Apple iMac MC309LL/A 21.5-Inch Price Review

The final All in One Goes All Out. The 21.5 inch iMac features a smart LED backlit, edge to edge glass display (see bigger image).

152 of 159 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars WOW!!!, May 13, 2011
By Daryl Y “don’t google me” (Bay Area, CA) See all my reviews This review is from: Apple iMac MC309LL/A 21.5 Inch Desktop (NEWEST VERSION) (Personal Computers) I have been considering an Apple computer for a while now, and have been unwilling to purchase due to high price tag, in comparison to PCs with alike technical specifications. As an example, a Dell Inspiron All in One with 4GB SDD3 RAM, 500GB hard drive, 2.8Ghz processor, comparable graphics card and bigger, lighter 23″ screen retails for 599. For 1199, you may be able to get the same Dell model with a touch screen, 1TB hard drive, 8GB RAM, 1GB video card, and a bunch of other stuff, running Windows 7. That is twice as much computer, right?

Maybe not. I went into a Best purchase store to play with a Mac, and spent nearly two hours comparing this computer to the ones I just mentioned. I ended up purchasing the Mac, and am completely convinced that it’s well worth the price tag. 1st of all, with less RAM, the Mac was faster and performed much better than a tech specification superior PC. It ran some number of memory draining and intensive applications, like video editing software, iTunes, and web browsers playing video at the same time without any obvious lag. The programs all started up nearly instantly, and everything just seemed to work. The PC that had eight gigs of RAM couldn’t perform all of those tasks now without slowing down. Second, the Mac does not require a seperate anti virus software buy. It is supposed to be virtually unhackable, and you will not have like a dozen McAfee processes running in the background to slow your computer down. That peace of mind for internet security alone is worth the extra money to me.

One of my other reservations for purchasing a Mac haved to use a different operating system, and after years of running Windows, I did not want to have to learn how to use a computer again. But, after playing with the Mac for just some minutes, I realized that it was intuitive, and as easy to use as a PC. As an example, when you want to print a document on a PC, you click the tab on the upper right hand corner, find “print” and click same thing as on the Mac. All of the menus are pretty much same for the word processors and internet browsers, and unless you are planning on writing or editing the DOS, there is not much you will have to adapt to.

Finally, the software that comes with this thing is AWESOME. The photo/video software is surprisingly useful, and I can not imagine anything out there that you may purchase that’s as good as this stock software. There’s music editing, and a bunch of other stuff that’s just as good as the photo software, and while I have not had the chance to really attempt everything out still, I do not think I’ll be disappointed with any of it. To top it off, everyone raves about the buyer support you get when you get an apple product. I hope I will never have to use it, but it assists to know that Apple stands behind their merchandise. Bottom line is, I am really happy with my buy.

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51 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars Apple iMac MC309LL/A 21.5 Inch Desktop, May 25, 2011
By Platon Murenin “Platon!” (Las Cruces, NM) See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) This review is from: Apple iMac MC309LL/A 21.5 Inch Desktop (NEWEST VERSION) (Personal Computers) I 1st bought an iMac in 2006. It was the same 1st model out of four. Not only it lasted me till now, but since I bought this one not many days ago, I gave my old one to my wife’s sister. I am sure it’ll keep going and going for many years.

Right now, it’s better than ever to purchase a new iMac. I remember when I bought mine, the whole line up was good. But then they gave lower priced iMacs much worse specifications than higher priced ones, particularly by video cards. If you wanted something good all around, you had to use up more money and purchase 3rd or 4th one in iMac’s line up. Not anymore. Every single one has the same RAM, all of them have descrete video cards, and Quad Core processors. Not only that, but they’re the newest i5 Quad Core processors, Intel Sandybridge. If you look at different tests done by different websites, they’ll tell you that there isn’t that big of a difference between iMac line up These days. It will be about 10 or so in speed increase between this iMac and top of the line one. As well, this iMac is faster than top of the line iMac from last generation, so yeah, it is that good!

Like everyone are saying, do not look at the numbers. That is the game PC plays, and people believe them. Read comparison reviews between iMacs and PCs and you will see that in most tests iMacs go head to head with PCs that have twice the RAM and twice the video card and higher clocked processors. In many tests, iMac still come ahead.

Besides nice specifications, iMac has a really good screen. Yes, it’s 21.5 inch, but is is beautiful. People may say that you may purchase all in one from Dell with 23 inch screen. Again, they are numbers, and as well, Dell’s specifications are a joke. IMac has a high quality screen, very correct colors, which is perfect for anything, particularly photography and editing, exactly color correction. And just to show you where those two businesses stand, Apple went for higher resolution on their 21.5 inch display, because they are about quality. Dell on the other hand, chose to have the same resolution on a 23 inch display, because for them it is more vital to say that their display is bigger, rather than talk about quality. Same with HP, just newly they chose USB 3.0 over Thunderbolt. It just shows how low quality they’re to decide already outdated technology for their machines. Yeah, we all may have to wait for a month or two for Thunderbolt accessories to become available, but it is a just price to pay for the fastest of the fast.

