated that and have never had anything but good things to say about Apple service and support. My mouse went bad about 6 months after it was new so I filled out a form online to troubleshoot it and they sent me a new one via express mail and even included a return label for the old one. Impressive. It was about 6 months later that I discovered that you have to occasionally clean the little trackball on top of the mouse or it would stop responding. Oops, sorry Apple. I’ve digressed….back to the iMac quest.
My big decision is about whether to get the 20″ 2.4Ghz or the 24″ 2.4Ghz model. They are identical in all aspects except for the the display. The 20″ is 18-bit, smaller of course, not quite as bright, and has a more limited viewing angle (160 degrees instead of 178 for the 24″). That massive 24″ widescreen display is awe-inspiring, but you pay a $300 premium over the 20″ for all that screen real estate. I keep going back and forth over being irresistibly drawn to the magnificent screen and the more reasonable unit. My G5 is only a 17″, so anything bigger is gonna feel huge. In fact, the 24″ will likely overshadow the desk and unhinge that portion of my universe, unilaterally tilting the earths axis on that end of the room…okay maybe not but it does seem quite large. The kicker for me is the realization that the new iMac’s video card is so good that it will drive not only the built-in display at up to 1680×1050 resolution, it will also support a second monitor at up to 1920×1200 in full digital format. That means I can pick up a second LCD display in the 20″ range and have two large monitors with my desktop extended across both of them, and for only about $250 for the extra display. That’s really the deciding factor for me. I’d rather have 2 large monitors with tons of space than to have a single huge monitor that obliterates the sun and blocks the room from view.
The trouble with getting a new computer is that I already own too many computers. I have the iMac G5 on my desk, plus 2 laptops, a PowerBook G4 and a Fujitsu LifeBook B2562. Of course that isn’t counting that Tracy also has a fairly new Dell laptop herself, which means we have 4 computers in the house. Time to give a few up. I talked it over with Tracy and agreed that I would get one of the new iMac Aluminum only if I sold my others. Now there isn’t much of an issue selling the G5 because it’s still a beautiful machine, like brand new, and fully loaded with the latest software. The other machines are older and would prove to be somewhat more problematic to sell, or so I thought. They both recently sold quite easily and for a bit more than I thought they would on eBay (I love eBay). So now I can order the new one and then sell the trusty G5 after the new one has been fully burdened with the software and files via transfer. In the end it looks like my upgrade to a newer, bigger, and much faster machine is gonna cost me very little in new money, as the total from my “computer yard sale” is gonna be enough to mostly cover the cost. I think Tracy’s just happy to not have to trip over all my computers. 
