Apple launches low-end 'education only' $999 iMac with Core i3 CPU
Apple on Monday launched a new, entry-level 21.5-inch iMac meant specifically for educational institutions, sporting a dual-core 3.1GHz Intel Core i3 processor and a price of just $999.
The model, labeled "education only," is $150 less than the $1,149 model available to students, which packs a quad-core 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 processor. That same model is available for $1,199 to the general public without a student discount.
The new $999 iMac is only listed on Apple's Higher Educational online store as of Monday morning, according to MacRumors. The technical specifications of the new machine were made available in a support document on Apple's site. They include:
3.1GHz Intel Core i3 Dual-Core
21.5-inch LCD
AMD Radeon HD 6750 with 256MB
2GB RAM
250GB Hard Drive
SuperDrive
OS X Lion
In addition to a slower Core i3 processor, the entry-level iMac has less RAM, at just 2GB, a smaller 250GB hard drive, and a 256MB graphics card. The $1,149 student-priced Core i5 iMac has 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive and a 512MB graphics card.
The report did not indicate whether the education-only iMac includes the high-speed Thunderbolt port and FaceTime HD camera Apple added to the iMac lineup with its latest refresh in May.
The new $999 iMac is not the first time Apple has sold a model intended specifically for education institutions. For example, in 2009, the company continued to sell its 17-inch iMac for $899, even after the all-in-one desktop had been phased out of public sales in favor of new 20-inch and 24-inch models.
And last month, Apple discontinued its legacy white MacBook, officially replacing it with the entry-level $999 MacBook Air. But the white MacBook, model No. MC516, remains available for education institutions only, for now.
The model, labeled "education only," is $150 less than the $1,149 model available to students, which packs a quad-core 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 processor. That same model is available for $1,199 to the general public without a student discount.
The new $999 iMac is only listed on Apple's Higher Educational online store as of Monday morning, according to MacRumors. The technical specifications of the new machine were made available in a support document on Apple's site. They include:
3.1GHz Intel Core i3 Dual-Core
21.5-inch LCD
AMD Radeon HD 6750 with 256MB
2GB RAM
250GB Hard Drive
SuperDrive
OS X Lion
In addition to a slower Core i3 processor, the entry-level iMac has less RAM, at just 2GB, a smaller 250GB hard drive, and a 256MB graphics card. The $1,149 student-priced Core i5 iMac has 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive and a 512MB graphics card.
The report did not indicate whether the education-only iMac includes the high-speed Thunderbolt port and FaceTime HD camera Apple added to the iMac lineup with its latest refresh in May.
The new $999 iMac is not the first time Apple has sold a model intended specifically for education institutions. For example, in 2009, the company continued to sell its 17-inch iMac for $899, even after the all-in-one desktop had been phased out of public sales in favor of new 20-inch and 24-inch models.
And last month, Apple discontinued its legacy white MacBook, officially replacing it with the entry-level $999 MacBook Air. But the white MacBook, model No. MC516, remains available for education institutions only, for now.
Comments
On a non religious war note, I wonder whether the remarkably rapid penetration of iPad into the education space is motivating Apple to pay renewed attention. Seems we've gone for a long while without any significant education-only models and then two come along at once.
Not to bad a deal and really the better model.
2 GB of ram is just weak. Its the one crippling thing with the low end 11" Air.
Of course, you can at least upgrade the iMac ram.
2 GB of ram is just weak. Its the one crippling thing with the low end 11" Air.
Of course, you can at least upgrade the iMac ram.
You can upgrade the MBA11" too to 4GB RAM (and 256 HD).
You can upgrade the MBA11" too to 4GB RAM (and 256 HD).
He's referring to upgrading the individual machine after purchase. The base 11" Air is stuck with 2GB ram, you can upgrade the SSD, but it's expensive.
You can upgrade the MBA11" too to 4GB RAM (and 256 HD).
You can order 4GB RAM at order time, but after that, you need to replace the entire main board to go from 2 to 4.
edit: beat to the punch by Esoom.
