iMac G5 First Week Impressions

Its been just over a week now that I have had my new iMac G5, the
PodBox, and thought I would note a few of my first impressions.

First, it was sweet that the local Apple store was carrying them in
stock and had a Bluetooth configured one. I was really expecting to
have to order it and wait for delivery, particularly since I wanted
the builtin Bluetooth module. The fact that it also came with 512megs
of RAM and in one stick was just gravy. The salesperson, Dani, was
very friendly, helpful and low pressure. She didn't try to sell me a
bunch addons and accessories, and was very patient as I roamed around
the store deciding if I needed anything else.

Setup was a breeze. The packaging was great. And it doesn't get much
easier than plugging in a power cord and turning on the machine. The
only part of the whole setup that might have thrown off a newbie or my
Mom was in getting the Bluetooth mouse and keyboard to associate
themselves with the PodBox. As I mentioned earlier this might have
been as a result of me not following the startup instructions
perfectly. Unless I missed it, it might be good to at least have a
note in the manual about possibly having to turn the mouse and
keyboard on and off to get them noticed by the iMac, or maybe I was
just impatient and should have waited longer for the iMac to find the
devices, but if that too is the case then a note to please be patient
would be welcome as well. Regardless, I have messed around enought
with Bluetooth mice and other devices to know to cycle the thing off
and on, not sure if Mom would know to do the same. This step happens
so early in the setup cycle and is crucial to have working right if
you want to use the machine that every effort should be made to ensure
the user has the information needed to properly associate the mouse
and keyboard with the iMac.

The only other slight glitch I have experienced was when installing
the Seagate external drive where the first two USB ports I plugged it
into didn't recognize the drive. When I finally plugged it into the
last USB port on the back (the topmost one) the drive immediately was
found. I did a quick google on that but nothing helpful came up and I
haven't researched it much more. Those two USB ports that didn't pick
up the drive also were dead for anything else I plugged into it until
after I had rebooted the PodBox. I am curious what might have gone on
there, is there a particular order that things should be plugged in;
drop a comment on me if you have experienced this or know anything
about what might have caused it. This is the only other issue I have
experienced so far that might have stumped Mom.

I am still amazed at how quiet the iMac is, in fact the couple of
times I have had to turn it off I had a hard time knowing when it had
shut itself off until I clued in that its glowy sleep light was no
longer on. There's no power supply clunk when it shuts off, no hard
drive or dvd/cdrom spin down noise, no fans suddenly going quiet,
nothing. Even dvds and cdroms spin up pretty quietly when inserted,
just a slight whirring. I did have one cdrom that looked fine and
inserted and played fine and visually appeared no different from any
other, but once inserted and spun up it made a very audible buzzing
noise, like annoying loud. I don't know if the disc was slightly off
balance or what, and its the only disc so far that has done this, but
it was a bit disconcerting.

The screen is beautiful and very bright, I had to turn down the
brightness abit as it was near blinding and the blacks were not all
that black. So I think the brightness is set just about the halfway
mark right now and could prolly even go a notch or two lower. Full
screen dvds are awesome and I'm preferring to watch them on the PodBox
over our standard analog tv right now. The native 16:10 resolution is
sweet as well, leaving maybe a half inch black bar at the top and
bottom of the screen. Playback from either a dvd or the external drive
was smooth as silk at full screen with no hitch in its git along at
all. I also have not seen any smearing of the image that I have heard
could be a problem on LCDs when playing fast action games. So I guess
the pixel response must be pretty good as well.

Sound too is impressive considering what you are dealing with. I
haven't actually seen the speakers but they can't be too large. Firing
em out of the bottom of the box seems like a good idea. There is
decent enough bass, it ain't gonna rattle the windows, but certainly
the sound is fairly rich and full featured, not at all tinny sounding.
Stereo seperation is very good and on older music where they loved to
play with the stereo panning, like Led Zep and Jimi Hendrix, you can
really hear things panning back and forth or seperate instruments in
each channel. Still plan on hooking up some external speakers to
really rock the house, but the builtin speakers are more than
adequate.

Performance-wise I have been more than impressed. Other than a couple
of games I haven't put too big a strain on the PodBox but in general
use it is very responsive and some things almost happen too fast, you
get used to a few second delay to do something and this thing is done
just like that. The games I have played on it, 'Marble Blast Gold',
'Knights of the Old Republic', and 'WoW' have all played flawlessly.
KotOR I play at the biggest rez (only 1024x768 stretched) and with all
options on and there is no visual lag at all. WoW I have the rez
cranked up all the way (1660xSomething) and the detail turned up
fairly high. Game runs very smoothly at this setting and looks great.
There is a hitch every once i awhile, but it is hard to know if it the
vid trying to keep up or just internet lag. With no noise it seems
like the PodBox is hardly working when performing general tasks, it
just does what you ask quickly, then silently sits there waiting for
you to appoint it another task.

Lookswise I don't think it is nearly as stunning or eye catching as
the Luxo lamp iMac, but its lightyears better looking than most any PC
box. I like that double shot plastic (the clear layer over the white)
and wonder when they'll begin offering different colors. The 20"
sizewise is pretty substantial, there is no missing it sitting on the
desk there, but then you see it from the side and everyone does a
double-take, "nice monitor, where's the box?" folks ask.

To sum up, I am very happy with my purchase and don't regret it in the
least. Fit and finish are top notch. The one concern about how it
would handle games has been resolved and I'm looking forward to many
hours of pleasant and trouble free computing.