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Apple Offers eMacs To All
pinqkandi writes "Apple released the cool and cheap eMac a few weeks ago -- but for educational purposes only. Today, they announced that it is now available to everyone, for only $1099, making it the cheapest G4 Mac ever. I'll buy one." I won't, but I am glad people who want to buy it, can. It's a nice little machine. I guess Apple doesn't see it cutting into iMac G4 sales, but I wonder if iMac G3 sales (starting at $800) will suffer.
There isn't an option for DVD or even just a plain CDROM.
Pitty.
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
Wow, this looks super-cool.
One of my concerns with the new flat-panel iMac is that it looks less durable, but the eMac seems to solve that problem, and with a flat tube no less. Obviously this was most important to the educational settings, as this one looks more lab-friendly, but I can see it being a useful thing for students and families and the like.
Go Apple!
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I doubt that Apple will continue to manufacture the old-style iMac. Most likely, they're only selling off their inventory now, and now that that's running low, they're making this box available. People who want DVD can go for the new iMac.
As it is, people will buy this eMac, complain about it being slow and tell all their friends, who will just assume Macs are slow.
Of course it will--Apple doesn't have big plans to push yesterday's hardware and design as The Next Big Thing. The G3 iMac is right at the end of it's lifespan and has only stuck around this long to fill Apple's entry-level slot. The eMac will probably completely replace the old G3 iMacs before too long.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
What kind of a moron would expect mac users to run Emacs.
And why aren't they using GNU instead of *BSD? Someone call RMS!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
The video cards are capable of dual display and 1600x1200, it would be a shame if Apple turned those features off.
(And please don't tell me about 'cannibalizing sales' - I don't have to buy a $1700 Dell to have the ability to use a high resolution monitor).
Of COURSE they will. That's the point. They're replacing that model with a current model.
Cheap powerful machines == more opportunities for Linux on the desktop. Thanks Apple!
I'm using 128 megs on an G3 iMac (circa Jan 2000) and Mac OS X works great. Of course I don't use it for high end game playing, photoshop or other workhorse apps.
For typical use (e-mail, browsing, an office suite), digital hub stuff (iPhoto, iTunes) and for unix-y program-y stuff, the eMac is likely to be a pretty good choice.
Don't expect a machine billed as an 'educational computer' to blow the doors off your expectations.
My father is a blogger.
The memory can be increased. From their tech specs page:
128MB SDRAM; two 168-pin DIMM slots support up to 1GB using 128MB, 256MB, or 512MB DIMMs
J'aime mieux les méchants que les imbéciles, parce qu'ils se reposent. -- Alexandre Dumas
We all vie for eMacs, with vigor, no less, but rather more.
Have you read my journal today?
That's a CD R/W.
The next step up is a combo CD R/W + DVD.
The top of the line is a DVD R/W.
I don't think Apple will sell a system without a writable CD; they emphasize burning too much in their advertising.
I'd really like to see a $999 eMac replacing the prehistoric iMac range entirely, but I guess the costs aren't quite there yet.
D
This is a very big deal.
Think about it. For those people considering buying a PeeCee...
Feature for feature, from the 17" CRT to the G4 proc, 40g HD, USB, FireWire, ethernet, AirPort, and finally OS X... there is no better value on the market right now!
$1099 for a desktop *nix box is huge, and just what Apple needs to lure disaffected wintel users to the Mac platform.
--geethree
Just so everyone knows:
DON'T BUY RAM THROUGH APPLE!
They are forced to pay a very high price for it and in doing so are forced to charge a lot for it. When you get a computer from Apple get the least amount of RAM possible and buy the rest seperately.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
Hey, jackass: If you followed your own link, you'd see that particular model has fewer features and add-ons than the eMac does (e.g. integrated Intel video that uses shared memory, versus a GeForce2MX in the eMac. I'm not saying the 2MX is some stunning graphics powerhouse, but it's better than that onboard horseshit).
The one point you would have is the Dell offers more configuration flexibility -- PCI slots, etc. Other than that, if you configure them identically (or as close to identical as the two stores allow), their price is almost the same.
So your point was what, again?
I thought it was already available to everyone...source and all? oh....nevermind.
- Apple Offers eMacs To All
+ Apple Offers eMacs To All active students
Anyone have info about whether all of the hardware is supported for Linux on PPC?
