Gadgets & Gaming

So I mentioned in a couple of posts back that I received my Christmas present on the last day of 2010.. which is a surprise actually! Didn’t expect it to arrive on the 31st of December 2010 because that day was a public holiday for Malaysia.

So what did I get? I’m sure if you have me in your facebook, you already know. But to those who don’t;

GUESS WHAT, BITCHES!

I’VE SWITCHED TO THE OTHER SIDE!

Yes, I now have an iMac.

No, I didn’t switch because I hate or frustrated with Windows PC. I’ve been wanting an apple computer for a long time now ever since I did my editing at college before. Now, don’t get me wrong. I LOVE windows 7 PC. If Windows 7 didn’t exist, I’d probably hate windows, but no, Windows 7 is Microsoft’s best OS ever. Except for that recent BSOD (blue screen of death) that I had after 3 years of using my laptop, I haven’t had any major problems or headaches with my laptop. But, I wanted a Mac so that I can do editing smoothly, and do my work. My acer laptop isn’t powerful enough for heavy editing, and my PC is hopeless. What a waste of RM9k for that useless PC.

Here are my specifications for my current iMac:

• 27-inch (2560 x 1440 resolution)
• 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
• 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 4x2GB
• 1TB Serial ATA Drive
• 8x double-layer SuperDrive
• ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB GDDR5 SDRAM
• Apple Wireless Keyboard (Int’l English) & User’s Guide (English)
• Magic Mouse
• Included: Mac OS X Snow Leopard + iLife ’11

Total damage: RM7,858 (USD$2,563)

OMFG.

I still can’t believe I spent almost RM8k on a computer again. Since I’m freelancing now, I guess this could be my investment. That means I better get a fucking job to cover back what I’ve spent! T___T I could have settled with just the cheapest 21.5-inch Mac which is just RM3,899.00 (USD$1,271) and it’s like a HUGE difference in price but bleh I want a good mac for editing.. and for long term. My God, Mac is ridiculously expensive. 15-inch & 17-inch Macbook Pro with i7 is about RM10k! WTF. I wanted it at first before I found out the price with the specs I want.

I bought my iMac at the apple reseller at Ipoh Parade. Gosh, you know what? My debit card wouldn’t approve charges over RM2k so you know what I had to do? Withdraw friggin RM7k and brought the CASH, I repeat, RM7k CASH (in RM50 notes x 140 pieces) all the way to Ipoh Parade mall, 1st floor. I have never in my entire life carry a huge amount of money like that in my bag. I think the most I’ve carried was Rm1k and that was to buy my Blackberry but that’s it. RM7k, my God. I was paranoid all the way haha. I had to withdraw from 3 different banks/cards 5 times because of the transaction limit X_X

The guy that delivered my iMac was struggling to carry it.. it weighs 20kg in the box, wtf. How am I gonna carry this thing if I wanna go back to KL? T__T

So what do I think?

So far I’m fucking loving it. Ok, so I felt awkward at first trying to get used to it. And OH GOSH, the screen is HUGE. I mean, it’s almost as big as my TV. My old comp had 22-inch screen so to suddenly jump to 27-inch was like a huge leap. When I move the mouse it’s like moving from one side of the table to the other side. My eyesight from where I sit does not cover the whole screen so I have to like roll my eyes from side to side haha. Texts on website looks a lot smaller but compared to my laptop, it’s very crisp and not blurry.

Took me days to learn how a Mac works. I use keyboard shortcuts more often now that I did with my PC.

• I hate Safari. I can’t use full screen.. and I can’t use xmarks so I’m using Firefox. Now I see why people like Mac. Everything is so organized and simple. Like living a simple life. Stress free. No headache. PC seems quite ‘messy’ now. I mean apart from the complicated windows, there’s the monitor, the CPU, plus all the wires connecting to the CPU.. gosh. What a mess… You should see my PC. What a headache.
• I LOVE iphoto that could sort my photos now. I’m very organized with my PC so I love this.
• I LOVE the iCal.
• I LOVE Photo Booth. OMG the integrated webcam is so much better than my crappy laptop’s webcam.
• I LOVE how Microsoft Office for Mac looks like.

Other than that everything else was so-so. I don’t really like MSN for Mac. Too plain and simple. Almost everything on mac is just too simple. I hate the fact that there aren’t a lot of torrents for Mac. There aren’t a lot of softwares for Mac compared to PC. Winamp does not support Mac I can’t think of anything else cuz it’s almost 4 am now, haha.

