What will Apple produce to compete with this?

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
They have lowered the price, tossed out legacy things like floppy and modem and the thing is beyond dirt cheap. Available from Walmart.com



Spec sheet....



* AMD 1.1 GHz Duron processor with 3DNow! technology

* 200 MHz frontside bus

* 128 MB SDRAM, expandable to 1 GB

* 133 MHz memory speed

* 10 GB Ultra-DMA hard drive, 5400 rpm (total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment)

* 52x CD-ROM drive

* Integrated video with up to 32 MB shared video memory

* Supports 4x AGP graphic add-in cards

* Integrated AC '97 audio

* Integrated 10/100 Ethernet connection

* ATX mid-tower case (17.5"D x 7.5"W x 15"H)

* Available drive bays: two 5.25-inch external, two 3.5-inch external

* Available slots: PCI, AGP 4x, AMR

* High-speed serial port

* Parallel port

* 2 USB 1.1 ports

* Game port

* 104-key keyboard

* 2-button mouse with wheel

* Audio port (line-in, line-out, mic-in)

* Stereo speakers

* 1-year warranty, return to Microtel



What do you think? Headless classic iMac maybe?



Nick
«13

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 46
    Apple will not go head to head (pun intended) with this kind of "computer". Forget it. They don't have to. This is the domain of Dell and Gateway.
  • Reply 2 of 46
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Hahahahahah a $200 computer system. That's just freakin' amazing. Apple better not even try man, they have to be making like $1.11 for every compter sold!



    Hey you gotta admit. It's tempting to pick one up as a box for downloading files with.



    [ 02-18-2003: Message edited by: hmurchison ]</p>
  • Reply 3 of 46
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    What a random crapshoot of a PC. A 200MHz bus and 133MHz SDRAM? Integrated video? For those curious, the product page is <a href="http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2138831&cat=86797&type=19&d ept=3944&path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A41937%3A86796%3A86 797" target="_blank">here</a>.



    If that Duron is anything like the 700MHz Duron in my brother's fiancée's Compaq, it's a dog.



    So, what should Apple do to compete with that? Nothing. It's an oversized, overdetermined email station without a monitor that is most likely crushed under the weight of Windows XP. Its profit margins are so thin that they won't even stock it in their retail stores. It's a loss leader at best.



    Now, if Apple dropped the eMac down to the iMac CRT's price point, that would do. But I don't see the point of Apple shipping barely-capable desktops just to hit a Wal-Mart price point. Seriously: I'll bet the baseline iBook can outrun that thing.
  • Reply 4 of 46
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    That's a good deal. Pirate some XP, slap in a 200USD worth of HDD and optical upgrades and you're looking a great home A/V server. woo-hoo!
  • Reply 5 of 46
    Maybe a box to toy with linux. Maybe as a home internet server. XP on that, <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> , maybe Win 98.
  • Reply 6 of 46
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    That sounds about the same as a CRT iMac. Of course, the iMac costs $600 more and includes a 15" CRT. Also, the iMac has a nonremovable Rage 128 Ultra which is probably slightly better than the integrated, shared video. However, on that PC you can add a graphics card. I am sure, though, that the 1.1 GHz CPU is much faster than the 600 MHz G3 in the iMac. The iMac does have a larger hard drive, but again, the PC can probably have multiple internal hard drives anyway. So overall it's about the same or maybe slightly worse, but it's much more expandable, has a much faster CPU, and it costs 1/4 as much. <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" /> The desktop situation for the Mac is so pathetic. Laptops are awesome, but desktops, no way. We'll see what happens in a year.



    Looks like a good system if all you want to do is basic stuff like play music,
  • Reply 7 of 46
    [quote]Originally posted by Spiffster:

    <strong>Maybe a box to toy with linux. Maybe as a home internet server. XP on that, <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> , maybe Win 98.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Hmmm I wonder if that would run Darwin....



    If it did, would that be considered a sub-$300 mac?



    Darwin x86 does say "Welcome to Macintosh" when it boots...
  • Reply 8 of 46
    [quote]Originally posted by trumptman:

    <strong>They have lowered the price, tossed out legacy things like floppy and modem and the thing is beyond dirt cheap. Available from Walmart.com



    Nick</strong><hr></blockquote>



    This is not Apple's market. Apple just does not sell to people who shop Wal Mart. Did you know that there is only a $10,000 difference in annual salary between Wal Mart shoppers and Target shoppers? Once people start to earn more money they tend to buy nicer things (or a least things that look nicer). I'm betting the annual income of the Apple demographic is way higher than that of Wal Mart shoppers. Way way higher.



