Apple Updates iMacs and eMacs

applematters writes "Apple has updated the iMacs, they are faster and incorporate AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth. There are two models, the 15-inch and 17-inch. For good measure the eMac has also been updated, and you can get it brand new for under a thousand bucks. Not bad."

Comments

End of the G4?

[PsiFireWhite]

With the reduced pricing on the G4s lately it makes me wonder if Apple has finally picked a new flagship chip to use coming soon. It makes sense to get rid of as many G4s in stock if this is the case, and with the recent drops on the eMacs it's even more aparent.

All in all it seems a wise move to start the price dropping now when it is most needed. Hopefully an eMac that's both Classic and OS X bootable for under 1000 will be very appealing to schools. Apple needs to start clawing back it's Educational market share.

Re:End of the G4?

[Alan Partridge]

what do you mean? We've got a Powermac G4 Yikes! 400 (the original 400, before the humiliating 50Mhz reduction) which dates from early '99. Our PCs at that time were Pentium III 500s - and the G4 showed them a clean pair of heels in video encoding. 30%, 50%, 100% faster depending on optimisation - and with the promise of rapid clock rate scaling to come - an exciting computer all round.

How far we've fallen...

Interesting Note:

[Bob Wehadababyitsabo]

The top-end CRT iMac is $950 for a 600MHz G3 with a CD-ROM. For $50 more, you get the bottom end eMac, which is a 700MHz G4 with a Combo drive (not to mention the 17", 1280x960 display). Why doesn't Apple cut the G3 iMac's price to, say, $500? They'd move more units, and have a good bottom of the line machine for cheap.

Re:You have some facts wrong....

[elemental23]

Airport cards are options.

Yes, but many Apple machines have Airport antennas built in. That's what they mean by "Airport ready". The benefit of this is that the Airport card can be installed internally. This means that a) you don't use up a PCMCIA slot (or a PCI slot, for desktops), and b) you don't have the antenna sticking out of the side the way my Orinoco card sticks out of my Dell laptop (and let me tell you, it's really a pain in the ass).

Apple doesnt care about the low-end market? Then why do they market there computers as quality at a low price so much?

Low price != low end quality. If you want the cheapest computer you can buy, go ahead and get one of those $500 thing, but don't expect anything more than marginal (at best) quality. Or pick up a quality Mac for not too much more.

These eMacs are great for some people

[stefanlasiewski]

My non-computer-literate godmother just bought one of these $800 eMacs for her 10 year old daughter.

It's perfect for her: It's got MS Office & Claris(?) Office for writing papers, a DVD player for watching movies, and her mom can go out and get some decent educational software at a variety of computer stores.

They have a DSL connection and one Power Mac already. We went out and bought a LinkSys Cable/DSL router for $50 at CompUSA, came home, fiddled with some ethernet wire, changed some settings, and boom: Two computers, a networked house, & shared printers.

Running these things on Linux just isn't practical for a 10 year old with an artist Mom. They have better things to do then download and install new libraries to get Gnome2.2 to compile.

Now that I did the initial setup for them, I'm quite confident that my godmother and godsister can deal with 95% of their computer problems without my help.

Look, I'm a big Linux fan, and have been using RH & Debian for about 5 years, but throwing any Linux on a cheap PC and expecting my godmother do simple things like hook up her Palm organizer or installing updates is unrealistic.