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iMac LCD Impostors
cannonball_D writes "CNet has an article about the first (?) inevitable PC imitation LCD iMac from Gateway. The design is a step in the right direction, but I still think it has all the tell-tale signs of a cheap knock-off. " It
really looks like it lacks the elegance of the apple design, but I'm all for
the LCD based terminal to be available on x86.
It has a remarkable resemblance to a cow. Black and white curvy patches over a white body. It fits in with Gateway's image, but lacks any of the beauty of the imac.
Didn't Monorail (or something like that) do this first, about 4-5 years ago, anyhoo?
Not that their machine was any good, and wasn't very successful commercially, but it *was* an LCD-screen PC with all the guttiwuts behind the LCD.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
I think when they talk about competing with the new Imac, they meant that it is aimed at a similar section of the market, not that it's competing through aesthetic design.
The new G4 iMac looks like a supermodel, all curvy and slim and sleek and chic.
The Gateway looks like a 60-year-old Janitor.
I know who I'd rather "plug in".
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
The 20th Anniversy mac came out in 96 and was an all in one lcd computer. So gateway was not first.
THe picture they show is of the profile 3, not the new profile 4.
I keep asking myself why they have these one-unit computers, but still use keyboards and mouses with cords... These packages seem like exactly what wireless keyboards and mouses would be ideal for
Lots of reasons people stash their computers somewhere inaccessible is because of their lack of aesthetic value. But now that Apple has something with aesthetic value, it seems they ruin it by putting cords everywhere. It wouldn't drive up the price too much to put a wireless receiver in the box, would it?
are, unfortunately, untenable in a home with children and cats in it. at least my trusty glass screen will not leak goo all over the place when slashed by the claws of an angry monitor-sitting feline.
Furthermore, where is there room for the cat on a flatscreen anyway? They have to sit in front of the screen, getting static-cling created furballs between you and what you're looking at, or behind the screen, which removes the motivation for the whole computer-cat experience in the first place, pissing off the computer user.
Goat sex free since 2001
Hell, this makes me want to subscribe to Slashdot just to maintain the current level of editorial integrity. God forbid a shortage of funds leads them down the road of c|net banality.
The picture on the article is of the profile 3 (which they have been selling for a long time now.) The new profile 4 is going to look like an iMac, but they havn't released any pictures of it yet. And the article has very little details.
Gateway actually had a PC with a monitor with a built in PC about 4 years ago (I don't think it was LCD). Anyhow, same time the iMac was coming ou,t or even before.
Take a look at Eurocom. They've had the LP260 All-in-one LCD PC for over a year now. They beat Apple to it, and I think it's a very cool design.
Point is, everyone's 'ripping' everyone elses ideas off in today's industry, to the point that you can't really have an original product without hinting other products.
Anyone remember when SUV's really started taking off? All the auto companies started ripping apart pickup trucks and bolting on a new chassis. The end result was a Frankensteined monstrosity that was easy to tip over, handled poorly, and had the worst traits of cars and trucks. I just took a loot at the new Gateway, and it looks like they took a laptop apart and attached it to a metal fan base. It too has the worst features of a laptop and a desktop PC (difficult/impossible to upgrade, relatively immobile, bad ergonomics, and comparatively high price tag).
Where's the design? Half the people who buy these things are looking for something that goes well with the Art Deco interior of their social convergence area.
Why doesn't someone like Dell or Compaq, with their billions of dollars, hire some designers to come in and create some nice looking systems?
There's nothing uglier than a giant case full of empty space. Even their laptops are bigger, thicker, and have less features.
And other than Apple and Sony, does anyone else have integrated FireWire on most/all of their systems? No!
Apple introduced the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, which was an all-in-one with an LCD, in May 1997. Oh well... I certainly don't read C|Net for the intelligent reporting. Actually, I'm not sure why I ever click an article that's linked there
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This thing has nothing to do with the IMac. Gateway isn't, and wasn't, the first to use the "profile pc" design.
When I entered college in the fall of '97, my roommate has a machine like this from Compaq... it featured a Pentium 166 MMX processor, and a fairly crappy LCD.
I'm not sure that Compaq was the first to develop and sell one of these, but they've been around for a while.
I hate getting told that x has been made to copy y because y is popular, when x was really around for a long, long time before y gained any popularity. It reminds me of fashion trends in junior high...
He said, "You'll be able to tell your grandchildren that you helped assemble the first NT supercomputer," and I cringed.
Forget this stuff. Check out the Vaio PCV-W101. It has TV tuner, DVD, 1280x768 LCD, 2 PCMCIA ports, i.Link, USB and what else.
Japan is filled with those products.
Calling this a knock off is just stupid.
Integrated custom Bose sound system with woofer/power suppply, integrated TV & FM radio system, S-Video input, and of course the little leather pads on the keyboard. Oh, and the high tech metal bracket holding it up that reportedly cost over a hundred bucks each to manufacture. Originially sold for around $10,000 then as low as $2,000. Of course for 10k it arrived a limo and was set up for you by a tech in a tux (kid you not!) A review from when it first came out is on MacWorld
Bet Gateway doesn't offer a tech in a cow suit to set theirs up...
