Apple iMac (4th gen) review

Apple iMac (4th gen) Review

Reviewed by: Rich Brown

Reviewed on: 9 August 2007

At least as far as the internal hardware, the iMac hasn't changed that much. The new CPU and graphics card are only generational updates, but they help Apple bring strong performance.

The biggest improvement, specs-wise, is in the iMac's new 802.11n Wi-Fi adaptor. 802.11n gives you roughly twice the range and between two and three times as much practical data bandwidth as the older 802.11a, b or g standards. Of course, you'll need a compatible wireless router to get the benefits of 802.11n, and because the Draft N standard hasn't been completely standardised yet (which is why you'll see it referred to as "Draft" N), your best bet is an N router from the same manufacturer as your N Wi-Fi adaptor.

The new iMac keyboard is an outstanding example of Apple's trademark industrial design

Fortunately, Apple has just updated its Airport Express router to the N standard. For our own testing, we successfully connected the iMac to an older 802.11b router, but your mileage may vary, depending on the make and model of your networking hardware. If you spec out a system from any other PC vendor, you'll get within £50 or so of a comparable iMac, but of all the major computer vendors, only Apple offers Draft N wireless in a desktop.

In addition to 802.11n wireless, Apple also increased the bandwidth of wired data transfers -- as well as the usual FireWire 400 connection, there's now also a FireWire 800 port on the back of the unit. No Windows PC offers this, either. FireWire 800 should particularly benefit digital video editors who need to transfer HD movies via a digital camcorder -- or really, anyone that needs to move large amounts of data from an external device. FireWire 800 was formerly an exclusive to Apple's Mac Pro, but by bringing it to the iMac, Apple makes its mainstream desktop even friendlier to professional customers.

Apple has also included its new iLife '08 media software suite, which gives you all manner of tools for organising and editing digital photos and videos.

Performance
Now that the Intel-compatible Mac version of Photoshop CS3 is out, Apple can compete on a level playing field with Windows desktops. And as expected, the new iMac dominates on Photoshop and on multimedia multitasking, and it also does very well on iTunes and CineBench, the latter as much a measure of overall multicore processing power as it is an indicator of a system's ability to process movie files. Compared to a wide range of competing mainstream desktops, the new Apple iMac more than holds its own, with one typical exception: gaming.