Thanks.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
If you did more than follow the link and actually looked at the base price you would notice that it is 669. A system configured with comparable features will run just under $900.
Who's the jackass?
Lessee...$800 for the (base model) old iMac, $1100 for the new eMac. Dumping the old iMac would boost Apple's lure-'em-into-the-showroom price by $300 (37.5%). That doesn't sounds like a smart move. Not to say that the old iMac line couldn't use some freshing up, starting with the new IBM G3 CPU that they just added to the iBooks.
It's easy to make up & spread cool- and credible-sounding stuff. Finding & checking hard facts is hard work.
...for our little office here. It's really a great machine for businesses that already have a Mac presense, and for any who are moving into it. 1099 for the whole kit and kaboodle. It'll fit on any desktop. It's got more than enough power for anything aside from server stuff and serious film/video production work. No DVD, but for businesses, especially small businesses, that doesn't really matter a whole lot. It's got enough video memory to run the accellerated quartz features in Jaguar. We're going to be specing these things for serveral of our clients, and retiring the aging Cube we're using to pasture as a test machine and getting one for ourselves pretty soon. I'm just peeved that It's not gonna be mine.
Just got back from the local Apple store and they've got a couple of them out there. Really sweet little machines.
I have noticed that performance *has* improved dramatically from the pre-10.0.4 days. Once I upgraded to 10.1 and beyond, Mac OS X doesn't feel sluggish. Of course, YMMV.
Last week foobar104 helped me determine I have a 'so what?' attitude to performance. I guess I've spent too many years on slow computers to care (for example, my current work machine is a Pentium II Laptop).
Just last week I got in a 'discussion' with a guy who complained that Mac's suck because they use harddrives with slower RPMs and that his Wintel desktop machine was better because it could load Photoshop faster. To me, it's what you get accomplished AFTER the software is loaded which makes a difference.
That being said, if I were getting a G4 eMac, I'd probably pop for the extra RAM.
My father is a blogger.
Yeah, get the Dell.
You'll have a nice P.O.S. on your desk that you know was made with the absolute cheapest parts available, not to mention the state of the art Windows XP experience. Enjoy. Now go away.
Actually, just over $900 ($909, as I configured it. Remember, the Dell defaults to a CD-ROM). This makes a few assumptions -- for example, I chose Dell's cheaper 17" monitor, even though the one for $60 more is likely more comparable to the one in the eMac.
So regardless, our price premium stands at $150-$200. Include the fact that Dell charges real shipping costs to make up for their slim margins (around $100 on a machine like this, although they do offer free shipping specials) whereas Apple ships free always, suddenly the difference is more like $100. whooptidoo.
My point? The original poster was trolling, and I called his bluff. The price difference between comparable machines is no where near as dramatic as Wintel bigots often claim. Even though I'd never buy one, the eMac represents a fine value for someone who wants a ready-made, integrated, easy-to-use system.
...of course, we both know that 15 minutes spent on newegg.com or wherever would give us a system that blows either away for half the price, but that's a different comparison entirely.
Now, I know they charge a lot for RAM when you buy it with your machine, but how are they forced to pay a very high price for it themselves? Santa Clara county issues or something? I assumed it was just a way for Apple to make a buck.
'Bout time Apple did this!! I'm a long-time Wintel user and have been sufferring from Windows burn-out for ages now. I see OS X as a real alternative, but (no flames please, this is strictly IMO) Apple was just too pricey. And yeah, I know feature-for-feature you can't buy the same... blah, blah... I've heard the arguments, but sometimes you just want cheap. In making this machine available to the public, Apple enters that arena and will entice people like me to switch over.
Because they enter into contracts that go for 6 months at a time. The price the negotiated 6 months ago has not much to do with what RAM costs today, but we still have to pay based on the pricing of late last year. I mean come on now, $400 (US) to get a 512 MB upgrade for the iBook. It can be had elsewhere for $185, or less, if I looked that hard.
I paid the same amount for my PC, and my PC has the same specs--40GB HD, USB, ethernet, Unix...
:) And before Apple killed the clones, I really was hopeful that there would be some price-competitive Macs on the market. But don't kid yourself; there aren't.
The difference is, I bought mine TWO YEARS ago.
So, really, what are you waiting for?