I'm fairly certain that the $999 price point with those features (or even slightly better) could easily be beat by volume purchasing (which is what schools would be doing) from Dell, Asus, HP, etc. Yes, those machines are crap and would be a nightmare to administer but school decision makers will place a higher priority on the bottom line than usability.
I mean, $100/$200/$300 savings per machine by going with "the other guys" will add up if you're ordering 100/200/300 machines.
Seems like the better thing would be to offer a complete "educational solution" to schools—Mac mini server ($799), a Thunderbolt RAID ($499) and "dumb" 17" iMacs (4GB RAM, 0 GB storage, shared video memory—$699 each). Optimized of course, so that students could have fast internet access and application services, but couldn't play Starcraft 2 (which would be my temptation!). A school could purchase a full lab (mini+RAID+30 iMacs) for a little over $22,000, which will look better to a school administrator than $29,970 (30 "education only" iMacs). And, as nothing could be stored locally on the iMacs, school IT managers would have full control over the content.
Drop margins down to the barest minimum, and Apple won't make a whole lot of money, but they could regain the top spot in the education market again, and everyone in education is a consumer as well, which is Apple's main target.
Well, a student can get the current lowend for $150 more and get a faster processor, double the ram, double the HD and double the graphics ram.
Not to bad a deal and really the better model.
2 GB of ram is just weak. Its the one crippling thing with the low end 11" Air.
Of course, you can at least upgrade the iMac ram.
Depends on the use (see below). For personal use, I'd definitely go with the i5 model. But if you're talking about a Mac that's going to sit in a library or computer lab and not do much other than Safari and Office, this model will be fine - and the savings might easily be justified.
As one of the articles I was reading about this pointed out, this makes no sense as a personal, in the dorm room Mac. That $150 savings is not much for what you miss out on. However, this is great as a lab Mac. You can secure the keyboard and mouse, and you wouldn't want to try and pair keyboards in a room with 40 Macs side-by-side anyways.
Exactly. If you are buying 20 iMacs for a lab, you'd get a couple more with the lower priced model and if the i3 with 2 GB is sufficient, why not? (Although, particularly if they're running Lion, I'd spend the $50 to upgrade to 4 GB, anyway).
I'm reluctant to even bring this up because I sound like a troll even as I'm thinking this, but...
I'm fairly certain that the $999 price point with those features (or even slightly better) could easily be beat by volume purchasing (which is what schools would be doing) from Dell, Asus, HP, etc. Yes, those machines are crap and would be a nightmare to administer but school decision makers will place a higher priority on the bottom line than usability..
Not at all. School decision makers are supposed to be placing a higher priority on the educational needs of their students. If they're buying Macs, they've already determined that Macs are a better choice for their students than Dell/Asus/HP/etc crapware.
Given that choice, this new model provides a way for them to buy a lower cost machine if they wish (although a Mini with external monitor might be an even more cost effective choice if they don't mind having to chain them down).
I'm reluctant to even bring this up because I sound like a troll even as I'm thinking this, but...
I'm fairly certain that the $999 price point with those features (or even slightly better) could easily be beat by volume purchasing (which is what schools would be doing) from Dell, Asus, HP, etc. Yes, those machines are crap and would be a nightmare to administer but school decision makers will place a higher priority on the bottom line than usability.
I mean, $100/$200/$300 savings per machine by going with "the other guys" will add up if you're ordering 100/200/300 machines.
Seems like the better thing would be to offer a complete "educational solution" to schools?Mac mini server ($799), a Thunderbolt RAID ($499) and "dumb" 17" iMacs (4GB RAM, 0 GB storage, shared video memory?$699 each). Optimized of course, so that students could have fast internet access and application services, but couldn't play Starcraft 2 (which would be my temptation!). A school could purchase a full lab (mini+RAID+30 iMacs) for a little over $22,000, which will look better to a school administrator than $29,970 (30 "education only" iMacs). And, as nothing could be stored locally on the iMacs, school IT managers would have full control over the content.
