I wouldnt mind one...... but i guess you wont be able to buy them at the Apple store any time soon.... I thought SJ said the CRT was dead...... Maybe its time to go back to college
I just played with the US page a bit and it looks like any customers eligible for the education store can buy one. Now all they need to do is drop the price to what the CRT iMac's selling for and replace those machines with the eMac.
I checked that too, the 1280x960 res is only available at a barely passable 72hz (versus the flicker free goodnesss of an LCD) but 1152x864@80hz is respectable.
To all those who said (way back when) that a 17" display would be impossible without making the iMac huge, you were all wrong, the eMac is 8mm shorter than the iMac! Or who said no G4 for heat reasons, you were wrong too! Though I guess the new iMac and the Powerbook have already made that argument strongly enough.
Wow, without warning Apple releases a completely new and unexpected computer.
Looks like resonable pricing. But turning up to a PC LAN party with any non-Power Mac Mac is bad karma
Industrial design is icky. It looks like a magnified drop of milk or cream or something in mid air.
It makes sense. A computer built for education. I reckon it will sell well.
In the press release it calls the eMac "first desktop designed just for education"
What about the G3 All-In-One?
<off-topic rant on evils of microsoft in education>
I live in the Australian Capital Territory, where every school in the Territory is contractually obliged to use microsoft products.
At first it seemed like a good idea. Microsoft offered it's entire software suite and NT 4 for free. Now every computer in the state was a PC not a Mac, a copy of Windows 2000 is AUD$1100 (about US$600). WAY above retail, and with new motherboards only having USB for mice/keyboards, a neccessity. But the retarded Education Department signed the contract.
<strong>To all those who said (way back when) that a 17" display would be impossible without making the iMac huge, you were all wrong, the eMac is 8mm shorter than the iMac! Or who said no G4 for heat reasons, you were wrong too! Though I guess the new iMac and the Powerbook have already made that argument strongly enough.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The new eMac is not in an old iMac shell. It has a fan pushing air out. from the specifications page, the iMac and eMac are 17.1 inches deep. The old iMac is .2 cm deeper, but it was also intentionally bulbous. The eMac is taller and wider of course, by .8 inches in each dimension. It's 15.3 pounds heavier too.
Personally, I think it'll tank. Its design is no longer trendy. It looks like a badminton birdie. The specs are hardly differentiable from the LCD iMac. I'm just wondering why they are keeping the old G3 iMacs at all. They should just go with the 17" eMac...put a 600-700 MHz G3 in it, stick a CD-ROM or CD-RW in it and sell it for $749-$999.
Naw, it wont tank, but its still too expensive, although here in the UK its gonna look quite nice at £750-850 or what over-inflated amount they choose. Lots of schools would love to replace their Rev A-D iMac's with something a lot faster. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> Maybe a price drop will come before schools have to finish their equipment budget decisions (july-ish)
Hey guys you're missing the point. The eMac is not for consumers. It is for school use and doesn't need to be "trendy". Apple did exhaustive testing and had lots of input from educators on this computer. They actually produced a machine that was asked for.
It certainly will not "tank". Those of you who think so are dead wrong.
I think it needs a price drop to make it a good buying decision for schools, but at least there's an option now. BTW, when did this come out? I haven't been THAT out of touch, have I?
Eug, I didn't mean that an iMac shell would house a 17" CRT, though I realize it might have sounded that way -- sorry, my bad. What I mean was it was possible to make a machine of similar footprint to the 15" while using a 17" CRT. Taller, wider and heavier? Yes it is, but as long as it isn't deeper (and this eMac is actually a smidge shallower) it will go anywhere that a 15" CRT iMac would while offering the screen everyone expected since Kihei. So, it's heavier, but in reality that shouldn't matter, even the iMac with it's nice handle (which this machine could use) never really got moved around once people put it into place.
A few things, I don't see mention of the expandability??? Can this machine even be opened? The pricier model is exactly the same except for RAM and the stand. Is it possible to add your own RAM to the Machine or not? A stand certainly isn't worth a 300 dollar premium, and both machines should come with it -- they finally listen to ed. buyers what's the point of nickle and diming them for a stand that can't be more than 5 dollars worth of plastic?
Overall, it looks like a good job. Most labs I've seen use 17 and 19" CRT plus towers or AT-style desktop cases. These machines give Apple some heavy (hard to steal), yet powerful and space efficient, UNIX lab solutions. Science labs choc full of (nearly) reasonably priced macs? Yes, I think so.
PS:
Look at that shell, doesn't the shape look a lot like the last Apple CRT studio display?
