i would like the newer eMacs to be updated (AirPort Xtreme/Blootöth) because that is the way you know your Mac is ready for the coming generations, that is why I hope that they update the 15incher TiBook to a similar AlBook.... you know what I am saying?
Who says the 1GHz eMac will have a 100MHz bus? Does the new iMac 1GHz have a 100MHz bus? Does the 1GHz G4 support a 100MHz bus? (I'm being serious, not sarcastic. The specs do not say what the bus speed will be and using SDRAM does not automatically indicate 100MHz bus speed)
I think a 1GHz machine with superdrive and 17" display at $1299 is a pretty decent deal. My original 233MHz rev. A iMac display is still bright and crisp after 4 1/2 years of use so I have no misgivings in buying another Apple all-in-one machine.
Could it be better? Yes. Is it a fair value? I think so.
I'd like to see all of this, but then I don't, in a way. If they make an eMac with 1GHz, 17" display, SuperDrive, AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth, etc, it is going to make it extremely difficult for me to justify a flat panel iMac, with the price difference. Without taking into consideration the high eMac failure rate, of course.. that could make it worth the iMac..
Um, just a note: "SDRAM" can be single data rate or double data rate. The specs posted here don't say either way.
Since the iMac's Airport Extreme-supporting board uses DDR, I think it's a safe bet that at least some of the eMac boards do too.
In fact, I'm betting that the bottom-end model is last year's board, with support for plain old AirPort and SDR SDRAM. The top two support AirPort Extreme and DDR SDRAM.
Well, looks like no mobo update if it's gonna keep with SDRAM, Just how long is Apple going to have a 100MHz bus in its desktops? 5 years? If only X would run on Intel so I could bypass Apple's crappy/overpriced hardware.
I could be wrong but I believe my desktop has a 133mhz bus.
Hmm, then perhaps a surprise round of iMac price cuts to go with the new eMacs? Who knows. I still think the 17" iMac is very cool but with a 2 1/2 year old son who I know will get at it I think the eMac is a more robust machine with all other specs being equal
If Apple is to survive and grow they need carefully chosen machines that can be sold a LOW PRICES.
The eMac and the iBook MUST get cheaper. The iBook is still in a good place, but the wintel competition has caught up substantially in features and overall package. The iBook sold so well because it was cheap enough by notebook standards to be competitive. The eMac is not yet cheap enough by desktop standards and needs to get cheaper if Apple is serious about selling a substantial quantity of them to edu and consumers.
There's not Margin in the sub $1k machines. It doesn't matter if Apple ships them by the Thousands unless they're profitable.
Apple needs new revenue streams. Unfortunately many with budgets that can only only a $500 aren't going to add too much to the coffers.
I think we're a couple of years away from truly low cost computers. What needs to happen is the futher proliferation of the Home Network(rendezvous) Once you the average consumer networking multiple machines it becomes easy for them to fathom purchasing a computer with out the bells and whistles. Why have 6 machines with CD Burners if they computers are networked. The Thin Client ideaology will work once Networks become more ubiquitous.
A reasonable K machine is fine. For a K you ought to get a lot better hardware than Apple offers in the e/iMac. There's more than enough margin too. There aren't any excuses.
To sell the services that can make up alternative revenue streams, Apple needs a bigger base of users. They go it alone, and that has troubles that go with it, but at the end of the day the platform lives and dies by the size of the user base and it's relative marketshare. They gotta compete better on the low-end desktop. They don't need sub500 boxes, but their 1000USD machines need to look a lot better than they currently do.
hmurchison wrote: There's not Margin in the sub $1k machines. It doesn't matter if Apple ships them by the Thousands unless they're profitable.
The low end is not about margin (like Matsu alludes to), it is about market share. A sub $1k iBook is an investment in the consumer to upgrade to an Apple $2k+ desktop or PB in the future ... and to cater to the education market at the same time. Switchers, 1st time buyers and Education together are a big enough segment to warrant the cheaper hardware.
That being said I find the eMac to still be a great deal for Education.
Quote:
Keda wrote: I know this Mac fills a niche, but this is the most unexciting news I could think of. Most of Apple's offerings seem to have inspiration behind them. But the eMac seems dull.
You probably are not a teacher.
Quote:
Retrograde wrote: The reason I find it funny or odd is because I remember the time when these boards and others were full of threads with people crying out for/predicting/getting inside information on the "17" iMac".
I personally think Apple made a mistake in keeping the name, iMac, with the LCD version. I think the iMac should have morphed to the eMac model, but retained its name and the LCD AIO should have been given a different name to target the consumer version. I also wish the eMac wasn't all white...graphite would have been better.
Quote:
Esher wrote: My Bondi iMac's CRT has been ruining my eyes and my desktop for too long. But I don't want an all-in-one FP iMac because I want to be able to time LCD and CPU upgrades independently. I don't even mind the eMac's slow-poke 100Mhz bus. A sub-$1000 headless eMac with SuperDrive would fit my (desktop) needs perfectly.
Escher, your point about displays and mobos having seperate upgrade paths is a very good point. Also AIO's make legacy displays useless for all of those PC switchers. But I still think AIO's are great as a product, however ALL should have the ability to span to multiple displays for that precise reason.
I am surprised that your iMac CRT is hurting your eye's, though, mine still has a very sharp and bright display.
The crt's still has some life in them and AIO's are an efficient form with alot of merit, in my opinion, they just need to be upgradeable and spanning enabled. And they have a real home in EDUCATION (as in eMac), if not on everyone's desktop.
wow, if these rumors are in fact true i would buy one as soon as I had the cash (probably around the end of june.)
Quote:
1GHz PowerPC G4
Combo drive
256K L2 Cache @ 1GHz
128MB of SDRAM
60GB Ultra ATA drive
ATI Radeon 7500
32MB DDR video memory
FireWire 400 and USB
VGA/S-video/composite outputs
Built-in 56K v.92 modem
AirPort Extreme Ready
i'm not a graphical or numerical power user. i write essays, code lite html, manage a website and play the occasional game and watch dvds. i already have a decent external speaker set-up (altec 2100s) and a decent printer (hp 970) but my main computer is getting a bit long in the tooth. i would buy the quoted emac but add enough ram from a third party reseller to have a total of one gig. my main question: is the radeon 7500 a decent gfx card? i know it's not the best card out there (obviously), but does it have enough power to allow me to play rtcw or mohaa at decent frame rates at a decent resolution? my current gfx card is a rage 128 with only 8MB ram, so anything would be a step up. quartz extreme, here i come. also, will the 256K of cache be worse than the 512K currently sitting on my g3/400? the only thing that would prevent me from purchasing the rumored emac would be the lack of a 133Mhz bus and DDR RAM.
This has been said a couple of time in response to my post...go back, re-read, and think again. I'm not whining about anything. It's just hard for me to car about the eMac.
That being said...I am not a teacher nor was I one of the AI massive calling for a 17" iMac. So I guess I'm not in the target market.
Quote:
Remember, this is the machine that was introduced for sale outside the educational market by popular demand.
Comments
people love to whine
I think a 1GHz machine with superdrive and 17" display at $1299 is a pretty decent deal. My original 233MHz rev. A iMac display is still bright and crisp after 4 1/2 years of use so I have no misgivings in buying another Apple all-in-one machine.
Could it be better? Yes. Is it a fair value? I think so.
Since the iMac's Airport Extreme-supporting board uses DDR, I think it's a safe bet that at least some of the eMac boards do too.
In fact, I'm betting that the bottom-end model is last year's board, with support for plain old AirPort and SDR SDRAM. The top two support AirPort Extreme and DDR SDRAM.
But that's just a hunch.
Originally posted by eVo
Well, looks like no mobo update if it's gonna keep with SDRAM, Just how long is Apple going to have a 100MHz bus in its desktops? 5 years? If only X would run on Intel so I could bypass Apple's crappy/overpriced hardware.
I could be wrong but I believe my desktop has a 133mhz bus.
The eMac and the iBook MUST get cheaper. The iBook is still in a good place, but the wintel competition has caught up substantially in features and overall package. The iBook sold so well because it was cheap enough by notebook standards to be competitive. The eMac is not yet cheap enough by desktop standards and needs to get cheaper if Apple is serious about selling a substantial quantity of them to edu and consumers.
Apple needs new revenue streams. Unfortunately many with budgets that can only only a $500 aren't going to add too much to the coffers.
I think we're a couple of years away from truly low cost computers. What needs to happen is the futher proliferation of the Home Network(rendezvous) Once you the average consumer networking multiple machines it becomes easy for them to fathom purchasing a computer with out the bells and whistles. Why have 6 machines with CD Burners if they computers are networked. The Thin Client ideaology will work once Networks become more ubiquitous.