Drop margins down to the barest minimum, and Apple won't make a whole lot of money, but they could regain the top spot in the education market again, and everyone in education is a consumer as well, which is Apple's main target.
Actually, there's a bigger differential than that. There are Dell laptops for $400 and those are catalog sales to a single user. There are probably deeper discounts for bulk buying for institutions. If you're using a computer primarily for web browsing and maybe some Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents, that's "good enough" and far less expensive than going Mac in terms of capital costs. Face it: you're a school administrator and you've been given $1 million. You can buy 1000 Macs or 2000 PCs. You're not going to care about the elegance of the OS or all of the things you can do on the touch pad. You just want to get computers in front of students, so that parents will think that their kids are being properly educated with "computer technology".
Longer term maintenance costs might be a different story, although my son-in-law puts in about 30 hours a week maintaining Macs (and the network) at a production house, so Macs aren't exactly as maintenance free as the hype would have one believe. And the reality is that when students go into a corporate environment, unless it's the design or photo department, chances are they'll be working on a (cruddy) PC anyway, although that is slowly changing at some companies.
Longer term maintenance costs might be a different story, although my son-in-law puts in about 30 hours a week maintaining Macs (and the network) at a production house, so Macs aren't exactly as maintenance free as the hype would have one believe.
The "hype" only says that Macs are much more maintenance free than PCs. That's still true. As you said, your son-in-law puts in less than a full work week maintaining Macs and the network at a production house. i.e. a part time guy.
And the reality is that when students go into a corporate environment, unless it's the design or photo department, chances are they'll be working on a (cruddy) PC anyway, although that is slowly changing at some companies.
But so what? These people who trot out the tired old argument "education should have PCs because that's what's used in business" are being stupid for these reasons:
1. Is your goal for your kids in life to be office clerks? How about Doctors, Lawyers, run their own business, musicians, actors, etc.? Does it really matter what brand of OS they used in school? Only some kids will end up in cubicle farms.
2. Do you really think it takes a child 12 years to learn to use Windows and MS Office? If they're over the age of 35, Windows (in a usable form, anyway) didn't even exist in schools. How do you think the people in offices today managed to learn PCs. It only takes a couple of weeks to learn Windows once you have basic computing skills. But yet these people are willing to put in computers that are less engaging for the kids, and cost more to maintain, just so a fraction of them don't have to take a few windows classes when they grow up?
3. The maintenance. I'd rather my tax dollars go toward educational materials, teacher salaries, etc. then excess computer maintenance.
But enough derailing. Back to the topic:
iMac - good lab machine, but for personal use, spend the extra and get a regular iMac (or MacBook Air)
Couldn't wait for a few posts to derail the thread?
Agreed
8 Gigs Ram from Crucial $65
Microsoft Keyboard $9.99 (bulk cdwg)
Logitec wheel Mouse $9.99 (bulk cdwg)
20" Dell Monitor $179
Total cost $842.98 (ed price)
CDROM if you want one (we only use 1 on the instructor stations) $79.00
Its cheaper
Its more Powerful
It has 4x the ram
We can throw away broken nasty keyboards and mice whenever we want because they are cheap
We do no have the throw away a perfectly good monitor whenever we upgrade the CPU's why green peace does not nail apple for that one I have no idea.
We could use larger monitors.
I just installed 30 of these in one school. Everyone loves them.
And the reality is that when students go into a corporate environment, unless it's the design or photo department, chances are they'll be working on a (cruddy) PC anyway, although that is slowly changing at some companies.
That's the same stupid argument that's been used for decades.
First, you're suggesting that people are too stupid to learn multiple systems - which is clearly nonsense.
Second, even if you buy that argument, students should be using what they'll use in business after they graduate - NOT what is used in business today. Historically, Macs are a better predictor of the future than Windows. For example, in 1994, students learning Windows 3.1 or DOS were wasting their time. Students using Macs could translate their experience more easily.