Everyone should know the huge risk they are taking with a all-in-one device like the iMac.

Say that monitor fails prematurely, like a week after your AppleCare or warranty expires, what can you do? Or what can you do if your hard drive fails? You'll find out fa$t!

There is a huge risk placing all your hardware eggs in one basket, longer down times, more expensive repairs and premature upgrades.

If you want a big screen Mac, get a Mac Pro and a large monitor. You'll be happier in the long run as parts are easily replaceable by yourself or someone who has the nerve to take the cover off. Also you can replace or remove the hard drive (and your private data) before taking the machine in for service.

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Purchased Core i5 iMac from store on January 5th and received a Week 52 machine later that day as the store got two machines delivered.

-No flickering arose until day 14 (or so) intermittent problems for 24 hours as machine got quite hot.

-Turned off for night roughly 12 hours

-No problems for another week then screen flicker and wacky stuff

-Put machine to sleep and have used since without trouble

-Installed second update today so far so good

The ironic thing is that by the time Apple finally fixes the 27" iMac, catches up with demand and convinces the fence sitters that it's safe to buy one, a new model will be due out. Whether Apple actually releases such an update is hard to say because the iMac has been known to get no love for an entire year.

I'm short of disposable income right now so I've been able to sit back and watch the whole 27" saga unfold. By the time I've got enough money for an i7 it should be equipped with USB 3 ports and something more up-to-date than a Radeon 4xxx series GPU.

I know a LOT of people with these machines, and no one with any issues. This must be a specific batch, specific manufacturer or something? Seems isolated and very much the minority of machines, with few showing quite the same symptoms.

Cracked glass I understand - delivery companies throw the boxes around like they're indestructible. But a few people have yellowing, some have flickering, some have both. For some the firmware updates have fixes it, for others no joy.

I understand Apple's frustration. They won't have let these into the wild if the problems had happened in house, and I get the feeling they're very difficult to replicate and therefore find the common factors which indicate common fixes.

That said, I love these units, they're incredible machines, but even one going wrong is a problem for Apple's rep'. Just a shame the way the media focus on even the slightest slip up from Apple, let alone an issue which has been so widespread, even if on a tiny minority of a large number of shipped units.

Guess i'm lucky because i got my 27" iMac on Halloween and mine great

Apple fixed the problem a week ago. What's the big deal?