I’ve been using my iMac now for four days and the novelty still hasn’t worn off. Since it never did with 2.5 years of using a G4 Mac Mini then I don’t expect this to wear off anytime soon.

Before buying the iMac I had been reading some posts on the official Apple Support Forums regarding the 20in display. There were lots of complaints about a gradient look - dark at the top, fading at the bottom to the point that icons in the dock looked washed out. This was one of my biggest concerns especially when spending £800 - the most I’ve ever spent on a computer. When I first switched the iMac on the display was a lot brighter than I felt comfortable with but this was quickly remedied by going into System Preferences and selecting Displays and then Colors. I calibrated the monitor and switched from 1.8 Standard Gamma to 2.2 Television Gamma. This made it much less bright and colours looked more real.

Another concern was the possibility of dead pixels. This can happen with any monitor, of course, but I haven’t had dead pixels on any of the past couple of displays I’ve used and I’m happy to say that continues to be the case with the iMac. I changed the wallpaper to a black background to check this and it’s all clear

I already touched on the Glossy Display in my initial entry regarding the iMac. Because I hadn’t physically seen/touched the new iMac before my purchase I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It’s absolutely fine for me. Yesterday we had quite a bright and especially sunny morning and although I could see my reflection a little, it wasn’t to the point where that’s all I could see or concentrate on. As I sit here now I wouldn’t be able to find my reflection even if I was looking for it.

The other thing I’m enjoying with the new iMac is the keyboard. I’m not new to the slim aluminum keyboard as I ordered mine back in August moments after the Apple Event announcing the new iMac/keyboard. But, I have been plagued by one minor niggle which I can see now bothered me more than I realised. I suffered from a sticky key. Sounds painful I know. My Caps Lock key needed two strikes before it would come on or off. Because I loved everything else about the keyboard I was reluctant about sending it back for a replacement. Infact I thought it was perhaps down to it’s newness and would loosen up in time. But, since receiving the new keyboard with the iMac I now realise that was more of a glitch than anything else as this one is perfect and I don’t feel like I’m going to get RSI in my left wrist through striking the caps key hard.

So, what about Leopard? Well, I haven’t played around the iWeb, iMovie, iDVD or iPhoto yet. I was previously using iLife 05 with my Mac Mini which lacked iWeb. I did have a quick wander in and the themes looked very nice. Seems like a great little package for people wanting to set up a website quickly. I am not sure I will find any use for it just yet.

One of the things I was looking forward to using with Leopard was Photo Booth. Again, since I was using a 2005 Mac Mini I didn’t have the pleasure of iSight or Photo Booth, but now with the added backdrops I was looking forward to having a play around. My first attempt didn’t work out too great as the lighting has to be right for it to work correctly, otherwise it can look a pixelated mess, but last night I cracked it by switching on the main light in the home office and I think these turned out rather well…

Even though I don’t use Instant Messaging hugely, I do think the new feature in iChat which allows you to screen share with a buddy is really very cool. Yesterday I was having an issue where I couldn’t bring up certain websites on the new iMac yet was able to do so quite happily on the iPod touch and iMac G3 which all share the same internet connection. As I sat scratching my head, Graham kindly offered to have a look around my Mac on screen sharing with iChat and although we didn’t get around to it (as it seems everything is okay now) it’s a marvelous feature for those times when you’re having a technical issue and don’t quite know how to fix it yourself.

I will be buying some external speakers for the iMac soon. I find that the built-in speakers lack punch which disappointed me a little. I have been using JBL Pro speakers with the Mac Mini which previously came with my Compaq Presario desktop computer in 2000! And yes, they are beige and boring which would look completely out of place in my current set-up! So, I’m on the lookout for some new speakers. If you have any recommendations then do pass them on. I don’t want to spend huge amounts of money so if you can suggest some between £60 and £100 then even better.