27" Core i7 iMacs Arriving DOA or With Cracked Screens?

Engadget reports on a growing number of complaints from purchasers of Apple's high-end 27" Intel Core i7-based iMac who have received new machines that either refuse to power on or arrive with cracked screens directly out of the box.

Apple's new Core i7-based iMac might be a performance monster, but it looks like the whole family's having some problems getting out of the gate: in addition to the previously-noted performance issues with the Core 2 Duo models, a quick glance across Apple's support forums and on other Mac boards around the web reveals that some machines are showing up DOA and / or with cracked screens. We're a little more familiar with the DOA issue, since the new i7 we just bought doesn't boot at all, but the cracked screen issue seems to be equally common and mostly affecting the bottom left corner, from what we can tell.

Reports of problems have surfaced in Apple's support forums (#1, #2), as well as in our own forums. It is unclear at this time just what proportion of the new iMacs have been affected by the issues, but the volume of complaints suggests that these may not be isolated incidents.

The 27" iMac appears to have experienced several issues since its introduction last month. In addition to these new complaints from purchasers of Core i7-based model that only recently began shipping, early users of the Core 2 Duo-based models reported performance issues related to Flash video playback. That issue, however was reportedly addressed with the release of Mac OS X 10.6.2 earlier this month.