I'm sitting behind a brand new iMac 27 inch i5 machine that I'm configuring for a friend. This is the first time I get acquainted with Apple. I've always considered Mac owners quite arrogant for they preach they have found the real deal and me, a Windows user, I'm just a victim of mass consumerism. I haven't seen the light and touch directionless in darkness
My experiences with the iMac so far
Hardware: I love it! The machine is
completely silent and that gives me a feeling that I can concentrate better on my tasks. The screen is also very good, super high resolution, sharp and beautiful colors. The design is nothing less than gorgeous but these day not so impressive anymore. Several brands make all-in-one computers that are equally nice designed. Windows 8 has touch screen, but Apple doesn't. I don't mind cuz I don't like touch screen, but children do, so no touch screen option is a bit old fashioned. Wifi works awesome and very fast. Audio is too weak and needs an amplifier. Keyboard and mouse are good! Connectivity is not so great, all connections on the backside is not handy. The card slot is limited and no disk drive. But who needs a disk drive anyway as most software comes by download. But you can't watch a blue ray movie on this machine.
Software: Mac OS X Mountain Lion so far hasn't let me down. No crashes, smooth operations. But my Windows 7 doesn't crash either. The included software is a bummer. It has the looks and feel of a decade ago, its plain ugly and way too simple. So I installed software like Chrome, VLC, Microsoft Office, Paint X, Skype, Spotify, Teamviewer, Silverlight, Mackintosh Explorer, Sketchup.
Installing is easy but very different than on Windows. The Mac finder works the same as Windows explorer. Everybody knows where to store documents, music or video's.
ConclusionThe Mac could become easily my zen machine for dayly use like internet and mail. My Windows machine stands by for all difficult tasks and experiments.