Overview 27 "iMac in 2011 and experience with external HDD

In 2009, Apple has created almost perfect candy bar: It is made of aluminum, it has a smart display based IPS-matrix cool acoustic system and is very quiet. How to improve it? It is very simple - use a more powerful stuffing, and that the company is doing in the last couple of years. My hands got the latest 27-inch iMac, which I decided to work cleverly - with an external HDD, which is a clone of the drive of a personal work machines: at the beginning it was a 11.6-inch MacBook Air 2010 release, which gained a new owner, and then temporarily MacBook Pro 13 "of the same year, and now a brand new monoblock. About an interesting experience and, of course, chic candy bar and I'll discuss in this article.

Well, hello, old new friend

As you know, re-invent the wheel does not make sense. Rather than create a strange plastic "coffins", as they are now doing the vast majority of producers monoblock PCs, Apple has developed a versatile, beautiful and practical design, which has been used for several years. Of course, appearance

MacBook Pro since 2008, already fed up with it, but this laptop - it can be made thinner, lighter, improved matrix. And in the desktop the iMac, in fact, it has nothing to improve.

Relatively thin and monolithic aluminum body covered with glass elegant 27-inch IPS-matrix with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels (or 21.5-inch 1920 x 1080 points), integrated optical disk drive slot-loading system, build a powerful sound system, and "iron" in very very by modern standards good. But we will come back later, for now let's look at the device closer to the hardware platform.

Almost the entire front panel is traditionally occupies the display with glass protection, the bottom is a small aluminum part with a firm apple in the center. Screen usual glare, respectively, will have to carefully choose the place that will host the candy bar. It is desirable that he was not in front of the window, and the back is not arranged point light sources. With the right choice of room for your favorite PC, problems with glare will not be at all.

Stand as the whole body is made of a single piece of aluminum, it is stable and allows to tilt the monoblock. This happens very smoothly and easily, but the final design is robust, with the slightest push of the display position does not change. You can, of course, to complain that you can not change the height of the screen location, or turn it in portrait mode, but considering the diagonal of the iMac, placing it above or below in general without needed. As for the portrait mode, over many years of use LCDs with such a function, I never took advantage of it not. It requires a very limited number of users in specific tasks.

Also on the front panel, at the usual place on top is a webcam. In contrast to last year's model, the rookie got a HD-version device that supports video recording at 720p.

On the upper side there is a microphone, hidden behind the usual for laptops Company perforation.

The left side of the device usually empty, and the right to place the optical drive slot and memory card reader with support for SD, SDHC and SDXC. The latter format is last year's model was not recognized.

The rear panel is a substantially integral aluminum plate. At the top is a long ventilation slot which hot air is blown by fans as many as three of turbine type. The center has a plastic apple, and it is there for a reason, and covers the antenna Wi-Fi. Aluminum be screened signal. Below there is a bit of perforation, the purpose of which I just do not know: perhaps this is another area for ventilation. Under it is the jack for connecting the power cable.

At the bottom left is almost a standard set of connectors. The only exceptions are two ports Thunderbolt. Among others there are four ports USB 2.0, two 3.5 mm audiodzheka, FireWire 800 and Ethernet.

Experience in the use of the iMac, to boot from the external drive

I now have a very interesting period of, say, a computer life - moving to a new MacBook Air, the one on the ULV-processor Intel Core second generation built on the basis of architecture Sandy Bridge. It is interesting that my old 11.6 dyuymsovy Air sold before the new has arrived, and now I have to somehow dodge. Week popolzovalsya 13-inch MacBook Pro fellow, where he was screwed in a 2.5-inch HDD with a copy of my system Radel in the Air. All without problems to work, and I was literally 5 minutes it took the HDD replacement, received a personal workspace on the new Mac. But the review iMac wanted to turn the same trick with him. Unfortunately, in this computer to replace the hard drive much more complicated, it was accordingly decided to boot from an external USB-drive, which has also been previously cloned the system partition, which is done using the "Disk Utility" in OS X.

Before proceeding to the entertaining experience, I would like to talk about the hardware device. This is the standard under 27-inch model with a 4-core Intel Core i5 processor with a frequency of 2.7 GHz from the family of Sandy Bridge, 4 GB of memory, terabyte hard drive and graphics card AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 512 MB of its own VRAM.

The computer is powerful enough for any application, including games that you can safely run at a maximum resolution, many of them with high quality graphics settings.

I would also like to mention a very quiet operation of the PC, it is practically noiseless. In addition, the device is not heated. CPU temperature generally kept within 33-35 ° C at a room temperature - 25-27 ° C. Even import video into iMovie with optimization not led chip warm stronger. The cooling system on the basis of high-power radiator with a set of thin plates strung on heat pipes and blown by a turbine-type fan, organized just fine. One important element of its effectiveness is quite a distance between the CPU and a GPU - is the hottest components in the computer. For example, the cause of big reject rate of the first models Xbox 360 (about 30%) was precisely overheating caused not itself efficient cooling system that is unable to cope with and closely spaced to each other actively warming up processor and video chip.