IMac itself is a part of art. There aren’t rough edges from all the cheap plastic, it is just two pieces, aluminum enclosure and a part of glass on the front. All ports are nice and neat and it does come with a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse. Both are comfy.

As common it comes with iLife, so it’s prepared for photos with iPhoto, movies with iMovie, creating music with GarageBand, creating DVDs with iDVD and creating websites with iWeb. As well, sometime throughout this Summer, new Operating System is coming out, but it’ll be a cheap upgrade for those who want it, it is not like purchasing Windows and picking between ten different alternatives, all at the premium price. With Mac, you get just one OS, which has everything. As well, for all of you out there who like to edit, last Cut Pro X is coming out this Summer also, in June, unless if they will move it to a afterward date. It’ll go down in price from $999 to just $299. It will be an excellent editing machine.

I have Windows seven final 64 bit, via BootCamp, to play games. In Windows everything is observably slower. Not only that, but as common, Mac came with everything out of the box, I can zip/unzip files, view PDFs and so on. Windows does not have any of that. I could have to download all of those programs to be able to completely use my computer. Game wise, I think it is pretty good. I play Mafia II on all high settings and it runs just good. Let me remind you that though Mafia II isn’t the new game ever, but it does recommend Intel Quad Core 2.5Ghz, 3GB or more for RAM, and most importantly, 1GB for a video card. Like I said I have all setting on high with 1920×1080 resolution. The only setting that makes it somewhat slow is when I turn on anti aliasing. On one of the levels it was a little slow, so I put Shadow Quality on medium and it was good. After completing the level I turned it on high again.

ALSO, for all of you GAMERS out there, I found a pretty cool web site that shows how well different video cards can handle games. It is not essentially Mac related, just video cards overall. Does not let you to post links to websites, I just put it in the 1st comment. Just to get you an idea, the site says that Crysis two plays good on High settings, Call of Duty: Black Ops plays good on super settings, Metro 2033 plays good on Medium settings. You may be able to check out the rest

Overall, this is the best all in one you may be able to find and one of the best Desktops a money can purchase.

If you do not like Apple or still think it’s overpriced, do that. Find a Desktop/All in one with Sandybridge Quad Core processor and around 6GB to 8GB of RAM and 512MB to 1GB video card. Add a nice screen to it, full HD, no less than 1920×1080. Add wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse. Do not forget bluetooth and Wi fi connectivity. Be sure it has Windows seven Professional for all of the features, or maybe final. As well, be sure all five of iLife equivallent programs are present. And see the price for yourself. I’m not going to bring up the easy set up and that iMac is only one part of aluminum and one part of glass. Because no PC will match it. You must settle for million pieces of plastic holding your computer together.

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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars 1st Mac, and I’m in LOVE!, May 20, 2011
By Amber T See all my reviews () This review is from: Apple iMac MC309LL/A 21.5 Inch Desktop (NEWEST VERSION) (Personal Computers) I have been using Macs for about five years now between school and work. My main machine has generally been a PC. Being a graphic designer, Macs are pretty much the business standard. That’s one of many reasons I bought this iMac.

I must I love this computer. It took me less than 15 minutes from opening the box, unpacking the computer, plugging it in, starting it, and set up. And ten minutes of that taked it out of the box, taking the protecting wraps off of things, etc.

The initial setup was a breeze. It automatically recognized the keyboard and mouse (both Bluetooth), easily connected to my network (after I typed in the password), and bam, we were up and running. Since I never had a Mac before, I did not have a backup that could put all my files on the computer, but I keep all of my files on an external hard drive anyways.

There have been some bumps in to get used to doing certain things on the Mac in comparison to the PC. But, Apple Care is useful and helped me through alot of issues. The major thing was to get Time Machine working like I want. Still do not have it backing up my external hard drive, but that’s because it’s a MS DOS format, which is a format it does not recognize. Other than that, Time Machine is doing backups on own drive. As well, for PC users, Time Machine isn’t System Restore. It’s a file recuperation program only. If you delete a file, you may be able to open Time Machine, find the file, and restore it.

Once you take the time to learn how certain things work in comparison to PC’s, you’ll figure out that there are alot of things that are just much easier on the Mac. Granted, I plan to use both Mac and PC for a while, but so far, I have not had to turn on my PC in some number of days (and I have only had the iMac for about ten days).

Overall, it’s a great machine. Feels like it’s built hard, runs fast, starts up fast, looks great in my room, the keyboard and mouse (Bluetooth) never skips a beat, the Magic Mouse wasn’t hard at all to start using, and in general it’s great. Most likely will generally stick to Mac now.

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