EDIT// I forgot to mention that Apple lacks Blu-Ray support. Playing DVD with DVD Player software suuuuucks. When on fullscreen, the picture has some pixelation/blurry, and I can’t get my DVD to fit the screen on full screen play (like non-widescreen DVD stays that way). I wish GOM Player supports Mac And I wish iMac support Blu-Ray! T__T

THE WIRELESS KEYBOARD & MAGIC MOUSE

So now iMac comes standard with the wireless keyboard and magic mouse. I ABSO-FRIGGIN-LUTELY IN LOVE WITH THEM!! OMG I’m not kidding.

The keyboard is SO SMALL! Took me a while to get used to it. The arrow keys are so small. But I love how thin and light it is. The keys also are quiet and soft and I don’t need to press hard unlike my Microsoft wireless keyboard. Because it’s so small, it’s easier to press the shortcuts since I have small hands. However I still can’t get used to the command key. Now I have to use my left thumb to press it. I usually always end up pressing fn or control instead.

Now onto the magic mouse.

OH MY GOD.

I am so in LOVE with the magic mouse! Best thing ever and this is the main thing that I love the most with apple computer.

Okay, at first it feels weird because it’s quite flat and big compared to my old PC mouse. It has a flat, smooth surface too and no buttons. At first I thought how the heck do I work with a single mouse button? It has an on/off switcher which is a good feature that my wireless mouse lacks because if you use the magic mouse for laptop, you’d want to turn off the mouse to save batteries. With my old wireless mouse, I had to take out the batteries instead. Plus, my old mouse goes crazy after couple of weeks. Ate up my batteries. Magic mouse is SO SMOOTH on my computer table without needing a mouse pad or anything. And the best thing about it?

The controls! Okay, you click the left corner is the same as left mouse click but if you click on the right corner it’s right click. What’s so ‘magic’ about it? When you slide one finger left-right or up-down, it scrolls the page vertically or horizontally. If you slide one finger up-down while holding control key, you zoom in and out. And when you use 2 fingers to slide left-right, you go back or forth! EXTREMELY useful and I love this one the most because it’s easier to go back after you view a page in your internet browser instead of using your keyboard or moving the mouse over to the back button. Of course you also have the option to buy the Magic Trackpad for even more enhanced experience like using the laptop trackpad. Apple products sometime amazes me.

Yesterday I tried using my iMac for Second Life and gosh…

It was the first time that I could be on Second Life without the application lagging on highest setting. Everything was so smooth, bright, crisp and fast. Of course, looks so damn good with the 2560 x 1440 resolution. Everything so pretty @____@ HOWEVER, it cannot go over 4x antialising setting on maximized window. It will say my mac does not meet the minimum requirement and sets the setting to the lowest. But it does work fine with smaller window but I like maximized screen so what the hell. But 4x antialiasing is good already on maximized screen. Also tried The Sims 3 and whoa, feels so weird on big screen.

So the conclusion? I LOVE Mac for its simplicity. Love that it runs smoothly because my PC lags like hell. However, the screen is sooo huge that I feel it’s only good for editing or any programs that requires big screen. For surfing? It feels too big. Websites look a lot smaller here, and text too. Good thing you can zoom, but I don’t like zooming all the time. Some apple softwares can’t be maximized to full screen like Safari. I wonder if in the future there will be 50-inch computer monitor? Haha.I wonder how you’re gonna use that. TV is a different story.

Also apple products are so expensive. I want to get Final Cut Studio but it cost RM3k+ WTF. And I can’t find any download either… even if there are, it’s 50GB.. wtf. It’ll take me a year to download that. I kinda feel a bit less productive on a Mac because I can’t find any softwares to download and most of the softwares I use are for windows only. I can install Windows 7, and I already tried with Parallel Desktop 6 trial but it doesn’t use full resource. I also would need to fork out USD$80 for it.. which is very expensive once converted to Malaysian money. I could try Boot Camp and install windows 7 but still contemplating if I should. I mean I have my laptop already, so like, what’s the point? lol. But I might install it anyway so I can play games and use certain softwares

I still love Windows PC There’s a lot of softwares and games for Windows but not Mac. Well at least now I can experience the best of both worlds I just pray nobody will break into my house again and steal my iMac like they did with my old PC. I pray hard. My iMac made the ending of 2010 so awesome for me

Now I wonder how I’m gonna survive this year after spending RM8k T__T

horse tack