As promised, I’ll continue the “Great iMac Odyssey” with the two hours of dis-enjoyment prior to calling Apple once again.  I’m sure you can imagine that I was tickled pink to have yet another iMac with upgraded specs, but that little feeling was tempered with the fear of what could go wrong; and much did in respect to “quality of life.”   Instead of going into great detail, I’ll simply list the problems the new iMac had right out of the box.

• A flickering backlight that would sometimes become so bright I had to decrease the brightness on the display completely.
• The optical drive would scrape and clank with every spin.  I only dared test one cheap CD, which was more than enough to instill fear.
•  An odor, very similar to sulfur and very metallic, pervaded the room just after opening the box.  The odor increased once the unit was turned on.
• Of less importance, but annoying none the less; the mouse wouldn’t always respond to clicks.

Apart from these issues, there was a question of cleanliness that cropped up almost immediately.  Just as I would refuse a meal from a restaurant if I discovered hairs wrapped around the shrimp, I wasn’t particularly amused to find several long, black hairs clinging to the plastic wrapping of the peripherals as well as the plastic cover for the display glass.

Once again, I contacted the Customer Relations representative I had been working with, informed her of the problems, and she prepared another Advanced Replacement.  Rather than having you wait with anticipation to discover what happened when the second replacement arrived, I’ll spare you the pain and let you know that I’m writing this post on that particular system.  Everything is fine, so far.  Let’s hope this one will last for at least One Full Year.