Here’s what I ordered:
- 24″ iMac (MB420LL/A, March ’09)
- Glossy widescreen TFT active-matrix LCD (CCFL backlit)
1920×1200 maximum resolution
385 cd/m2 typical brightness
750:1 typical contrast ratio
178° horizontal, 178° vertical typical viewing angles - 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
- ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 512MB GDDR3 memory
- 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2x2GB)
6MB shared L2 cache
1066MHz frontside bus - 1.0TB 7200RPM Serial ATA Hard Drive
Slot-loading Serial ATA 8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) - 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet
802.11n Airport Extreme wireless networking
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
1x FireWire 800 port, 7 watts, up to 800MBps (backwards compatible with FireWire 400)
4x USB 2.0 ports, up to 480MBps - Internal 24-watt digital amplifier
Built-in stereo speakers, microphone, iSight camera
Optical digital audio input & output (minijacks)
Mini DisplayPort output with support for DVI, VGA, and dual-link DVI - Supports:
- Extended desktop and video mirroring modes
- Up to two external displays
- Full native resolution on the built-in display simultaneously with 2560×1600 resoultion on an external display - Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
iLife ’09 (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand)
iWork ’09 (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) - Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse (though I’ll still use my Logitech VX Revolution mouse)
Apple Wireless Keyboard
Apple Remote
These are the improvements it will offer over my current 12″ PowerBook laptop:
- 4x larger screen (12″ -> 24″)
- 3x max resolution (1024×768 or .8 megapixels -> 1920×1200 or 2.3 megapixels)
- 2x faster processor (+1.56GHz), 5x more memory (+3.23GB)
- Support for Intel-only and Mac OS X 10.5-only applications
- Support for dual-booting Windows (XP or Vista, and eventually 7)
- HD video playback
And here’s what I plan to do with it:
- Hook up my 37″ HDTV as a second monitor via DVI and my audio receiver via optical (for 5.1 surround), then run Plex media server software so I can enjoy my movie, tv show, music, and photo libraries in high definition on my home theater setup (as well as streaming content from the internet directly to my TV and speakers, such as Apple Movie Trailers, YouTube, Hulu, and Pandora).
- Install Windows (Vista or 7) with Boot Camp so I can run Steam and other PC-only games.
- Utilize better CPU and memory for faster physical media ripping and encoding (CDs and DVDs).
- Reorganize my photo library using the latest iPhoto features (places, events, facial recognition).
- Set up Time Machine so I finally have a viable backup solution.
- Have fun with creating music and maybe learning to play keyboard with GarageBand (after I buy a keyboard).
The only problem is the Radeon graphics card was a build-to-order option, which severely delayed the shipping (it now stands at 4-6 weeks 
). But I figured, this is a really damn expensive computer, and I’m planning on it lasting for several years, so… I might as well get exactly what I want, even if it takes a little while longer. 40 days and counting…
