titantiger

fastasleep said:

titantiger said:

fastasleep said:

titantiger said:

saarek said:

I had planned on buying one of these iMacs, but I have to say I'm massively underwhelmed. £1649 for the model with 512GB SSD and a paltry 8GB of Ram and last years entry level chip.

Real nasty taste in the mouth with the £200 jump from the base model which they deliberately neutered to try and force people into buying the middle model.

I'm with you.  That $1700 model should have 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD in it.  And the entry level one is a joke.  That's the kind of stripped down SKU you'd expect them to sell as an "education version."

Have you ever looked at the lowest end 21.5” iMac before? That’s precisely what it is, along with stores and grandmas and other lightweight users who only need the bare basics and literally do not care about the missing features. It exists to reach the $1299 price point and serve those use cases. If it makes you mad, then you’re not the target audience for that model. 

I simply don’t understand the complaints that the cheapest model isn’t the best. It never has been.

That's not my complaint.  

The current 21.5" Intel iMac has had 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, Gigabit Ethernet and comes with 4 USB-A ports and two Thunderbolt ports, plus an SD card reader for $1099.  The new entry level is $200 more, has only two USB/Thunderbolt ports, no ethernet, no SD slot and still 8GB of RAM and 256 SSD.  That's my complaint - not that the entry level isn't the top of the line model, but that the entry level went up in price but down several pretty important areas.  And there isn't even a $1099 model option at all.

So buy that one instead, problem solved. Lol

It’s a completely different machine. There are costs that come with developing these things which will be recouped over time. New components that will get cheaper with higher yields over time. Inflation is a thing, have you compensated for that in your price comparisons of yesteryear’s models? This is not a new phenomenon and your comparison is meaningless. 

It's not "yesteryear."  I'm not comparing a 2015 iMac to today's model.  It's literally last year's iMac and Mac Mini that I've offered for comparison, which are totally in line with what should be expected here.  The internals of this iMac are not so drastically different from the other M1 models that it justifies a $200 price increase while removing basic functionality.

caddyman33 said:

Who uses Ethernet ?  

People who want the fastest possible speeds on their stationary desktop computer, which for most folks is still a wired connection.

docno42 said:

titantiger said:

Put another way, the base Mac Mini is $699.  Pair it with a nice $300 LG 4k display (24") and an Apple keyboard and Mouse and you're only at about $1150.  Same M1 chip, same 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD.  But more ports, Gigabit Ethernet, and even the ability to swap out the screen as a bonus if you wanted to later.  Add a webcam for $100 and you're still $50 under this crippled iMac's price point.

Yet for the premium that "crippled" iMac delivers a much more compact and practically cable free computing experience. 

You may not value experience, but focusing on the sum of the parts instead of individual parts is what made Apple the most valuable company on the stock market and let them blow past Microsoft - something that seemed impossible for over 30 years.

So they must be doing at least a few things right 

And they were able to do that for $1099 until today.  That's what a 2020 21.5" iMac with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD had - with the aforementioned ports still there, and the ethernet jack.  I don't think it's unreasonable to expect for $200 more to keep basic functionality of a desktop computer like that.

I do value experience.  I'm a friggin' iMac customer for the last 19 years.  I had the "lampshade" model, followed by a 21.5 aluminum one, and now a 27" 2017 model.  I'm exactly their target market.  But functionality is part of the experience too.  They shouldn't be treating this model like the stripped down K-12 edition.

fastasleep said:

titantiger said:

mike1 said:

titantiger said:

Put another way, the base Mac Mini is $699.  Pair it with a nice $300 LG 4k display (24") and an Apple keyboard and Mouse and you're only at about $1150.  Same M1 chip, same 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD.  But more ports, Gigabit Ethernet, and even the ability to swap out the screen as a bonus if you wanted to later.  Add a webcam for $100 and you're still $50 under this crippled iMac's price point.

You clearly aren't the customer for this, so please spend your money elsewhere.

But I am the customer for it.  I've owned three iMacs since 2002.  I'm not asking for something unreasonable, or even something that is in line with what Apple has offered in the past.  The entry level consumer iMac at $1299 has never involved these kinds of petty compromises.  It makes no sense in light of the specs for the Mac Mini for instance.

There's no need to get pissy about valid criticism.  These are artificial feature removals that are a step backward from what the entry level, non-education iMac has offered in the past.

Did you consider the fact that it’s an entirely new industrial design and larger screen and doesn’t use a 4200rpm hard drive or any number of other features that would make it more difficult to reach the same price point of the previous low end model with all the features of the higher specced models? It’s not uncommon for newer improved models to come out at higher prices to recoup development and component expenses and later drop as those things improve. It’s not a new thing. 

I did consider it.  The 2020 iMac 21.5 had 8GB of RAM, 256 SSD (not a spinning hard drive) and only a slightly smaller screen for $1099.  The new design is nice but not $200 nicer when you remove that many ports and can't even be bothered to include an ethernet jack on a desktop computer.  

docno42 said:

titantiger said:
Far from nonsensical.  The issue is, the $1299 price point didn't used to be the crippled K-12 version.  A version like that was in the $1000 range.  When you got to 1300 bucks it didn't have goofy trade offs like only two USB ports and no ethernet jack.  Hell, even the base Mac mini has a damn ethernet jack, 2 USB ports in addition to the 2 Thunderbolt ones, and even an HDMI.  So it's perfectly reasonable to question the specs for the price on this new iMac.

I don't know what country you live in but in the western world things have been getting more expensive over time for the past 40 years.  And it's accelerated in our COVID blessed world thanks to the now blindingly obvious gross, continued overreaction to the China virus.  The base mini lacks a screen, speakers, bundled keyboard/mouse, etc. so it's hardly an equal comparison.

Speaking of costs raising over time - I was unwrapping some stuff wrapped in newspapers from the mid 70's and cars costing $30K plus today were around $1500 then.  Thank decades of successful central planning for this "feature".  

And I pointed out in the very next post that the M1 Mac Mini with the same exact specs on RAM and SSD storage can be paired with a nice 24" 4k LG monitor, Apple keyboard and mouse and still come out $150 less.  Add in webcam and speakers and you're still at or under $1299 and you have the versatility of more ports (including HDMI) and the ability to upgrade the screen to 5k or a larger size later.  I don't think inflation on the Mac line jumped 20% from the release of the M1 Mac Mini til now.