The Zone

We were invited to an Apple launch yesterday and while the net was abuzz over the new iMac and its lovely new features, we really didn't imagine that they would be introduced to us at such a short notice!

Tony Li from Apple Singapore posing with the new beauties 

[More pics and comments after the break]

The 24" model on the left and the 20" 2.0GHz one on the right. What you see is what you get - complete with the super-cool and surprisingly quite comfortable ultra-thin keyboard. The Mighty Mouse is standard too! wohooo scroll wheel!

The slimness of the keyboard is apparent here when compared with theMighty Mouse's size.

Flushed back ports and a new color scheme - the new iMac is slimmer too!

A few observatory notes that we got from the presentation and introduction of the new iMac which comes with iLife 08 - 

• Smooth video editing with iMovie - Tony Li was showing us how easy it was to edit a video clip and the machine coped well, if not VERY well with the new 'sliding preview' function. You could thereotically edit a feature-length movie with iMovie 08 but then you're limited to a maximum resolution of 640 x 480 when exporting movies. There's options for you to convert them into sizes suitable for YouTube and the iPhone.
• iWork was also previewed and the new Numbers program is definitely easier to use compared to Excel, which requires you to attend a certification class to learn the tricks.
• Garage Band is now even cooler with the new types of audio instruments you can emulate - home producers will love this!
• There's no Leopard, but users will be able to upgrade to it for a 'minimal cost'.
• The 20" model starts only from RM4799, the 2.3GHz Core 2 Duo one is at RM5999 and the 24" model that can be ordered with a Core 2 Extreme, 1TB HDD space and 4GB of RAM starts from RM7999. Not a bad deal we say considering that a new PC with Vista with the same specs would cost almost the same (the premium is worth it, and we're talking bout legit software here!)