Just FYI, I always price compare whatever I want to the equivalent Mac, because the hardware platform isn't that important to me. (Linux runs on Macs
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I did just what you suggested on both my iMac DV SE (Jan 2000) and iBook (Sept 2001). Both of them have 128 megs RAM and Mac OS X 10.1.4.
With Mozilla and Finder running I started Terminal. I got a prompt at the end of "3 hippopotamus" on both machines. Earlier when I had a few more programs open in the dock (BBedit, Help Viewer, System Preferences) it went up to "5 hippopotamus". Not great (and my 'stopwatch' sux), but not exactly forever.
I'll take your tip and get some more ram when I have the chance.
My father is a blogger.
Hmmmmm ... wonder how long it'll be before THIS lawsuit happens??
utter rubbish
Time for dadragon to compare the feature to feature price of the new consumer eMac to the old student eMac. Prices for students come from the University of Saskatchewan's computer store (ccs.usask.ca), consumer prices are from Apple's online store (Canada) All prices are Canadian Dollars.
Student:
Combo dvd/cdrw drive
128mb ram
40g HD
Firewire
Geforce2MX 32mb
$1979
Consumer:
CDRW
128mb ram
40gb HD
Firewire
Geforce2MX 32mb
$1794
Well, the difference is $185. An external DVD reader costs more than $185, but an internal one is less. I think the consumer model is a better value, but the student model will likely go down in price at the next price update, so I think this will be my next desktop.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Read the pretentious component names:
700Mhz PowerPC G4
40GB Ultra ATA
NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with 32 MB of DDR SDRAM
Two 400-Mbps FireWire (IEEE 1394) ports (5); 8 watts shared
(fortunately, Apple's long since stopped prepending all their new product names with Power or Quick) QuickTime
Apple Pro Keyboard, Apple Pro Mouse
May we never see th
Well, your experience is totally different from mine. I was running my iBook with OS X's newest version (10.1.4, I think) with 128 megs, and I took darn near forever staring at that rainbow disk switching between Internet Explorer and Terminal.
Internet exploder is a pig. Try a better browser.
The listed info about the G4 processor isn't the same as that of the G4 towers. Is this a different kind of G4, like an older one or what? What kind of performance differences might exists if compared to a 700MHz G4 version of the cpus used in the towers?
hmmm...the eMac only comes in two standard configurations. One comes with a swivelling stand for the computer, and the other one doesn't.
The eMac will be a good choice for people like me who want a faster G4, want an all-in-one form factor, don't need a tower and just don't like flat-panel monitors.
One question: It looks as if the eMac meets the specs for Quartz Extreme. Am I right?
The AmigaOne released by Eyetech or soon to be released by eyetech has already gone through its first revision and will be offering G3/G4 module PPC's in the not too distant future.
I also want MacOSX and am seeing it as a real alternative to Windows. Infact, i believe that goes without saying now!
But yer, the hardware is too cheap, and i wouldnt be able to run AmigaOS anyway! I Apple supported POP boards, but then again, may still require a ROM, like AmigaOS!
Bugger!! When i get my next computer, ill c what happens. I might get an Amiga then run MacOS X through iFusion (PPC Mac Emulator for AmigaOS) and get a ROM for it somewhere *frown*...
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
They're not that bad but don't try to run any high end stuff. It supports up to 1280 X 1024 as a max resolution (85hz i think). it has 3 usb, two firewire ethernet and, that's about it. Really basic setup.
but of course if you were to buy that machine you would be getting M$WINDOWS MACHINE dipshit. the emac is for people who want to buy a fucking mac running OS X.
Sure you get a windows comodity PC cheaper, but you also geta host of other problems too, virus, security holes wtc. You also ghet a OS some people simply dont want to use and are willing to pay a little more for a OS which fits thier needs. I also suspect, as is usally the case when Mac bigots flame, the cheaper price comes at the expense of the quality of hardware.
I wish Apple still had a model like the LC or pizza box x100 line. Some of us "pros" can't afford pro-level machines and have to settle for consumer boxes, but have invested in a good 19" or 21" monitor, and don't want one built-in. By the time second-hand pro machines come down to consumer prices, the consumer machines seem to have outpaced them. I, for one, would be in the market for a $899 Mac like that.
Constitutionally Correct
There's an opportunity to make a lot of cash in that idea, somewhere, I'm sure of it.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.