| Quick Facts | 20-inch iMac G5 ALS |
|---|---|
| Introduced | May 3, 2005 |
| Discontinued | October 12, 2005 |
| Part Number | M9845 |
| Processor | 2.0GHz G5 (single) |
| L2 Cache | 512 KB |
| Frontside Bus | 667 MHz |
| Memory | 512MB 400MHz DDR SDRAM |
| Hard drive | 250GB Serial ATA, 7200 rpm |
| Optical drive | 8x SuperDrive |
| Original Price | $1,799 USD |
Revision B | G5 2.0GHz | ALS
Eights months had passed since the introduction of the new G5 iMac design. This “Ambient Light Sensor” series is the first refresh, known as Revision B.
The design of this model remained the same as the 20-inch 1.8GHz iMac it replaced but was priced $100 lower.
The processor speed jumped from 1.8MHz to 2.0MHz and Apple had finally provided a reasonable amount of factory installed memory. All the models in this series came with 512MB of 400MHz PC3200 DDR SDRAM and were expandable to 2GB.
Hard drive capacity increased from 160GB to 250GB and the frontside bus nudged up from the 600MHz of its siblings to 667MHz.
This is the third iMac available with a 20-inch widescreen display. Its maximum resolution is 1680 by 1050.
Another welcomed change was having Airport Extreme and Bluetooth as built-in features. After all, the iMac was originally billed as the “Internet-age computer for the rest of us.”
The ALS series also represented a return to ATI graphics processors. The NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra in Revision A models was tossed out in favor of the ATI Radeon 9600. It had double the DDR SDRAM of the NVIDEA for a total of 128MB.
This top-of-the-line model and the mid-range 17-inch 2.0GHz iMac both came with slot-loading SuperDrives. The low-end 17-inch 1.8GHz iMac had a slot loading Combo drive.
The entire lineup had two FireWire 400 ports, three USB 2.0 ports, (two more USB 1.1 ports on the keyboard), mini-VGA output port, S-video and composite video output, headphone output, audio line in, and built-in modem and Ethernet (now 1000Base-T).
Matching white Apple keyboard and mouse were standard, or for an additional cost, customers could upgrade to wireless versions. The built-in stereo speakers are surprisingly good.
system software
Installed OS: Mac OS X v10.4 “Tiger” and Classic Mode
etymology
[1] iMac: From Internet + Mac
[2] The “i” in iMac originally stood for Internet but eventually developed into a marketing symbol for a wide range of Apple products.
[3] The Chin designation is derived from the area beneath the display resembling a square jaw.
[4] ALS: From Ambient + Light + Sensor
[5] The Ambient Light Sensor designation is derived from the sleep indicator light being able to adjust its brightness based on the light level of its surroundings.
design
Photo credit: Apple
