Rating: 
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Easy to set up and use. Worked right out of the box. Runs great. Looks great. Nice not having a tower under foot. No hardware problems to date and no "Blue Screen" type software errors. The video is crystal clear and I love the screen size. Well worth the money.
As a long time Windows user with a bit of Unix experience, the differences between Windows/XP and Mac OS X were easily overcome. In fact, I like most of the Mac differences better. Lots of free software available, too. Package installation is a breeze in most cases.
Some Unix knowledge is definitely helpful in administering Mac OS X to use for cross platform software development. As a web software developer, I have installed Parallels Desktop to load Win/XP on an external drive for testing MSIE access to my websites. Also use it to run Windows apps that don't have Mac OS X equivalents. Getting the Mac to play nicely in a Windows network took a bit of a learning curve but it now behaves better than the Win/XP machines in the network.
So far, have added a 4-port USB 2.0 hub to attach a pair of 320gb external hard drives. The external hard drives had been in use on a Win/XP system and were formatted with NTFS. The data was immediately available upon connection. I went ahead and copied the data from them and then reformatted to OS X format and reloaded the data. Not a requirement, just felt more comfortable with natve format drives.
Also have a scanner, a networked printer, and a camera attachment. Everything came up and worked right away. Only glitch was determining what drivers were needed and how to load them for the Canon Lide30 scanner. Works great now. Plan to add another gb of ram to improve performance when running the Win/XP VM.
Rating: -
Well let's see... It looks wonderful, so good that it qualifies for some sort of design award with the 24" screen reducing the relative size of the surrounding white bezel that houses the necessary hardware so that everything looks perfectly in proportion. Setting it up for home use is a dream - the box comes with just 4 items: computer/screen, keyboard, mouse and power plug (plus a tiny remote control) - you plug it in and within minutes you're there with very high quality photo, video editing, DVD authoring, address book, calendar and e-mail software pre-installed and, of course, internet access with no virus problems. Plus, with the addition of "Parallels" software, which is equally simple to set up, you can convert everything into a Windows PC running at the highest resolutions and install all your existing Windows applications - Word, Excel etc. etc. - accessed by the touch of a button as the screen flips round to seamlessly switch between Mac & PC.
And then... well, as Mac users know everything just works... no crashes, super quick start up and ridiculously easy installation of third party programs. If you haven't used a Mac before you will (believe me) become a dedicated convert within days. And if you're already a convert, the sheer beauty and stunning resolution of the screen and its extended workspace which makes moving around between program windows an absolute joy will take your breath away.
So, it looks beautiful, it's ridiculously easy to set-up, everything works without a hitch, it switches within seconds between a Mac and a PC and everyone who sees it will want one. But like a beautifully engineered "supercar" this quality has its costs. Firstly, the standard configuration doesn't do the machine full justice... what you really need is the upgraded processor (2.33 GHz), the better graphics card (the standard configuration is fairly puny), a larger disk drive (probably 500GB to handle all your photos, music, video and a reasonable PC partition for your Windows programs) and, of course, more memory to keep all of this running seamlessly (2GB minimum and ideally 3GB). Which bumps up the cost to top-end prices... but when you're buying a Ferrari you don't skimp on the tyres.
And then... well if you're a dedicated PC gamer you'll need to install Apple's Boot Camp software to run anything serious. Which is free but, like Parallels, needs a copy of Windows XP or Vista to work. More outlay and it's all adding up.
The ideal home computer? Well, you get what you pay for and with the 24" iMac you're entering into a different world where everything is quite wonderful but where it comes at a (justifiably) high cost. Better to classify it as the "perfect home computer" which, if you're into perfection, beats everything out there.
Rating: -
I've worked with PCs since 1988 and cut my teeth on DOS 3.3. I've always looked at the Macintosh as the pretty computer that couldn't do much.
Well, with these last few years of Windows incarnations (beginning with Windows ME), I've been wondering what life is like on the other side of the fence. You see all these hipsters at Starbucks pounding away on their MacBooks, and you wonder if they know something you don't.