To sell the services that can make up alternative revenue streams, Apple needs a bigger base of users. They go it alone, and that has troubles that go with it, but at the end of the day the platform lives and dies by the size of the user base and it's relative marketshare. They gotta compete better on the low-end desktop. They don't need sub500 boxes, but their 1000USD machines need to look a lot better than they currently do.
glad to have you back rant boy...
g
g
hmurchison wrote: There's not Margin in the sub $1k machines. It doesn't matter if Apple ships them by the Thousands unless they're profitable.
The low end is not about margin (like Matsu alludes to), it is about market share. A sub $1k iBook is an investment in the consumer to upgrade to an Apple $2k+ desktop or PB in the future ... and to cater to the education market at the same time. Switchers, 1st time buyers and Education together are a big enough segment to warrant the cheaper hardware.
That being said I find the eMac to still be a great deal for Education.
Keda wrote: I know this Mac fills a niche, but this is the most unexciting news I could think of. Most of Apple's offerings seem to have inspiration behind them. But the eMac seems dull.
You probably are not a teacher.
Retrograde wrote: The reason I find it funny or odd is because I remember the time when these boards and others were full of threads with people crying out for/predicting/getting inside information on the "17" iMac".
I personally think Apple made a mistake in keeping the name, iMac, with the LCD version. I think the iMac should have morphed to the eMac model, but retained its name and the LCD AIO should have been given a different name to target the consumer version. I also wish the eMac wasn't all white...graphite would have been better.
Esher wrote: My Bondi iMac's CRT has been ruining my eyes and my desktop for too long. But I don't want an all-in-one FP iMac because I want to be able to time LCD and CPU upgrades independently. I don't even mind the eMac's slow-poke 100Mhz bus. A sub-$1000 headless eMac with SuperDrive would fit my (desktop) needs perfectly.
Escher, your point about displays and mobos having seperate upgrade paths is a very good point. Also AIO's make legacy displays useless for all of those PC switchers. But I still think AIO's are great as a product, however ALL should have the ability to span to multiple displays for that precise reason.
I am surprised that your iMac CRT is hurting your eye's, though, mine still has a very sharp and bright display.
The crt's still has some life in them and AIO's are an efficient form with alot of merit, in my opinion, they just need to be upgradeable and spanning enabled. And they have a real home in EDUCATION (as in eMac), if not on everyone's desktop.
1GHz PowerPC G4
Combo drive
256K L2 Cache @ 1GHz
128MB of SDRAM
60GB Ultra ATA drive
ATI Radeon 7500
32MB DDR video memory
FireWire 400 and USB
VGA/S-video/composite outputs
Built-in 56K v.92 modem
AirPort Extreme Ready
i'm not a graphical or numerical power user. i write essays, code lite html, manage a website and play the occasional game and watch dvds. i already have a decent external speaker set-up (altec 2100s) and a decent printer (hp 970) but my main computer is getting a bit long in the tooth. i would buy the quoted emac but add enough ram from a third party reseller to have a total of one gig. my main question: is the radeon 7500 a decent gfx card? i know it's not the best card out there (obviously), but does it have enough power to allow me to play rtcw or mohaa at decent frame rates at a decent resolution? my current gfx card is a rage 128 with only 8MB ram, so anything would be a step up. quartz extreme, here i come. also, will the 256K of cache be worse than the 512K currently sitting on my g3/400? the only thing that would prevent me from purchasing the rumored emac would be the lack of a 133Mhz bus and DDR RAM.
Originally posted by Keda
For non-edu, entry/consumer level people who don't want to pay for an iMac, this machine doesn't make sense.
Objection! Indeed it does a lot of sense. It's the most effordable G4 system - and therefor the best bang for buck Macintosh ever produced.
If you buy such a system you recieve a fully equipped system, which handles the most common tasks in a fly. That is what Joe average expects and gets.
my 2 cents
best
Originally posted by thegelding
panther takes you back to os 7.6.1 days where you only needed 16 mb of ram to fly....
g
You don't mind to back up, do you?
people love to whine
This has been said a couple of time in response to my post...go back, re-read, and think again. I'm not whining about anything. It's just hard for me to car about the eMac.
That being said...I am not a teacher nor was I one of the AI massive calling for a 17" iMac. So I guess I'm not in the target market.
Remember, this is the machine that was introduced for sale outside the educational market by popular demand.
Good point.
If people buy this...good.
Originally posted by Keda
This has been said a couple of time in response to my post...go back, re-read, and think again.
stop whining about that respons and go back, re-read and think again. it was about what retrograde asked not about what you said.