Steve Jobs unveiled the new iMac line to a gathering of a few hundred journalists today at the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California. That came as no surprise. Still, seeing the new iMacs in person was much more impressive than just hearing the rumors.

 

To confirm: Yes, they're housed in an aluminum case that, at about 1 inch, is "appreciably" thinner than the plastic case on previous iMacs. (Oddly, we could not get Apple to give us exact measurements - when asked directly during the Q&A session at the end, Steve demurred and said, "You'll be able to see it for yourself and measure it in the hands-on session right after this." OK, right, well we had neglected to bring our tape measure.) Yes, they come with two brand-new ultra-thin keyboards: a wired keyboard, which is just a third of an inch at its lowest point, with a bit less key travel than the previous Apple keyboard but a lot more style and a bit less tap-a-tap-tap noise, and a wireless keyboard that's more compact than its wired cousin but offers almost as many keys (ditching the number 10-key pad). Yes, Apple has discontinued the 17-incher, offering the new iMac line in two 20-inch models and one 24-inch inch model.

 

The 24-inch iMac is HUGE. In a good way.

 

A few new details that the media hadn't thought to speculate on: The ultra-bright LCD screen is glossy, fully encased in glass. It's the same glossy screen you'll find offered in the MacBook notebook line, in fact. That, plus a black border around the display area, makes images and video literally pop on the iMac's screen - although the jury is out on whether users could run into severe problems with glare.

 

The new iMac line's pricing is the same or - in the case of the 24-inch model - cheaper than that of the old line. The three price tiers start at $1,199 for a 20-inch iMac with a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, $1,499 for a 20-incher with a 2.4GHz processor, and $1,799 for a 24-incher with 2.4GHz processor (but, obviously, more storage and memory than the 20-incher with the same processor).

 

In addition to its sleek new form factor, the iMac keyboards have new buttons, including tiny buttons in the upper left to brighten or dim the display, jump to Expose settings, or launch Dashboard. In the upper right, there are media control keys (play, pause, fast-forward, rewind, etc.) that work automatically with iTunes, iMovie, QuickTime, and other apps. The wired keyboard sports two - count 'em! - USB 2.0 ports as well.

 

In a 30-second test drive of the new iMac keyboard, we discovered that it felt quite natural to type, despite the shorter key travel than Apple's standard keyboard. See the two new keyboards side by side on Apple's website.

 

Expansion addicts will appreciate the iMac's new ports: FireWire 800 and Gigabit Ethernet. And, as you might expect from Apple - which is hell-bent on reducing the tangle of cables that usually protrudes from a typical computer setup - 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 are built-in as well. You've also got a built-in, slot-loading SuperDrive - although we counted the number of times Steve repeated the prediction that "people won't be burning DVDs anymore" so it's almost surprising that Apple deigned to include it. As for the geekier specs, the 24-inch iMac can accommodate an up to 1TB hard drive, and all models can take up to 4GB of RAM. The iMac line now features the ATI Radeon HD graphics processor, and any iMac model allows you to connect a second display.

 

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