With little debate I finally decided to buy one of the new Duo Core 20″ imacs. I would have to say that so far I have been very impressed with the overall design and functionality of this new Mac. Non native software runs very fast under Rosetta. In a comparison, MS Office suite 2004 running on a G4 1.5 gig processor is about the same give or take a few nano-seconds. The speed difference is so negligible I doubt anyone would notice the difference. The Adobe CS2 suite is marginally slower but nothing that isn’t workable. The screen is bright and beautiful and the small footprint makes it ideal for small workspaces. I also like the new built in iSight camera and the magnetic latch for the small remote. This time the remote works like it was intended to with Apple’s Front Row media suite. Airport wireless reception is very good without any wake from sleep disconnect issues. After a month of use performance is exceptional without a single reboot. No kernel panics and permission corruption’s.

Through the progression of change I believe Apple has done it right this time. (I remember not too many years ago when Apple made their first migration to the Power PC architecture and the nightmare everyone suffered for the duration of the change. Apple has successfully avoided the problem this time.)

So far I have found very few non-universal binary software that will not run on the iMac Duo Core. At the rate they are turning their product line over to the Intel processors, iMac, Mini, MacBook Pro all that is left to be introduced is a pro desktop model and a consumer iBook model to fill their line up. At the current rate I expect Apple to fill these slots by no later than the end of this year.

The question arises as to whether or not it would be a good time to make the switch to the Mac Intel machines? My response is yes. Apple’s quality on their current product lines has been well received and that is an excellent mark for any initial new product release.