Tech Stuff: Retina iMac
I was intrigued by the Retina iMac when it was announced last fall. I liked what I saw on the Apple Store showroom floor. I’d been planning to replace my aging Mac Mini with a new Mini whenever Apple released one, and last fall, they did. Except, to equip the Mac Mini the way I wanted to equip it was going to put it into a pretty expensive price range. And I wanted a larger monitor than my 17″ Samsung which had served me well since 2002. When all was said and done, I could get the Retina iMac for not a whole lot more than than maxed out Mac Mini. But, the Mac Mini still worked, so I waited. Then, the Mac Mini died, and Apple reduced the price on the Retina iMac (slightly) that same week.
Really. It was fate, right? Memory is user upgradable, so I ordered the iMac exactly the way I wanted it except for memory. Then I ordered 32G RAM from Amazon. It arrived before the iMac. Before turning the iMac on for the first time, I installed the new RAM, maxing it out. This beast is gorgeous. I have one difficulty, and that is waking it up after it goes to sleep. That’s easy on the laptop, tap the ESC key on the keyboard twice. No go in the iMac. So far, I have to force shut down and restart to get it back once it goes to sleep. I do NOT like this. I’ll have to check with friends or do some research. I must be doing something wrong.
One thing I liked but found briefly unsettling was the automatic configuration of ALL my email accounts (except for Sprynet–a POP only account). I finally figured out that was an iCloud feature. I don’t use iCloud for much, because I would quickly have to use a paid account, and Apple’s fee structure is untenable. Dropbox is much more reasonable, and more widely usable. It won’t, however, set up my email accounts on a new machine. I’m okay with that.
One thing I had to do even before receiving the iMac was order a seven USB external hub. I now have one empty USB port, so even with seven, I may not have enough.
I also ordered a Blu-Ray external DVD writer. I’ll have to find software to be able to use the Blu-Ray capability, but the drive itself cost about the same as any other external DVD writer, so I’m happy with that. I don’t need one often, but when I need one, I need one.
I had to order an external back up drive. My one terabyte external drive is too small. I have a 5 terabyte drive on the way.
The screen is gorgeous.
Drool. 🙂
Keep us informed about how you solve the wake-up problem.
We have two iMacs: one is Mom’s and one is for the kids. Both are 2006 vintage. Fingers crossed that both keep chugging along. The kids have a small one, but Mom’s has to be large due to her low vision. For her, the minute resolution doesn’t matter. At least I don’t think it does.
Thanks for the useful report. Good to know that the memory is user-accessible. That could be a quite a cost savings.
PS: What do you do that needs 32G?
Nothing that I know of requires 32G, but the MacBook Pro seems to regularly chug down and use all of it’s 16G, so I figured I’d better max out. I’m of the school that I max it out in every way possible when new, then the machine will last me more years before it’s outdated.
The “Failure to Wake from Sleep” problem appears to be widespread with Apple not seeming to know how to fix it or the suggested fixes I find on the web not working. I’m not wild about having to lug this thing down to San Antonio for a Genius visit, but I’ll have to do it if this doesn’t resolve. I’ve turned off everything I can think of that would make it go to sleep, yet it seems to anyway. The only recourse is a hard reset, and that’s not good. The only other thing I can think of is to shut it down whenever I walk away. I’m not wild about that either.
I found someone who said a corrupted sleep image file might be the problem. Deleting the file is supposed to fix it if that’s the problem. Have done that. We’ll see.
My iMac goes to sleep after, I don’t know, 30-minutes of inactivity but I just wake it with a mouse click.
Right. That’s what it’s supposed to do. That’s what all my other Macs do. This one? Not on my life. Next time I go to San Antonio, I’ll load it into it’s box, strap it to a dolly, and roll it into the Apple Store for them to see if they can figure it out.