So, this year, I really took a good, hard look at the Mac and at my own computer needs. What was it that I did most and what would be the best platform to do it on. I did a lot word processing, some spreadsheet, audio extraction and editing, and, of course, Internet. I didn't do programming any more and I hadn't launched the DOS emulator in Windows in years, something I used to always do in the 90s.
So, I read and read and read, especially stories from people who had always used Windows and switched. Then, I went down to the local Apple store and played and played and played. I was surprised at the differences more than the similarities. It was so ingrained to do things a certain way on Windows, that it was odd having to retrain myself. But, I soon discovered the shortcuts, and the advances on the Mac, like Expose, like the task bar, like Spotlight. And, I knew it was only a matter of time.
So, what clinched the deal for me? Parallels Desktop for Mac (Intel Mac). A friend of mine bought an iMac a month before I did and when I saw how he had Windows XP in it's own "window" on his iMac, and how you could drag and drop between windows, I knew my last barrier was gone. If I truly needed to, I would always launch XP on the iMac. Then, my father got a new computer with Vista, and I was sold. I remember the night he got it, trying to copy and paste a non-system file from one directory to another and I got not one, but two security warnings in which I had to either "cancel or allow." No way was I going to go down that road.
So, in early March, I bought my 24" iMac from Amazon. $[...] with a $[...] rebate. No sales tax. Free shipping. Seemed like a slam dunk.
So, what are my thoughts after two months of using a computer "designed for the rest of us"? There is a learning curve. It can be aggravating trying to figure out the logic of the iMac. But, I realized that I spent two decades learning about PCs. I couldn't expect to have the same level of knowledge in one day. Other than that, it's been a great purchase and I definitely would not go back. Everything you can do on Windows you can do on a Mac, but the opposite is not true. I've found that there is less to "tinker with" on the iMac than Windows. It's not a customizable. But, I've also found that I actually LIKE the way Apple designed the interface, so there's really not anything I want to change. I find myself a lot less time trying to make my computer work and more time actually working on my computer. I also forget what it's like to have applications freeze up on you, and continually having to press control-alt-delete to kill a program. It just doesn't seem to happen on the iMac. I also love how easy it is to set up user accounts on the iMac. My 11-year old son has his own account and it is mindlessly easy to set up the security restrictions, that is, determining which web sites he can visit, and so on.
Oh, and finally, I was simply amazed a week ago. A friend came over with his MacBook and he had Microsoft Office on it. I had been using Open Office (since it's free) but really wasn't happy with it. He suggested he load Office onto my machine to try it out, and if I liked it, I could go out and get it. I said, "Oh, you have the installation CD?" He said no, took out his USB drive, copied the 500 meg Office folder from his laptop and stuck the USB drive in my iMac, and pasted the file onto my machine. And, it worked. You do not need to "install" software on the iMac.
Things just work, indeed.
Rating: -
I switched to mac 2 years ago, although i still use PC at work. The elegance of the operating system along with the hardware is something that the PC world has yet to rival.
I would highly recommend it - especially now with the intel processors - you get the best of both worlds, you can run windows on it as well.
The screen is simply gorgeous - no dead pixels... bright and accurate!
Rating: -
This is the best Mac I ever had. And I had a lot of them, from Mac SE30, LC II, up to Mac Minis, the "lamp" iMac, PowerBooks, the iBook and Desktop Macs. This is finally a big all in one. I love it because it is so quiet, and it is as fast as the best double 2,7 GHz G5 desktop Mac was. Well, I prefer the old lamp-iMac design over the new one, because it looks so nice. Also, the new iMac design has a disadvantage: The display is in a high position and you really have to sit high enough so you dont stay in a bad up-looking head position - this can cause neck problems after some time. In my case as I always had a high table (74cm) and a low seat (41cm) I need to change using a lower table and higher seat to solve that problem.
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