MWNY: New 17-inch iMac has some little tweaks, as well

The three big differences in the new iMac from its predecessor (the high-end 15-inch SuperDrive model) are a bigger display, bigger hard drive and improved graphics card. However, there are also some smaller changes.

The display though bigger is actually slimmer (it’s just an inch thick) than the ones on the 15-inch flat panel iMacs, Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior director of Hardware Product Marketing, told MacCentral. And the screws on the sides of the monitors are gone, improving its overall appearance, he added. The “halo” that’s designed to protect the screen from fingerprints actually covers even more of the display. Finally, the font type used in the iMac for the system has been changed — though you wouldn’t notice it unless you saw it side by side with a previous model.

Joswiak feels that once people actually see the new 17-inch widescreen LCD, they’ll appreciate just how much of an improvement it is. It has a wide aspect ratio of 16:10, perfect for watching DVDs in letterbox format, viewing multiple windows at one time, or playing games. What’s more, the new display has a resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels, offering 64 percent more pixels than the 15-inch flat screen iMac.

“We think customers will love it,” he said. “After all, we view the world in ‘wide screen.'”

When it comes to gaming, Joswiak said that the 17-inch iMac offered considerable more oomph with the Nvidia GeForce4 MX graphics card, which replaces the GeForce2 MX card in the other flat panel iMacs. The GeForce4 MX card is the best “mainstream” graphics card around.

The 17-inch iMac also comes with an 80GB hard drive — that’s a 20GB boost from the previous high-end model. The new 17-inch widescreen LCD iMac is due in early August. It has a suggested retail price of US $1,999.