Gear

Review: Apple's 27-inch iMac and Magic Mouse Make an Excellent Pair

Apple’s new 27-inch iMac is a speed demon, especially the model shipping with the new Core i7 processor. Even better, the latest iMacs ship with the new Magic Mouse, Apple’s first single-button mouse that gets it right thanks to the powers of multitouch. Wired.com’s Mike Calore is mesmerized with his Core i7-powered iMac. He gave […]

Apple's new 27-inch iMac is a speed demon, especially the model shipping with the new Core i7 processor. Even better, the latest iMacs ship with the new Magic Mouse, Apple's first single-button mouse that gets it right thanks to the powers of multitouch.

Wired.com's Mike Calore is mesmerized with his Core i7-powered iMac. He gave it a rating of 8 out of 10:

**

Put one of Apple's new 27-inch Core i7 iMacs on your desk, and you run the risk of alienating yourself from your friends, co-workers and loved ones.

*Sure, the sheer speed of the thing is amazing — the new Core i7 processor is outrageously fast — but it's the massive screen that will turn your brain into a gob of HD-saturated jelly. Seriously. The iMac's screen is so freaking huge, so bright and so crisp, it will render you dumb with child-like glee. You'll just want to sit there and watch movies all day and night. *

**

And yours truly was a fan of the Magic Mouse. I think it's the first Apple mouse that doesn't suck. (I wasn't a fan of the Mighty Mouse because of its gunk-collecting trackball.) I gave it a 7 out of 10, knocking off a few points because of the lack of Exposé functionality:

The Magic Mouse ditches the lozenge-shaped body and gunk-collecting trackball of its predecessor (the Mighty Mouse) in favor of a curvy wedge shape with a fully touch-sensitive housing. The new form factor fits more naturally in your hand than previous Apple mice — enough so to erase the painful memories you have of that atrocious hockey-puck mouse from the '90s.

....

As is often the case, these gains come with loss, too. The Mighty Mouse had a clickable scroll wheel and two squeeze sensors on the side that could each trigger the Exposé and Spaces tools for desktop management. The Magic Mouse doesn't have any built-in gestures for Exposé, which seems like a wasted opportunity.

Want the full gist? See Mike's full review of the iMac and my writeup of the Magic Mouse at the Wired Reviews site.

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Photo: Mike Calore/Wired.com