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
How can you say Mac OS X is more expensive and running less apps? Count again:
- Mac OS 9 software
- Mac OS X software
- X Window System software
- Command line applications
And about the price... What is Mac OS X? It's of course provided with all new macs, but if you buy it standalone, you pay 129$. What does Windows XP Professional Edition set you back? And I'm not talking OEM versions... *sigh*.
A friend I lived with for a while had an older Gateway Profile 2 or 3 (where he got it from was unknown).
A few comments, having used it a bit:
1) The LCD quality was not very good. Colors were completely off. Off-axis views were not good at all (worse than most LCDs I have seen)
2) The vertically mounted CD-ROM was a frequent problem. I am not sure if the new Profile 4 is going to have the same problem.
3) Celeron-based. Enough said.
4) The LCD eventually crapped out on it for no reason. It was more expensive to replace than the computer was worth at the time.
I have played with the new iMac in a local Apple store and it seemed like a much better machine.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
A large LCD screen will spoil their fun. My cats would be miffed with me if I took away this source of entertainment from them.
Oh, I am digressing... Better post without +1 :)
What sound does this Gateway computer make in place of the Mac "bong"?
I've never seen a case mod that turned a Mac into something like *that*, but given the alternative image that Apple occasionally tries to follow I wouldn't be surprised if someone went and did this.
Startup sound in that case? Definitely a gurgle!
It's only software!
Let Jonathan Ive (its designer) go on about how "we wanted the user to violate the sacred plane of the monitor": Better put is it works. Around that high quality (though only 1024x768) perfectly poised LCD display is a frame that lets you casually reach out, grab it, adjust it, swing it about to share with someone else, nudge when you change position.
Just plain flat out unconsciously interact with the Display without needing to fight it or worry about smudging or getting any thing wrong.
That's AWESOME. You don't know how incredible until you've use it; afterwards everything else just sux. A display that fits folks, not the other way around, something Apple gets and the rest of the industry hasn't (nor likely will Gateway if their past is any guide.)
Sure it may look like a "Sunflower", or more like a desk lamp or a face mirror. On the other hand those two are great examples of good design - they're popular because they work and just like they the new iMac screen is adept at putting light right where you want it, in your eyes, from whatever angle you're comfortable with. And if that kinda brilliant design isn't nerdly or butch enough for ya then go back to chipping with rocks 'cause once again Apple has raised the bar for PC design and once folks get a taste they're not going to accept the 2nd rate layouts, hear that Gateway?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I believe IBM did this first with the Netvista line. The netvista predated the imac almost a whole year but was very pricey. I guess it's more in who makes it popular.
I just saw someone ask this: Why doesn't someone like Dell or Compaq, with their billions of dollars, hire some designers to come in and create some nice looking systems?
This is exactly where we Mac users get to sit back and laugh and say "we told you so." We've taken a pummelling over the years because Macs weren't standard, weren't cutted-edge enough, couldn't lay claim to the buzzword-du-jour, but Apple has always done interface and design like nobody else.
Why don't Dell or Compaq create something "nice looking"? They do create "nice looking" but they don't create "nice using." Unlike Apple, their users just don't (apparently) demand that. Design isn't just how something looks, but how something works and how something fits into the workflow of whatever you're doing. The look is the least of it.
But Compaq and Dell and other box makers will continue to try to do "nice looking" because they don't get the whole human user interface concept the way Apple does. They don't get design on the multiple levels that Apple and most of its users do. It's something that we long-time Mac users have argued ad nauseam about in countless discussion forums (and will no doubt continue to do so) for ages and have been written off as pathetic Apple apologists.
--Rick
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
We'll start with the fact that Windows XP doesn't run all of that software perfectly. No Microsoft operating system has maintained perfect backwards compatibility, and there are many programs which have fallen through the cracks.
:). Other than that, I use it for Web browsing, work, music, etc. Even Windows XP can't compare with the amount of RPGs available for consoles (Square, Capcom, and Working Designs, mostly). I'd rather have a modern *nix workstation (either OS X or Debian) for my largely non-gaming tasks, and buy the right tool for the job WRT games.
:) .
Also, I don't understand this obsession with "more applications". How many applications do you use on your computer? Do I care that there are more applications available for Windows XP than there are for Debian or Mac OS X? No, because most of those applications are useless, or duplicates.
freshmeat.net lists over 18,000 applications. I work there, and even I'm not crazy enough to say that they're all important. I'm certainly not going to use more than a tiny percentage of them myself, and again, there are plenty of duplicates (different things for different people, but how many different Web server programs do you have running?)
If you've got that all important Windows application, Connectix will happily sell you VirtualPC to run that app on MacOS. But chances are you can find a replacement, either in X11, OS 9, or OS X software.
Another poster mentioned the fact that the majority of PC software available is games. I own a Playstation 2 and a Dreamcast. My (Debian) computer is for old console emulators and xScorch.
As for what OS X has that XP doesn't: there's a reason that print publications still use Macs for DTP, and it's called ColorSync. I know, because I also work for a print publication
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
The market cap can't really tell you how the company is doing, you need to look at the change in price, as this lovely chart will show. To get an idea of Gateways financial woes beyond the stock price, you could look at recent market news, such a S&P's plans to cut Gateways credit, which was already downgraded to junk a few months a go, even further. See, if you get more meaningful facts, they look even worse ;)
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith