Apple iMac 24in review

Apple is all about the experience, and the iMac's sumptuous 24in screen is a real dazzler. Its contrast, vibrancy and brightness is unmatched this month, with only the Sony coming close. The sound from its integrated speakers is clear and punchy too, even when you turn up the volume to ear-splitting levels. It's crazy that Apple doesn't support Blu-ray, as with a native resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 this display is perfect for high-definition.

The integrated Nvidia GeForce GT120 is one of the most powerful GPUs here, tearing through our low-detail Crysis test and averaging a just-about-playable 24fps in the medium test. It's partnered with a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo E8335 (2.66GHz and 3.06GHz models are also available), making the iMac unequivocally this month's most powerful all-in-one with a 2D benchmark score of 1.44.

With headline features such as this, the iMac ought to be a winner, but Apple has skimped on the trimmings. Its six USB ports give it no more versatility than a nettop, and they're inconveniently located round the back of the screen. You get no eSATA, no TV tuner, no remote control, a measly 0.3-megapixel webcam, and no card reader.

What's more, Apple has partnered it with a tiny laptop-style keyboard, with several keys too small for comfort and others missing entirely. If you plan to run Windows, you'll want to replace the keyboard.

There's the rub, of course: the iMac comes not with Windows, but with OS X. You'll have to live without things such as TV tuners and eSATA, but there's no denying that Mac OS X on this powerful iMac, with its glorious display, is quite beautiful. And as a bonus, the iMac's idle power drain falls by 13W in Apple's own OS (although even in Windows it's an impressively low 106W).

If you're not wedded to OS X, the iMac is a big compromise. Yes, you get that sumptuous screen and plenty of raw processing power, but aside from that it's a very basic platform with questionable ergonomics. From this month's most expensive system, we'd hoped for rather more.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith