Considering that the low end of this new lineup beats the former top-of-line's little puny ass, I wouldn't be complaining. And complementary Superdrives? Oh boy!
Seems to me Apple is moving out of the consumer market. What happens to the iMac now? I think a price drop is very necessary now...
G4 el cheapo PM model is just a band-aid. Not a long term solution for the "mid-range" tower market. Note that $1299 is mid-range in price (hardware is low-end however).
New case is ugly as all Lian-Li on crack too. Functional... probably; but not as much as they would have us believe, I am mostly sure (simplicity wins over un-necessary gimmicks).
9 fans? And what happens when the PSU can't put out the juice anymore? I hope the warranty is good (and the PSU for that matter).
8GB of RAM is hella cool, too bad it takes 8 slots to do it I guess we need for 500MHz DDR to come out soon!
PCIX sounds nice.
SATA is very nice. Hopefully BTO option for 10,000rpm drives soon.
Today was just a snap shot. Things change little-by-little, not all at once. My first impression of the case is that it is very good. It seems the engineers finally won out over the designers and were able to make something that was practical. Having grilles on the front and back make it very easy to move lots of air quietly. BTW, I like the one button mouse but the keyboard could be improved a little. The current one is too loud.
What I don't get is why didn't they take out the Superdrive on the lowend and drop the price by $200 like you can on the Apple store? $1799 would make it a little easier to swallow and you still get a combo drive.
I think Apple want's to show off their software to a greater number of users, and not enough people have DVD burners to show off iDVD and DVD Studio Pro. If you include it by default, you gain strong marketing material (Apple has largest share of DVD burning users) and you have a great audience for software apps.
Maybe its the "56k modem in the orig. imac " thing. when apple announced the orig. imac it olny had a 33k modem. much bicthing later apple "upgraded" it.
i bet apple will say that the demand was so great for a cd-rw drive that they will ship in aug. with a 1799$ price.
We went from a 166mhz FSB to a 1ghz FSB, a change of a bit over 5x. We nearly quadrupled the SPECint performance of the highest-end G4, and nearly sixtupled (is that a word?) the SPECfp performance.
...and that just scratches the surface. Serial ATA, optical audio, and on... So yeah, I think that's worth a couple hundred bucks.
We are now seeing that a wealth of my predictions are actually right on, though I have wavered in the excitement.
"What?" you say, "how so?"
What I've been saying in the days leading up to this show: IN BOLD Commentary following each.
1299 low end PM NEEDS to be 1299.
With the G4 model that nobody mentioned in the iChat buzz-a-thon, there it is, and it isn't so bad!
Apple typically welches, or makes a half assed effort on the low end machine
The 1299 model is there, but it's a single G4, albeit with L3. I would have prefered stripping out a G5 and selling that, but it at least shows the intention to get a 1299 PM is there. Good. I'll wait for the real one. Which leads me to point three.
There will NOT be G5 PowerBooks for about 12 months after the intro of the G5
In my optimism I had ammended my thoughts to say perhaps a 17 by the end of the year, but the prices of these G5's show it clearly, Apple is excercising an inadvertent form of demand control. Demand will still be huge, from workstation customers, but it's pretty clear that the costs of putting this puppy in a PB are not in the range for a laptop yet. New CPU, new architecture, miniturization, etc etc... The volume will be there, but not this year. We might be waiting for .09u, might not, but some costs need to be absorbed first.
So, there you have it, a not total vindication of my statements, but not that far off actually.
ANd, generally positive news for "PRO" customers.
I believe prices will come down, NEXT YEAR, for now, ther are enough people whjo will pay for G5's.
I only see 2 problems with Apple's G5 PowerMac announcements: price and delivery. Per Apple's schedule, volume delivery usually drags on for months. (Why again was WWDC delayed a month?)
On price, I think the top dual unit is OK. It's the entry machine which is ~$500 too high. True, Mac 'loyalists' who've waited patiently for years should snap them up and keep the store shelves bare. Outside 'switchers' will yawn. Apple's market share will remain < 4% at these prices.
I havent heard of anyone complaining about the price of the high end model understandably. The Best model is essentially a business machine and for that, its a good buy. But the low end is a little disappointing. Its relatively high price has spurred speculation of something new in iMac range. I hope something attractive happens there.
Not just for personal needs but for that 'ol market share concern. A good value (for Apple) mid-level machine could ride the coattails of these exciting power models.
I think Apple put the Superdrive in to allay concerns about the new enclosure having only one drive bay.
In this case, why not ship them (the box and a drive) to a dealer separately? Let the customer choose if (s)he wants a superdrive for $200 or a CD-RW for $30. Personally, I take the $3k for the high end easily, while $2k for the low end... well... it's almost 3 times less powerful, which sort of makes it a not-so-pro machine.
Comments
Very, very compelling... £2100.
Man, I am now so, so close to buying...
Man that has to be a good deal...
Peace,
Marc
(Also a dual 1.25Ghz... for £1100!!)
but I need to find $12,888.95 laying around
. . . then I'll be happy . .
well . . . real happiness, for me results in entirely different sorts of things than purchases . . . but you know what I mean . .
G4 el cheapo PM model is just a band-aid. Not a long term solution for the "mid-range" tower market. Note that $1299 is mid-range in price (hardware is low-end however).
New case is ugly as all Lian-Li on crack too. Functional... probably; but not as much as they would have us believe, I am mostly sure (simplicity wins over un-necessary gimmicks).
9 fans? And what happens when the PSU can't put out the juice anymore? I hope the warranty is good (and the PSU for that matter).
8GB of RAM is hella cool, too bad it takes 8 slots to do it
PCIX sounds nice.
SATA is very nice. Hopefully BTO option for 10,000rpm drives soon.
Same lame keyboard and mouse is kind of a downer
Aug/Sep delivery a downer
You can drop down, but the 'get 'em in the door' price is $200 higher?
Hurm.
Just a thought.
---------------
RosettaStoned
i bet apple will say that the demand was so great for a cd-rw drive that they will ship in aug. with a 1799$ price.
Originally posted by yzedf
Seems to me Apple is moving out of the consumer market. What happens to the iMac now?
What happens? It will be updated.
We went from a 166mhz FSB to a 1ghz FSB, a change of a bit over 5x. We nearly quadrupled the SPECint performance of the highest-end G4, and nearly sixtupled (is that a word?) the SPECfp performance.
...and that just scratches the surface. Serial ATA, optical audio, and on... So yeah, I think that's worth a couple hundred bucks.
These machines are the real deal.
"What?" you say, "how so?"
What I've been saying in the days leading up to this show: IN BOLD Commentary following each.
1299 low end PM NEEDS to be 1299.
With the G4 model that nobody mentioned in the iChat buzz-a-thon, there it is, and it isn't so bad!
Apple typically welches, or makes a half assed effort on the low end machine
The 1299 model is there, but it's a single G4, albeit with L3. I would have prefered stripping out a G5 and selling that, but it at least shows the intention to get a 1299 PM is there. Good. I'll wait for the real one. Which leads me to point three.
There will NOT be G5 PowerBooks for about 12 months after the intro of the G5
In my optimism I had ammended my thoughts to say perhaps a 17 by the end of the year, but the prices of these G5's show it clearly, Apple is excercising an inadvertent form of demand control. Demand will still be huge, from workstation customers, but it's pretty clear that the costs of putting this puppy in a PB are not in the range for a laptop yet. New CPU, new architecture, miniturization, etc etc... The volume will be there, but not this year. We might be waiting for .09u, might not, but some costs need to be absorbed first.
So, there you have it, a not total vindication of my statements, but not that far off actually.
ANd, generally positive news for "PRO" customers.
I believe prices will come down, NEXT YEAR, for now, ther are enough people whjo will pay for G5's.
On price, I think the top dual unit is OK. It's the entry machine which is ~$500 too high. True, Mac 'loyalists' who've waited patiently for years should snap them up and keep the store shelves bare. Outside 'switchers' will yawn. Apple's market share will remain < 4% at these prices.
i think the higher pricing on the low end tower is making room for a new mid range box...
CUBE REBORN
Not just for personal needs but for that 'ol market share concern. A good value (for Apple) mid-level machine could ride the coattails of these exciting power models.
Originally posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R
pesi: Dude, I hope you are right. i for one have no use for three PCI-X slots, and am not attracted to the G4 iMac AIO enclosure.
i hope i am too. the original cube failed because the prices ovelapped stupidly with the tower line.
it seems most people feel that the new $1999 entry price for the towers is fairly justified for what you're getting.
this leaves a blank in the price lineup where a new machine can come in fill the gap without cannibalizing existing sales. witness the 12" powerbook.
Originally posted by Frank777
I think Apple put the Superdrive in to allay concerns about the new enclosure having only one drive bay.
In this case, why not ship them (the box and a drive) to a dealer separately? Let the customer choose if (s)he wants a superdrive for $200 or a CD-RW for $30. Personally, I take the $3k for the high end easily, while $2k for the low end... well... it's almost 3 times less powerful, which sort of makes it a not-so-pro machine.