With only 512MB there were a number of cases during my normal use of the machines (which in this case didn’t include any heavy multitasking), that I found them swapping to disk. I mention that 512MB is the bare minimum because it honestly is for OS X, but I will mention that one of the first upgrades I would perform on these machines is to bring them up to 1GB of memory. “Apple has done the bare minimum and outfitted these two systems with 512MB of memory.

With the iMac, Apple has pretty much done the same thing they’ve taken a notebook motherboard and processor, although this time combined it with a 3.5″ desktop hard drive, and mounted it behind a LCD panel – creating a very elegant desktop computer,” Lal Shimpi writes. In the process you lose the ease of internal access that larger form factors would offer, but the end result is very close to the perfect form factor for casual users. “When Apple released the Mac mini I looked at it and thought they had struck gold they basically took a notebook platform, massaged the shape, and stuck it in a wonderful form factor for the casual desktop user. And they are selling to who you would expect them to, the early adopters, the Mac enthusiasts, those who need a computer today and won’t upgrade for a very long time, oh and of course, some may find their way into my hands.” “The new Intel based Macs are selling though, despite the early stage of the transition.

However, Apple isn’t forcing the new platforms on their customers, as you still have the choice to purchase the PowerPC G4/G5 based systems at the same price if you desire,” Anand Lal Shimpi writes for AnandTech. These first generation of Intel based Macs are more like public beta tests rather than final platforms while the hardware may be complete, as you will soon see, relying on binary translation to run any non-Universal applications isn’t the most pleasant thing in the world. “While it’s easy to argue that Apple had always planned to have Intel based Macs out as soon as Intel launched Core Duo, it’s really tough to say that the transition is ahead of schedule if major software support isn’t there (even some of Apple’s own applications won’t get support until March).

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