I think it looks amazing, I would love to have one next to my FP iMac. I think apple will sell alot of these to schools, and for cheaper school systems, the old CRT iMac is there too. Nice move apple...
I really like this. It's a nice, simple design. Kind of looks like the machine that the original white iMac should have been. They'll look great lined up in a computer lab.
The swivel stand is great. And it's got audio-in.
The price is actually not at all bad compared to other "multimedia" computer deals for education.
We're going to find that being a serial computer purchaser will become an even more expensive business.
Though all manufacturers (including Apple) have cited increasing component costs for the recent wave of price increases, much of it is down to the last 18 to 24 months of price cutting to glean as many sales as possible from a slow market.
If you bought a computer in that time, consider yourself lucky to have picked up a bargain.
This period has seen off several big names in PC manufacturing (Apple shipped more computers than Gateway in the last quarter!), and those that remain can now push prices back up to reasonable levels and recuperate some of those lost revenues.
I for one don't mind paying more for my computer (I know I'm not exactly in the largest demographic) but I expect something in return for that money. Not necessarily power, but quality engineering. This is where Apple needs to pick up. For example, I'm pretty disappointed that Apple has chosen to offer Bluetooth in such a shoddy way.
I think I may have gone a little off topic?
Anyway, perhaps I should reconsider the lecturing offer? I'd gladly give room to an eMac on my desk. The refresh rate is a little low at the highest resolution, but the flicker isn't so noticeable if you're handling video.
<strong>Personally, I think it'll tank. Its design is no longer trendy. It looks like a badminton birdie. The specs are hardly differentiable from the LCD iMac...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple doesn't want you, the consumer, to buy it. It's a step backward for Apple in terms of technological merit and industrial design.. or at most, standing still.
My feeling is that the eMac is borne solely out of a business decision. The 17" iMac was in development for a long time (as the AI faithful are fully aware of) but was probably mothballed. Someone at Apple made a (imho good) business decision to match Dell's price-point for education systems. Apple probably blew the dust off the work they've done on the 17" iMac and are now selling a lowest-common-denominator for cash-strapped education clients. The new iMac is designed to be a dollar for dollar competitor to Dell's education systems and nothing more.
Now THAT is what the new iMac should be (well, after shaving $300 off the price - but that's Apple ) The LCD iMac should just have been just an addition to the line up (in-between the low-end and high-end systems). But, that's just my opinion!
Anyway, the design is brilliant and that flat CRT looks awesome. I am still not crazy over this whole white thing (picture that eMac with a Ti look and the chrome logo), but it's miles better than the crap CRT iMac that they have now (from design to specs).
<strong>Naw, it wont tank, but its still too expensive, (snip)(july-ish)</strong><hr></blockquote>
We only know the single unit price. I am sure that school systems which buy hundreds at a time get a better price. We have no idea how flexible Apple has decided to be with this price. As this is only intended for the education market this price doesn't tell us much.
Pennsylvania paid about 40% of sticker price for their (rather large) purchase.
Apple is quite willing to cut deals.
I'm not in touch with the K-12 education market much, but I can believe this is aimed squarely at them. There were concerns about LCDs being too brittle, there's no audio in on the LCD iMac IIRC, and the all-in-one design is better for kids. And, unlike the old iMac, this machine should be an able performer for multimedia. Looks good to me.
Maybe its time to go back to college
Comments
Dunno if i'd get one...
$1321 for the eMac with similar specs.
Tough call, I guess. I would lean toward the iMac...the only problem is the LCD screen resolution ... 1024x768 vs 1280x960...
To all those who said (way back when) that a 17" display would be impossible without making the iMac huge, you were all wrong, the eMac is 8mm shorter than the iMac! Or who said no G4 for heat reasons, you were wrong too! Though I guess the new iMac and the Powerbook have already made that argument strongly enough.
[ 04-29-2002: Message edited by: Matsu ]</p>
Looks like resonable pricing. But turning up to a PC LAN party with any non-Power Mac Mac is bad karma
Industrial design is icky. It looks like a magnified drop of milk or cream or something in mid air.
It makes sense. A computer built for education. I reckon it will sell well.
In the press release it calls the eMac "first desktop designed just for education"
What about the G3 All-In-One?
<off-topic rant on evils of microsoft in education>
I live in the Australian Capital Territory, where every school in the Territory is contractually obliged to use microsoft products.
At first it seemed like a good idea. Microsoft offered it's entire software suite and NT 4 for free. Now every computer in the state was a PC not a Mac, a copy of Windows 2000 is AUD$1100 (about US$600). WAY above retail, and with new motherboards only having USB for mice/keyboards, a neccessity. But the retarded Education Department signed the contract.
</rant>
Barto
<strong>To all those who said (way back when) that a 17" display would be impossible without making the iMac huge, you were all wrong, the eMac is 8mm shorter than the iMac! Or who said no G4 for heat reasons, you were wrong too! Though I guess the new iMac and the Powerbook have already made that argument strongly enough.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The new eMac is not in an old iMac shell. It has a fan pushing air out. from the specifications page, the iMac and eMac are 17.1 inches deep. The old iMac is .2 cm deeper, but it was also intentionally bulbous. The eMac is taller and wider of course, by .8 inches in each dimension. It's 15.3 pounds heavier too.
[ 04-29-2002: Message edited by: Eugene ]</p>
It certainly will not "tank". Those of you who think so are dead wrong.
Wouldn't that make it a perfect steal, so to speak? no lock or anything?
A few things, I don't see mention of the expandability??? Can this machine even be opened? The pricier model is exactly the same except for RAM and the stand. Is it possible to add your own RAM to the Machine or not? A stand certainly isn't worth a 300 dollar premium, and both machines should come with it -- they finally listen to ed. buyers what's the point of nickle and diming them for a stand that can't be more than 5 dollars worth of plastic?
Overall, it looks like a good job. Most labs I've seen use 17 and 19" CRT plus towers or AT-style desktop cases. These machines give Apple some heavy (hard to steal), yet powerful and space efficient, UNIX lab solutions. Science labs choc full of (nearly) reasonably priced macs? Yes, I think so.
PS:
Look at that shell, doesn't the shape look a lot like the last Apple CRT studio display?
The swivel stand is great. And it's got audio-in.
The price is actually not at all bad compared to other "multimedia" computer deals for education.
We're going to find that being a serial computer purchaser will become an even more expensive business.
Though all manufacturers (including Apple) have cited increasing component costs for the recent wave of price increases, much of it is down to the last 18 to 24 months of price cutting to glean as many sales as possible from a slow market.
If you bought a computer in that time, consider yourself lucky to have picked up a bargain.
This period has seen off several big names in PC manufacturing (Apple shipped more computers than Gateway in the last quarter!), and those that remain can now push prices back up to reasonable levels and recuperate some of those lost revenues.
I for one don't mind paying more for my computer (I know I'm not exactly in the largest demographic) but I expect something in return for that money. Not necessarily power, but quality engineering. This is where Apple needs to pick up. For example, I'm pretty disappointed that Apple has chosen to offer Bluetooth in such a shoddy way.
I think I may have gone a little off topic?
Anyway, perhaps I should reconsider the lecturing offer? I'd gladly give room to an eMac on my desk. The refresh rate is a little low at the highest resolution, but the flicker isn't so noticeable if you're handling video.
[ 04-29-2002: Message edited by: Belle ]</p>
<strong>Personally, I think it'll tank. Its design is no longer trendy. It looks like a badminton birdie. The specs are hardly differentiable from the LCD iMac...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple doesn't want you, the consumer, to buy it. It's a step backward for Apple in terms of technological merit and industrial design.. or at most, standing still.
My feeling is that the eMac is borne solely out of a business decision. The 17" iMac was in development for a long time (as the AI faithful are fully aware of) but was probably mothballed. Someone at Apple made a (imho good) business decision to match Dell's price-point for education systems. Apple probably blew the dust off the work they've done on the 17" iMac and are now selling a lowest-common-denominator for cash-strapped education clients. The new iMac is designed to be a dollar for dollar competitor to Dell's education systems and nothing more.
It's not supposed to rock your world.
Anyway, the design is brilliant and that flat CRT looks awesome. I am still not crazy over this whole white thing (picture that eMac with a Ti look and the chrome logo), but it's miles better than the crap CRT iMac that they have now (from design to specs).
<strong>COMPLETLEY off topic, but welcome back Belle!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thank you, torifile. It's good to be back. And a good time to be back - who'd have thought there'd be new hardware?!
And now I'm off to have Jonathan ban you for posting off-topic.
<strong>Naw, it wont tank, but its still too expensive, (snip)(july-ish)</strong><hr></blockquote>
We only know the single unit price. I am sure that school systems which buy hundreds at a time get a better price. We have no idea how flexible Apple has decided to be with this price. As this is only intended for the education market this price doesn't tell us much.
Pennsylvania paid about 40% of sticker price for their (rather large) purchase.
Apple is quite willing to cut deals.
I'm not in touch with the K-12 education market much, but I can believe this is aimed squarely at them. There were concerns about LCDs being too brittle, there's no audio in on the LCD iMac IIRC, and the all-in-one design is better for kids. And, unlike the old iMac, this machine should be an able performer for multimedia. Looks good to me.