    Should Apple try to compete in this niche? Not if we want to see Apple survive.
  • Reply 9 of 46
    trumptmantrumptman Posts: 16,464member
    [quote]Originally posted by Amorph:

    <strong>What a random crapshoot of a PC. A 200MHz bus and 133MHz SDRAM? Integrated video? For those curious, the product page is <a href="http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2138831&cat=86797&type=19&d ept=3944&path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A41937%3A86796%3A86 797" target="_blank">here</a>.



    If that Duron is anything like the 700MHz Duron in my brother's fiancée's Compaq, it's a dog.



    So, what should Apple do to compete with that? Nothing. It's an oversized, overdetermined email station without a monitor that is most likely crushed under the weight of Windows XP. Its profit margins are so thin that they won't even stock it in their retail stores. It's a loss leader at best.



    Now, if Apple dropped the eMac down to the iMac CRT's price point, that would do. But I don't see the point of Apple shipping barely-capable desktops just to hit a Wal-Mart price point. Seriously: I'll bet the baseline iBook can outrun that thing.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Actually I am not a technical hardware guru, but isn't this the same sort of shared "increased system-wide bandwidth" that Apple uses on it's latest machines? Obviously here it is not pseudo DDR but the rest of the machine (PCI bus, video, audio, etc) can use the bandwidth.



    I had to build a cheapo PC for my son to use. Nothing personal against Apple. He was just two years old and the older Apple Mac couldn't hang with the flash type sites that all the kid shows use. That and he had a nasty habit of destroying cd drives by pushing them in too fast.(SLAM)



    I did this about a year ago and I am sure this motherboard/combo is similar. I bought a integrated everything motherboard at PCclub with 1100 mhz duron. It only had 8 megs of integrated video ram available though (Trident Blade I found out is the chip). I believe this solution uses the S3 solution that is about the same as the TNT2 (old school) but again it is cheap as heck.



    His little PC has 256 megs, XP and absolutely blazes in speed. Even if 1100 mhz ends up being 800-900 mhz because of processor support of integrated functions (networking, video, etc) since when is 900 mhz too slow?



    Perhaps the reason they don't stock them at the stores is simply they can only make limited quantities.



    My little boy's computer is hardly an email station. These integrated motherboards come with ATA/66 minimum. Built in sound, networking and 32 meg video matches all of what is available on Apple consumer machines. His machine does run XP and does it darn fast. It accesses our home DSL line via our Airport network and the sites pop up instantaniously. It plays all the easy-going 3d games including my wifes favorite, Frogger 2.



    Apple could do this with their current classic iMac and still be more elegant. Rage 128 would be good enough, cd-rom good enough, 15 inch tube couldn't be more than $40 nowadays. Why the heck is Apple still selling them at $799? They should be $499 maximum.



    It doesn't matter how perfect these things are because at $199, they are practically an impulse buy for computer geeks. When I put together the machine for my son the motherboard/cpu combo was like $119. I mean I use to spend that on a stick of ram so how could I really lose?



    Considering 15 inch LCD's are now lower than $199 at times, people could be tossing these in their kid's rooms, living rooms, whatever for under $400. If you add a traditional 15 inch CRT it is under $300 easy. Heck I could toss one into my RV for that cheap.



    Nick
  • Reply 10 of 46
    trumptmantrumptman Posts: 16,464member
    [quote]Originally posted by DaeargiMan:

    <strong>



    This is not Apple's market. Apple just does not sell to people who shop Wal Mart. Did you know that there is only a $10,000 difference in annual salary between Wal Mart shoppers and Target shoppers? Once people start to earn more money they tend to buy nicer things (or a least things that look nicer). I'm betting the annual income of the Apple demographic is way higher than that of Wal Mart shoppers. Way way higher.



    Should Apple try to compete in this niche? Not if we want to see Apple survive.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Do you know that regardless of income neither Target nor Walmart will be stocking any Macs and thus all their customers will be buying PC's?



    Yeah that helps Apple.



    Nick
  • Reply 11 of 46
    anandanand Posts: 285member
    Nick you are 100% right. Apple needs to compete in the sub $500 space. A $199 priced Lindows machine is not there competitiion. The $499 Dell is. There is no reason why the original G3 iMac does not sell for $499. With OS X it offers a great computing experience that is far beyond what a person gets with $499 PC.



