New iMacs and Mac-Mini

So, the new iMacs are here: Conroe (or "Core 2 Duo" if you're not keeping up with the Inside Baseball), bigger screens (up to 24") and Nvidia graphics.

The slight uptick in processor speeds is more important that it looks: the Conroe chip runs cooler and faster than the Yonah chip (Core Duo) it replaces. It's also 64-bit, and this will be a big selling point for Apple when OSX 10.5 Leopard is released next year.

That enormous 24" screen (1900x1200) is presumably a close relative of the Apple 23" Cinema Display and as such is lust-inducing all by itself.

If I didn't already have monitors (and other computers I use with those monitors, I'd be very tempted to buy one, but what I really want is the same specification sans screen. A sort of iMac Mini.

There's this huge gap in Apple's model range between the two headless systems, the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro, and yes the iMac does fit into the gap on the basis of its specification, it also comes with a huge monitor, which you then can't use if you upgrade to a more powerful Mac Pro.

Maybe if Apple just put a DVI-in socket on the iMac, so that you can use the monitor from an external source...

The Mac Mini also received a slight upgrade, with an all dual core line up (Yonah, not Conroe) but still 32-bit and with no improvement in the integrated graphics. Nice, but I think there'll be an upgrade to the 64-bit chip before Leopard comes out, and probably better integrated graphics.