No less enthusiasm aroused speaker. It is very powerful for this type of device - 20 watts. In addition, the dynamics of the nice sound - the sound is crisp, bass, although a few ringing, metallic, or something. But the role they play is great and easy to replace even a small desktop speaker system.

Complete with monoblock supplied branded Bluetooth-keyboard, which is simply lost in the background of a giant computer. I would like to grumble about the lack of numeric keypad keys. Instead of reporting the same mouse instance comprises Magic Trackpad. To me, as a longtime user of Apple laptops, this thing is familiar and comfortable, although a candy bar can be ordered optionally with Apple Magic Mouse.

But enough of the lyrics, go to the experiment. After connecting the HDD to your computer via the USB port, you should turn on the PC (or restart it) while holding the button «Alt» (Option). Then, before loading the operating system partition menu will appear. If the external drive is such, it is possible to boot from it.

And now look at the picture below. You see a strange set of wired and wireless keyboard, trackpad, and somehow wormed his way to the mouse BenQ? There is a simple explanation. The fact that in the laptop, the system partition is copied to an external HDD, Bluetooth module has been disconnected. Naturally, the same plant was also applied to the iMac, when he was charged with the addition of USB-drive, and in fact the keyboard with trackpad connected to a Bluetooth monoblock. In the end, I just could not enter the user's password and log in to your account. I had to connect a wired peripherals enter their passwords and include a Bluetooth module.

But the important thing is that the system has booted, and I actually got a working space with his laptop on a brand new PC - Fiction. The only thing we had to do, in addition to connect wired accessories is to add a Russian keyboard layout. She somehow disappears when booting the system partition on other PCs. Yes, and to wired mouse with the keyboard would not have to bother, if I, before making a clone laptop drive, including Bluetooth module settings.

In the universe of Windows such miracles do not happen when the system is transferred to the HDD completely different on PC hardware stuffing, and all works without the "dancing with a tambourine," reinstall drivers (and in the worst case it is necessary to install the OS from the ground up), registry cleaning, and so on. d. In my case, however, the system partition is initially successfully migrated to the MacBook Air to the MacBook Pro 13 ", 2010, then on, and iMac 2011 Now he is actively working in the 15-inch MacBook Pro is the latest generation, which came with a 160-gigabaytnyym 2.5-inch the HDD, left me a legacy of the 13-inch "Proch" in 2009, and screwed in place of the standard HDD of the notebook, which already settled "A lion".

So what can I tell you about the system from an external HDD? Everything works well. Yes, some applications run slightly slower, but it is noticeable not always, but in general a particularly serious obstacle I had not noticed. The system is functioning properly, all stored on an external system partition instead of the built-in hard drive, no problem. Is that to run programs purchased in the Mac App Store, will have to enter your Apple ID, under which they were acquired. In addition, if there is a desire to buy something through the iTunes, it will also need to authorize your computer for this operation, but if you disable not forget to deauthorize it from him. Because the number of authorizations is limited to five PCs and they can lose, if my memory serves me, every six months.

With the result that

And as a result we have an excellent computer: quiet, powerful, beautiful, takes a minimum of working space, though quite expensive (about $ 2100). But on set of characteristics unique iMac not. Of course, it is possible for the same money to collect much more powerful Windows-based PCs, but it alone - a great humming box (or buzzing when to spend on high-quality cooling system), separately - a monitor separately - speakers, a tangle of wires, while the iMac in a wire one. Although, for the vast majority of gamers and users of Windows-computer was still a better solution, but always It is the alternative to which every year comes more and more people who are not tied for one reason or another operating system Microsoft.

Funny moments behind the scenes

I decided to add this small section on the article, as iMac shooting experience was pretty funny. It is well known fact that most pictures are cool or well-lit environments, created with the help of special equipment, or in daylight. Best of all, if there is sun.

Sun was the only place that's shooting was quite crowded - the city center, a day, a number of shops solid mass of people walking or hurrying about their business people. And in this place there is a convenient stone left over from the old bus station. One day I photographed it for the article laptop - the device is not particularly attracted to small and people. But when I was dragged to 27-inch iMac, it was a very different reaction.

The unit, to say the least, stands out, and in strange postures prancing around a young man with SLR obviously attracted the attention too. As a result, I had to not only catch the moment that the shot did not get passers-by, but also thereby telling passers-by, and that kind of thing is such a space is worth, and what I did photograph. Still, many people in a small town did not even know about the existence of a "built-in computer monitor" and the "apple" of the company Apple. I hope my unusual shooting helped someone of them to learn something new for yourself :). Finally I suggest a photo to this topic. In the photo, my good friend, a real iManyak, standing next to the car iManyachnym carrying on traces the harsh Ukrainian roads, as well as - hero of this review, the 27-inch iMac (in the leftmost part of the Photo).

Computer seems to be small? Put it on the table three feet away from you, and then it will be difficult to collect a bunch of eyes and neck tired to turn his head! But the thrill of working for such a big letter "computer" simply unforgettable, especially after the laptop.

iMac 27 "for review given store "America"