Heh heh heh:


So yeah. My old iMac G5 barely fell within the upgrade protection period, after the new iMac G5 was released. I went to the Stanford Bookstore and they said they don't actually have a upgrade protection policy (which is strange considering they are an Authorized Apple Reseller, but whatever), but they granted me a "one-time exception" to upgrade to the new iMac. They finally got the new 20" iMacs in on Friday, and I got it yesterday.

The old iMac G5 (Ambient Light Sensor) had three models: a 1.8 GHz 17" model, a 2.0 GHz 17" model, and a 2.0 GHz 20" model. For the new lineup, Apple eliminated the mid-range model, the very model that I originally bought. So I had to decide whether to step down to the low-end model, or step up to the high-end model. Guess which I decided to do. :)

So, the changes:

+ 0.1 GHz clock speed
+ 33 MHz system bus speed
+ 90 GiB hard drive
+ PC4200 DDR2 533 MHz RAM (instead of PC3200 DDR 400 MHz RAM)
+ Front Row & IR remote
+ built-in iSight & Photo Booth
+ ATI Radeon X600 XT graphics card (instead of Radeon 9600)
+ more powerful speakers
+ Mighty Mouse
+ 3" diagonal viewing area
+ 1680x1050 native resolution (instead of 1440x900)
+ more easily accessible RAM slot
- 1 RAM slot (the old one had two)
- complete user-serviceable computer (the new one isn't anymore, whereas the old one was)
- built-in modem (the modem is going the way of the floppy drive)

.. all for $200 more than I paid for the original iMac G5 I bought. The built-in iSight alone makes up for $149, the Mighty Mouse another $49, so I think it was well worth the extra money.

And, seriously, the 20" display is just ridiculously huge.