Last year I migrated myself to the Macintosh OSX platform using an iMac and I was very happy with the transformation, the thing about an mac is once you get used to it you just can’t go back to windows.

I first purchased the 20″ iMac and soon after say about 4 months moved to the the 24 inch iMac and used it most of the year 2009, but now I am moving to the 21.5 inch iMac you might be surprised about this decision coz there is also another iMac available that is 27 inch and its logical to move from 24 inch to a 27 inch mac but I am moving to 21.5 iMac to find out why continue reading.

I have been using computers now for nearly 16 or so years and on an average day I spend around 10 – 14 hrs / day on the computer well needless to say that this is excessive usage has made my body very sensitive and thus these days I put a lot of thought on ergonomics.

Bright like a torch

The 24 inch iMac is great machine but the problem I found with the same are that the screen is excessive bright for my eyes (375 cdm). You might say I am finicky and I could just reduce the brightness but even on the lowest brightness setting its too bright for me (the lowest brightness setting is like 70% brightness set on my laptop which needless to say is pretty bright).

After a year of usage its started to hurt my eyes, don’t get me wrong the screen is gorgeous and looks vibrant but a person like me who spends a lot of time reading, coding and starting at the screen this brightness is just too much, even my friend has a 24″ iMac and he also complained to me regarding the brightness to overcome this I have found a free software utility called shades which helps a lot to reduce the brightness but again this causes another problem, its distorts a bit the color accuracy which is again important for me as I work with images.

21.5 iMac of the left and 24 iMac on the right side by side, the 21.5 iMac is set on 25% brightness and the 24″ iMac is on 0% brightness do note that the 24″ is a lot brighter even on 0% brightness also noticed the height difference.

Non adjustable height

If you notice an iMac the stand is fixed to the monitor and there is no height adjustment for it, for stress free and ergonomic working conditions the top of the monitor should not be above your head while you a sitting and working on the computer, but the problem with the 24″ iMac is that the top of the iMac for me is almost 3 inches above my head, I did not give it a thought earlier but I have started to notice some neck pain during the last couple of months and I suspect that this is due to the excessive height position of the 24″ and 27″ iMac.

The new iMac 21.5 and 27 inch

Apple recently upgraded there iMac range with the 21.5 and the gigantic but gorgeous 27 inch iMac, the most striking features of the new iMac are the LED backlit screens these screens are much easier on the eyes and their brightness  range is very broad they can go very low to very high brightness if required which is the way 24 inch iMac should have been and you don’t need software like shades with the brightness range provided, in fact  the new LED screens on the new iMac are so good that with the low brightness setting  you can just use a night lamp and work with these new iMac and it would not stress your eyes.

Why I did not choose the 27″ iMac

The 27″ iMac has a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels which is huge compared 21.5″ 1920 x 1080 pixels or even compared to 24″ iMac which is at 1920 x 1200 pixels, to put all those 2560 x 1140 pixels into the 27″ iMac apple has to increase the PPI (pixel per inches) to 107 PPI for the 27″ iMac which in turn makes the text characters on the screen a bit small, I tested an 27″ iMac in an istore and after 20 mins the 27″ iMac high PPI was giving me an eye fatigue.

While the PPI for 21.5″ iMac is 102 and for the old 24″ it was at 94 PPI, an ideal PPI range would be between 90 – 100 PPI for desktop monitors, the higher PPI are ideal for laptops as you tend to keep laptops much more near to your eyes than desktop monitors,  I can manage the 102 PPI that is on the 21.5″ iMac but the 107 on the 27″ is just too much for my eyes, also the height of the 27″ iMac is the same as the 24″ iMac which will again cause ergonomic problems.

I would have loved to have the 27″ iMac as it is like having two monitors but due to the PPI and the height problems I have setteled with the 21.5″ iMac and will probably add a second LCD monitor (I have a 15″ spare LCD monitor) to get the extended desktop space.

iMac 21.5 and 24 side by side