2 issues with new iMac's

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2 issues with new iMac's

I have two issues/questions about the new iMac's:

1) I thought that Apple was going "green", yet the new iMac's reportedly are still using the old style backlights with mercury, versus the LED backlights. Comments?

2) Where's the BluRay disk drive? My guess is that these won't start coming out until the release of OS 10.5, and typically it's the PowerMac's that have the newer hardware first. I'd guess these drives won't come out (with built in support) until June ' 08 at the earliest.

I'm not the only one wondering about BluRay;

BluRay where are you?

Mutant_Pie

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BluRay is still WAY to expens

BluRay is still WAY to expensive for use in anything like an iMac. Is it really worth $600 for a 25GB DVD?

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I honestly don't understand w

I honestly don't understand what the big deal is about Blu-ray. Anyways, I would expect Blu-ray to show up on the Mac Pro before it shows up on any other member of Apple's Product line. Let's see - DVD showed up in 1995, but dvd-rom drives didn't show up in Macs until 1998 - and at that as a wicked expensive option in the beige g3 and wall street g3 Powerbooks. It didn't become a mainstream feature until fall of 1999 with the slot loading iMac DV.

Granted, I don't expect Blu-ray to take as long to show up in macs as it did for dvd proper to, but I wouldn't expect it on a consumer level machine before anything else.

As for the LED backlighting concern - right now Apple is having supply issues with the manufacturer of the LED backlight panels for the 15" MacBook Pro - this is why the 17" and 13" MacBooks haven't seen the LED backlit panels show up. I'd say that the iMac will have it when the panels come down in price and the manufacturer can actually ship in volume.

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You are dead on with the LED

You are dead on with the LED backlit LCDs. LED backlights are more expensive and not as widely produced, and I don't really expect Apple to transition the desktop LCDs to LED backlights before the end of 2008-- portables make more sense right now because they need the power savings, and the slightly wider colour gamut helps for colour accuracy.

I wouldn't be too surprised if Blu-Ray drives never end up built into Macs. At this point the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats could easily disappear entirely or become niche products (think laserdisc).

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The regular DVD standard has

The regular DVD standard has an insane amount of life left in it. I seriously doubt that Blu-ray or HD-DVD are going to knock it out of the park within the next 24 months. Let's see, DVD came about in 1995/1996 in the consumer market. It didn't become the de-facto standard until some time around 2002/2003, with the biggest thing pushing it ahead being the DVD of "The Matrix". Prior to that particular disc - there wasn't an overly compelling reason for most people to dump their VCR's and go with a new format. While Blu-ray and HD-DVD may be backwards compatible - the fact that there is no single High Def standard - instead two splinters - will lead to the downfall of one or both.

For my money - I'm rooting for HD-DVD - if only because it actually sounds like what I expect to get from said product. Like about 90% of the buying public - I don't own an HDTV, and thus will see no real benefit from blu ray or hd-dvd. I'm waiting on a compelling reason to buy an HDTV - in order to get one (i.e. - every channel in HD - and all of those standards cleared up befor I buy in).

I don't want to be that crazy guy who has a betamax in his closet. I'm waiting for the standards to settle before buying in - the fact that DVD was a clear standard supported by everyone led to its success. I don't see that being the case with either of the two standards fighting each other.

(yet I have a subscription to sirius satellite radio)

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