    However, Apple can only do this when they have a Pro workstation that is selling &gt;250,000 units/quarter. The workstation is Apples money maker. If they don't sell &gt;250,000 Apple makes little money and can do nothing.
  • Reply 12 of 46
    mimacmimac Posts: 872member
    Man, that thing is C H E A P!

    I'd buy one just for tinkering with.
  • Reply 13 of 46
    lets get realistic....



    $300.oo machine (round up for taxes)

    $100 monitor

    $40 128MB additional ram

    $70 dvdrom/cdrw drive





    so we're actually looking at $500+ MINIMUM.



    ... nobody wants a machine they can't write data with ,so they NEED the CDRW. ... Gotta have the monitor.... I bought a similiar eMachine to replace VPC and 256MB ram is all but required to run XP... it stuttered BAD with only 128.



    Still cheaper than a iMac G3, but not by much, and it still doesn't perform as well (although the G3 doesn't have CDRW either!!!)
  • Reply 14 of 46
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    [quote]<strong>For those curious, the product page is <a href="http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2138831&cat=86797&type=19&d ept=3944&path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A41937%3A86796%3A86 797" target="_blank">here</a>.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The link above shows a price of $298. A number of people in this thread have called this thing a $200 PC. Are they rounding down by $98? Are they talking about some option that I don't see listed for ordering this box without XP installed for $100 less?



    The thing is dirt cheap in either case, I'm just wondering exactly how cheap the dirt is.
  • Reply 15 of 46
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    Darwin is currently unsupported on non-Intel hardware. If it does run it won't be fast. Anyone else know?



    I find my Duron 800 perfectly fine, but I do have a half decent video card (Radeon)... No way is it too slow but it could be faster
  • Reply 16 of 46
    serranoserrano Posts: 1,806member
    Maybe Apple will shit in a hat and sell it for $150.



    Or maybe not.
  • Reply 17 of 46
    [quote]Originally posted by Stoo:

    <strong>Darwin is currently unsupported on non-Intel hardware. If it does run it won't be fast. Anyone else know?

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Hmmm... you might want to check that again... Because I know of people who have it running on AMD. I personally have it running on Intel, but it does work on AMD (I believe since Darwin 6.0).
  • Reply 18 of 46
    It is possible for an integrated-everything-motherboard solution to run well.



    That being said, all the ones I have tried suck. Straight-up S-U-C-K. Not only 1GHz, but 2Ghz versions. Granted this one mentioned uses a duron, thank goodness. The Celerons are complete garbage. I would put any PIII against ANY current celeron. A celeron will NEVER give you that snap that a good PIII gives you (or a high priced P4). That is by design, intel is not stupid.



    As for apple competing in this arena... not on your life. Apple wont build crap for sake of building crap. Now with Quartz extreme they have guarranteed they will never release another 'computer' without hardware video acceleration. the shared video is brutal for anything video intensive. Menu transparencies in win2000 are not close to smooth, games suck, and the rest of your system performance is comprimised... its the same as putting a PCI video card in with no memory, everything needs to be pumped accross the PCI bus, then the system bus just to draw to the screen.



    &lt;scarcasm&gt;oh please apple, build me a $200 piece of shit&lt;/scarcasm&gt;
  • Reply 19 of 46
    trumptmantrumptman Posts: 16,464member
    <a href="http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2138699&cat=106562&type=19&; dept=3944&path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A41937%3A86796%3A1 06562%3A96356" target="_blank">$200 link</a>



    This is the link to the proper machine.



    I'm telling you as an owner of a machine of this nature, they don't suck. They are plenty quick. Guessing how they would work with Win2000 when they come with Linux is silly. Likewise Xphome or pro runs much better than 2000.(It is 2003 after all)



    It might be a bit anemic ram-wise but with 256 megs of PC133 going for like $25 that is easily cured. Again consider that Apple is still sticking 128 megs of SD-RAM in all their low end machines as well.



    Consider this as well...



    <a href="http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2138699&cat=106562&type=19&; dept=3944&path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A41937%3A86796%3A1 06562%3A96356" target="_blank">Walmart most admired and also improves partners profits!</a>



    Apple might be able to actually get to 10% if they partners with someone like Walmart. Instead they drop to 3% while acting like MS and gouging us as never before.



    Nick



    [ 02-21-2003: Message edited by: trumptman ]</p>
  • Reply 20 of 46
    BTW you CANT pirate Windows XP
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