Upon the release of the iMac G5 Front Row Edition (Power PC) in the start of October, we placed our order the next day at Magnum Mac. We were so excited with anicipation about receiving such a great new member to the family.

Although in the USA the iMac was available the day of its release, New Zealand had to wait for over 2 months for the first shipments to arrive. So around the week before Christmas the iMac was picked up and taken home.

First impressions as always was the box. Apple is well know for making stylish boxes for all its products and this was no different. After very easily unpacking the gear, the iMac’s enormous 20-inch screen was beautiful and its thin shape made a perfect edition to our family’s office space.

Apple boasted how easy it is to set up the Mac mini but I’d argue that the iMac gives the Mac mini a pretty good run for its money in this departement. All you receive (hardware wise) is a power cord, keyboard, mouse, remote (the new feature to this model of iMac) and the iMac of course…and within 3 minutes the computer was connected and playing its first startup chime.

The Mac OS X Tiger welcome screen showed us how vibrant the display was and its graphical performance is simple beautiful.

When I brought my iBook in late 2003, it took a good hour to setup. There was writing in personal information, setting up the Internet connectionsd and the longest progress of all, installing the OS via CD. I was expecting this but once again, but Apple gave me a pleasant surprise. Once you enter your personal information, you’re done! No installing, nothing! It automatically goes to the desktop and you’re off and running.

The iMac was (from the start) a great family computer, with the ability to use fast user switching we had no problems checking our emails or doing anything whilst keeping the other users desktop intact. Also, I am a Sims 2 addict and when I was able to turn all the specs to "High" on the game without affecting performance I was thrilled.

This iMac was brought for my mum who has been using Windows computers for over 15 Years, and in as little as an hour and a half, she was completely at home in her new territory…Her files were in place, photos in iPhoto and she was in the process of copying all her CDs to iTunes.

The built in iSight was a dream, with us taking over 200 funny pictures in Photo Booth on the first day alone.

Front Row is indeed the best home viewing experience in the world, the remote works from a very far distance and this is great to use with Air Tunes on an airport express.

We now have a whole family Mac network and we can all contact each other around the house via iChat. The G5 processor also makes it perfect for recording podcasts and using Photoshop.

Although we were a month to soon to receive the great iLife ’06 package, its predecessor is very useful for making DVDs, movies, slideshows and more.

The only possible regret I have is that we didn’t get to try the amazing new Intel iMac. But even so, this is the greatest Mac product we have purchased with its modern design, elegant looks and boastful processor.

It really makes people say….."Where did the computer go?"

Specifications

  • PowerPC G5 2.1GHz processor
  • 512K level 2 cache
  • 512MB RAM (max. 2.5GB)
  • 250GB Serial ATA hard drive
  • 8x SuperDrive DVD+R DL/DVD+-RW/CD–RW
  • 20-inch (diagonal) flat panel display
  • ATI Radeon X600 XT graphics
  • 128MB DDR video memory
  • Three USB 2.0 ports on computer
  • Two USB 1.1 ports on keyboard
  • Two FireWire 400 ports
  • 10/100/1000 Base-T Ethernet
  • AirPort Extreme & Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR built-in
  • Built-in stereo speakers
  • Apple Pro keyboard
  • Apple Mighty Mouse
  • Apple Remote
  • Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger