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http://www.macnn.com/articles/02/03/01/la.times:'the/

LA Times:'The iMac Challenge'

updated 09:10 am EST, Fri March 1, 2002

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The Los Angeles Times has published part one of The iMac Challenge, which compares a new flat-panel iMac to a Gateway 500SE: "From the hardware perspective, neither computer cleaned the other's clock. The iMac has style and setup advantages; the Gateway is marginally cheaper and far more expandable."

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03/01, 09:54am | report spam | close Reply |
far more expandable

This is such a joke!!!
I work at a place were we support 650 windoz machines- may be 20 of them use any kind of expansion card.
Next time you hear " well it aint got way to expand" Ask the a-hole what expansion cards he or she has in there PC!
Response: AHHHH, well I may add a ahhh,

MacNN.com Reader
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03/01, 10:06am | report spam | close Reply |
journalism

I love the new iMac but I wish the Mac press wouldn't give the peecee trolls something to howl about when they write articles like this. Yes, the author is a contributing writer for Macworld, but his article clearly shows bias toward the iMac. (don't get me wrong, I agree w/him) I just wish journalists who write about Mac v. PC would be more careful with their language so as not to come off as the stereotypical "Mac heads." (even if we are :-)

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03/01, 10:43am | report spam | close Reply |
like 100's of

usb and firewire devices being able to added on is not expandle?

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03/01, 10:49am | report spam | close Reply |
oh my god

how can they compare such junk like the gateway with a Mac ???

roehlstation
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03/01, 10:50am | report spam | close Reply |
Why Expand?

The iMac has everything I'm ever going to need already included. I'd add the AirPort card and upgrade it to a Gig-O'-RAM and I'll be set for years. I'd give the Gateway a year before the hard drive needs replaced (Gateway is notorious for bad hard disks) or the company disappears completely. MOO

dusceau

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03/01, 11:09am | report spam | close Reply | delete
:( What no floppy???

I hope MacNN is not paying this guy for this pathetic report? No mention on the quality of the LCD screen? Lets ignore the fact that the hard drive and memory is twice that of the Gateway. He has to lower the screen so low that the CPU pushes off the back of his desk. His cube at LA Times must be really small, probably indicative of his news-writing prowess. Who needs expansion slots these days? For video? (Nope!), High-speed serial port?(Got that ,its called Firewire!), Sound card? (Be-real!). More peecee centric thinking!
All this and they are comparable?

Fails to mention the fantastic ergonomics of this design.
1. Only one AC plug is needed. No need for a power strip cluttering the back of a desk.
2. Infinitely adjustable LCD screen. Promotes better posture.
3. Minimal interconnect cords. Reduced desk clutter.
4. No components on the floor.
5. Easy to move.
If one considers the minimum space consumed by this model in places such as in the kitchen, bedroom, or a dorm room. It puts any tower design to shame.

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03/01, 11:22am | report spam | close Reply |
How many USB ports??

He only counted three - there's 5 on an iMac.

beb
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03/01, 11:23am | report spam | close Reply |
Gettin one

-That's the challenge

MacNN.com Reader
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03/01, 11:26am | report spam | close Reply |
Windoze XP?

So he turns on a brand new PC, and is greeted with a cryptic error message telling him to re-boot - and he's still impressed.

chas_m
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03/01, 11:53am | report spam | close Reply |
Story is weak, but ...

... the way to fix it is to POLITELY write the guy and point out the errors of omission and fact. I too am appalled that they would pick a Gateway (to h***) to compare it to, particularly as that company will be closing its doors before the year is out, rendering the comparison useless.

I think if enough of us POLITELY tell him that he's missing the point viz. expansion, he'll address it in the next installment.

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03/01, 12:03pm | report spam | close Reply |
the major challenge that

is not mentioned is that gateway will be out of biz in 18months. apple won't try getting srvice on your cow computer when all the cows have gone home.

ps i like milk but not gateway cows.

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03/01, 12:25pm | report spam | close Reply |
not expandable?

While I agree that most people never add cards to their computer, my G4 has two, a SCSI card and a high end sound card (M-Audio)... otherwise I would have bought a Cube! I think you need this on PCs though, because they don't have as much built in stuff as Macs.

Abe L.
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03/01, 12:39pm | report spam | close Reply |
There is a good lesson

to be learned here. Apple needs to advertise all the features that PC people think are missing from the Mac. They need to aggressively address every PC "myth". Not just post it on their web site but actually point blank address the issues on TV.

Dalhectar
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Joined: Jan 2002

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03/01, 12:41pm | report spam | close Reply |
hmmm...

The iMac is less expandable than the Gateway. It has no PCI slots. Want to add USB 2.0, too bad. Multidirectional sound, not gonna happen. Like that wireless network but want to upgrage to 100Mbps 802.11a, nope. What about HomePNA (cheaper and faster than 802.11b)? Second independent video output, nada.

External connections are great for perhiprials that only exist outside the computer like a scanner, mp3 player, or camcorder, but when you start adding optical and hard drives (devices that could fit inside of the computer) you're valuable lack of cable clutter is lost.

Having said that, the gateway is a far more flawed machine. Using a Pentium IV 1.6 with SDRAM is a joke. The Pentium can run far faster with any other type of memory (RDRAM or DDR SDRAM). That 700mhz G4 doesn't look so bad in comparision. Runnign XP on 128MB of ram is even dumber than that. Can't run the appilcations you want to run becuase as soon as you connected a camera 15 useless wizards popped on your screen. The software bundle for the Mac is also far better. XP vs Mac OS X aside, I'll take AW6 over MS Works anyday. On one you can do work, the other is a way to force users to upgrade to MS Office.

I hope you didn't get a extended warrenty with that Gateway. How you expect them to answer your call if they are laying off support personal? Since they won't be around in 12 months I hope nothing needs replacement like a Hard Drive.

No computer is perfect, but the Gateway is flawed far more.

ha11mark

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03/01, 12:47pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Bendy-Arm

"I had to push the iMac partway off the back of my desk to get the display to a comfortable viewing distance."

Can you rotate the display arm back so that it looks like

|

(|||) ___ [user]

(if that comes out) ?

ha11mark

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03/01, 12:51pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
That didn't come out

Hmm.. lets try
|
�\
��\
��(==)

the Rebel
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03/01, 01:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
Gateway details

After reading the article about how inexpensive and how expandable the Gateway 500SE was, I went to Gateway's website to check it out. What I discovered was that although the 500SE may be expandable, Gateway does not give you many options to utilize that expandibility and when you start utilizing the options that they do offer, the price goes up VERY quickly.

The first thing that I noticed when I started trying to configure the 500SE was that Gateway does not give you the choice on whether you want a CD-RW, DVD, combo, or DVD-R drive; the 500SE comes with a CD-RW. Period. So if you did want to add a DVD burner to the 500SE, you would have to buy it separately and install it yourself; you are also going to have to make sure that you get some DVD creation software too.

However, you can get a different Gateway 500 series model (if you figure out how to navigate Gateway's website to find the other models) with your choice of media drive; note though that these other 500 series machines start out at $1199 and adding FireWire and a DVD-R/CD-RW comparable to the iMac's Superdrive is going to cost $559 (total already at $1758 and I still only have a 40GB HD). Interestingly, the only way to get Gateway to include a FireWire card is if you get a DVD-R drive. Also, wireless networking cards are not options at all on ANY of the 500 series; so if you wanted one of those, you would have to buy them separately and do the install yourself.

Then Gateway gives you the option of buying an EXTERNAL Zip drive with the 500SE, but no option to include an INTERNAL drive. What good are those internal bays if you buy external drives for expansion? If you buy an iMac from Apple, they will add on an external Zip drive for you too.

As for the 500SE's PCI expansion slots, once I put in a card for FireWire and another card in for Wireless Networking, I only have one slot left -- oh no, wait a minute, the 56K fax modem is in that 3rd PCI slot! I guess after adding FireWire and Wireless Networking, the 500SE does not have any more PCI expansion than the iMac. That is really ok though, because I can not really think of anything else that I would need the PCI slot for. These days I am much more likely to expand the functionality of my PC via USB or FireWire rather than installing PCI cards.

Hmmm, now I guess I am going to research and see how the Gateway's bundled software compares to what comes with the iMac....

( BTW the author of the article was not really wrong about the number of USB ports on the iMac; there are three on the back of the iMac + 2 on the keyboard - 1 used by the keyboard - 1 used by the mouse; 3+2-1-1=3 available USB ports. The Gateway has 4 USB ports and uses PS2 style mouse and keyboard.)

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03/01, 01:55pm | report spam | close Reply |
yo, ha11mark

you're pretty f****** weird

and this LA Times article is jacked because the author is a nimwit -- I despise nimwits with a voice

you hear that, Mr. President?

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03/01, 02:00pm | report spam | close Reply |
yo, ha11mark

you're pretty f****** weird

and this LA Times article is jacked because the author is a nimwit -- I despise nimwits with a voice

you hear that, Mr. President?

jared.williams

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03/01, 04:30pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
FireWire. Get a clue.

Am I the only person that thinks having a hard drive on the outside of the box is better than installing it in a fixed location inside the box?

PC users don't get it. I have a FireWire 20GB hard drive and an Apple iPod. I can take those anywhere I want and plug them into my friends' Macs. This is the ultimate portable and scalable solution (especially when you can have 63 of them too vs. the two per IDE channel in a PC....tsk tsk!)

ggirton
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03/02, 10:58am | report spam | close Reply |
Be courteous to Jim heid

He's a mac journalist. State your case fairly, then be sure to include the standard disclaimer at the end, something like this ...

"Whew! Finally I got through this letter without calling your LA Times story "ridiculous ignorant poppycock" or referring to you as a complete idiot that should choose a different career than journalism.

It was hard, though."

jimheid

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03/03, 03:51pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Heid responds

So many of you emailed me to comment on my recent Los Angeles Times column that I don't have time to reply to each email individually. So I've written this blanket response,

Most of your comments were similar, and dealt with my claim that the Gateway is far more expandable than the iMac. Some comments dealt with the speed of the two systems. Others just contained insults.

Here are some snippets of your emails, along with my replies.

I don't find your article unbiased. You write with the typical swagger
of a Windows user.

And you write with the typical arrogance of a Mac user -- being a Mac user, I feel like I can say that. :-)

Some of you are apparently unaware that I've been a Contributing Editor of Macworld magazine since 1984; that I've been using the Mac since 1983; that I've written several best-selling Mac books; that I've commented on Apple and the Mac for CNBC and Fox News; and that I write far more about the Mac than I do about Windows.

First, what speed tests did you run to compare the two systems? Did you do
Photoshop tests? Encode MP3's? Compile video for burning? Get a set of high
profile tests and you will see that the Mac will in fact smoke the Gateway.

I did a series of informal tests to measure boot-up time, time to launch an app (Word X and Word XP), time to do a massive search-and-replace in Word, and time to rip a CD track into MP3 format. No, this isn't the most exhaustive set of performance tests, but it does measure a few key metrics and provides a good basis for making overall performance judgments.

If you're interested in specifics, here are my results; all times are in seconds.

iMac Gateway 500SE
Boot 54 40
Launch Word 15 6
Search and replace 4 8
Rip MP3 track* 55 40

*iTunes on the Mac; MusicMatch Jukebox on Windows XP. 160kbps encoding rate.

The iMac flat panel is digitally connected to the system.
I could not verify the Gateway flat panel's interface from the web site,
but appears to be an analog VGA connector.
This is a pet peeve of mine - a LOT of consumers don't realize that
there is a noticeable difference between the two connections.

It is correct that the iMac display is all-digital, while the Gateway's uses a standard VGA analog connection. But in my tests, I couldn't see any difference in image quality.

In fact -- and this tidbit didn't make it into my column due to space constraints -- I found that the new iMac's display is more prone to ghosting than is the Gateway.

Apple has clearly used an inexpensive LCD in the iMac, and you can see the mouse trails as you move the po

jimheid

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03/03, 03:54pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Heid responds, Part II

Here's the second half of my response:

...Apple has clearly used an inexpensive LCD in the iMac, and you can see the mouse trails as you move the pointer around on the screen. The iMac's display isn't nearly as fast as the the LCDs in Apple's standalone flat panels, and it's slower than the Gateway's.

you declare that the PC is "more expandable". Why?

USB or Firewire Hard drives, removable media (ZIP, Superdisk, whatever),
Video Capture, Scanners and so on exist and many work on both platforms
equally. Firewire being faster than USB - it would seem to me that this
gives an edge to the iMac.

The expandability issue was by far the biggest source of complaints: nearly all of you commented that, thanks to FireWire, the iMac is just as expandable as the Gateway.

And that's just not true.

What, exactly, would a "home user" add to a PC in this day and age that
absolutely requires one of those "internal general-purpose expansion slots"?

I might have a game-crazed teen who wants to latest 3D RageKillerDeath video card. I can replace the Gateway's video card in five minutes. I can even add a second video card if I like, though admittedly, few home users would do this.

I can also add a TV tuner card and turn my PC into a TiVo-like device. And don't write to tell me that Mac USB TV tuners work just as well. I've tested them, and they don't.

Beyond this, having slots enables me to add special digital audio boards, high-end video capture cards, and similar specialized devices. Again, most home users aren't likely to do this. But some might, and the Gateway gives them that option.

And yes, FireWire lets you add additional drives and removable media devices. But after you've added a couple devices, you've got more junk on your desk, you've got more cables snaking around, and you've got more fans to listen to.

Let's face it: even with FireWire, the iMac is simply not as expandable as the Gateway.

Hmmm, now I guess I am going to research and see how the Gateway's
bundled software compares to what comes with the iMac....

I'll save you the trouble. Read my column in this Monday's LA Times and you'll get the lowdown on software bundles -- as well as my final verdict on the two systems.

Whew! Finally I got through this letter without calling your LA Times
story "ridiculous ignorant poppycock" or referring to you as a complete
idiot that should choose a different career than journalism.

It was hard, though.

Very clever! Thanks for taking the time to insult someone simply because you disagree with his views.

I appreciate all of your emails, even the insulting ones. I hope I've been able to address your comments here.

Best,
Jim

--
Jim Heid
Contributing Editor, Ma

jimheid

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03/03, 03:57pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Arg: lame comment feature

Sigh. It looks like MacNN's comments feature strips out greater-than characters, and that may make it difficult to discern between reader comments and my responses in the two above posts.

Apologies.

- Jim Heid

normr
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03/03, 10:30pm | report spam | close Reply |
Macworld should fire him

The author is a contributing MacWorld author,I'll never read another article written by him, let him go write for PC mags.

MacNN.com Reader
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03/04, 12:49am | report spam | close Reply |
Jim Heid's Poor Review

is one of the many reasons the technology industry is being held back and why the computers of worthless companies like DELL and Gateway, running the monopoly-extending software of Microsoft, are being sold in large quantities.

For expandability, the Powermac G4 is a better comparison if adding video, USB2, and sound cards is something that appears valuable. PCI expandability is overrated because at $1800, a computer is replaceable every 3-4 years. This is actually more cost efficient and technically easier than installing $600 in new peripherals in an aging Windows machine and struggling with plug-n-play.

Journalists driven by envy of technology-people salaries aren't concerned with technological advancement and are therefore prone to supporting monopolists like Microsoft (who try to provide one size fits all solutions at the expense of smaller systems integrators) and uninnovative assemblers like Gateway and DELL. For all the lack of R&D (and the good jobs provided in support of R&D) Gateway and DELL still come within $100 for the iMac's prices when providing similar functionality in a consumer product.

It's time for the journalists and beancounters to shut up and let the techies drive software, hardware, and support decisions.

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LA Times:'The iMac Challenge'

updated 09:10 am EST, Fri March 1, 2002

far more expandable

journalism

like 100's of

oh my god

Why Expand?

:( What no floppy???

How many USB ports??

Gettin one

Windoze XP?

Story is weak, but ...

the major challenge that

not expandable?

There is a good lesson

hmmm...

Bendy-Arm

That didn't come out

Gateway details

yo, ha11mark

yo, ha11mark

FireWire. Get a clue.

Be courteous to Jim heid

Heid responds

Heid responds, Part II

Arg: lame comment feature

Macworld should fire him

Jim Heid's Poor Review

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LA Times:'The iMac Challenge'

updated 09:10 am EST, Fri March 1, 2002

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far more expandable

journalism

like 100's of

oh my god

Why Expand?

:( What no floppy???

How many USB ports??

Gettin one

Windoze XP?

Story is weak, but ...

the major challenge that

not expandable?

There is a good lesson

hmmm...

Bendy-Arm

That didn't come out

Gateway details

yo, ha11mark

yo, ha11mark

FireWire. Get a clue.

Be courteous to Jim heid

Heid responds

Heid responds, Part II

Arg: lame comment feature

Macworld should fire him

Jim Heid's Poor Review

Login Here

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