After months and months of deliberation I finaly settled on a new computer, my previous laptop had served me for 6 years, but the move into HD camcorder necessitated the need for a better computer, as my laptop would not even burn DVD discs.
Now I do IT for a living, and so I can't stand Microsft Vista, love XP, hate Vista. So I decided the Apple MAC was the way forward. So I really thought I would plump for an iMAC 24 inch, because all the good things that people say about MACS,and I really wanted a change from the Microsoft OS.
However the iMAC as I discovered had some very seriuos flaws for me, these being
1 No Blu Ray reader or writer built in. Yes we can go and buy an
external one, but I wanted a one box solution with
only 1 wire, which both the Sony and the iMAC are but I
have a PS3, and a a nice collection of HD films, but I can't
watch these on the iMAC and even if you had an external Blu Ray
disc player which the iMAC does support it won't allow you
to watch the movies on there. That for me was a very big let
down.
Both the iMAC 24 and the Sony are the same price, but the Sony
comes with a Blu Ray writer and I can also watch my
Blu Ray movies on it which is good if the wife is watching the
other telly.
2 The iMAC cannot deal with native full HD, so when you hook up
your camcorder to the iMAC, you can import from the
camcorder but programs like iMOVIE downscale the resolution to
1440. You cannot export out the footage at the same resolution. So if you have one of the AVCHD camcorders your
going to loose quality when you import it.
The other problem here is that the iMAC will not out of the box
play the files directly from another source, you have to
present them to the iMAC via the camcorder, so if like me you
have the files on your PS3, you have to get them back onto the
camcorder to present them to the iMAC, there is a way round this
but it requires the files to be converted, shame.
The Sony will just play them either via Windows Media Player 11
or the Picture Motion Browser.
3 No TV tuner in the iMAC, not a great deal really, but its a nice
to have for a one box solution.
The Sony has a better performance for the price, but smaller hard drive capacity, does have Blu Ray reader and writer, and the same 24 inch screen, although this is widescreen. I like the Sony, but I hate the mouse design, looks very cheap, but the keyboard is okay.
There are plenty of connections with the Sony too, 5 USB, and these are not used by the mouse or keyboard, memory card slots and Wi Fi and Blue Tooth.
I think that if this particular model had not been released with the Blu ray, I would still be deliberating over an iMAC, but this box ticks all my requirements for a new computer, and brings me right up to speed with being in the high definition era of both viewing HD movies but also being able to watch and edit my HD home movie content.
Don't get me wrong, i am not Apple bashing, and I really really wanted a MAC, I wanted something fresh, and the design of them is brilliant, but the Blu Ray and lack of proper HD support were too big of an issue for me.
I will be getting Windows 7 as well to remove this disgrace of an operating system called Vista.
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