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Apple Revises eMac
RadRafe writes "Today Apple revised the eMac. It now sports a 1.25 GHz G4 processor, DDR RAM, and Radeon 9200 graphics. The Combo Drive model has twice as much RAM as before, and the SuperDrive model now costs just a grand. This is the first consumer Mac update in five months."
Anyone know this machine with the 1.25 GHz G4 processor fares against the new Intel 3.2Ghz processor with 1Gb RAM?
...hello..?...consumer market...Hellooooo....?
At a grand with a Superdrive, seems like a nice little system for me to use when at home rather than setting up my Powerbook G4 when I get home...any comments on how usable it is? I'd definitely bump the RAM up from 256mbytes ;-)
-psy
This'll be a lot easier to sell at work. (CompUSA)
...because asking people about Emacs isn't confusing enough already.
This sig is only here so people stop skipping the last lines of my posts.
For under $800 this Mac is a bargain for potential "switchers". It is a Jaguar system for those who don't want to invest in a $2,000+ G5 setup to give the Mac a try.
When I wanted to try out OS X, I did so with a $1800 Powerbook Ti G4 at 400Mhz, 256k RAM, 20GB HD, and a CD/DVD reader. I found that system well equiped to flex the power of then OS 10.1. Panther and Jaguar are both responsive on my 400Mhz PB and I can only imagine that on the $800 eMac, especially if the 256k is upgraded, it would be a great low cost Mac.
This eMac system is well equiped for experimenting with iMovie, iPhoto, iTunesMusicStore, and GarageBand - all which come with it. For just $200 more you get a DVD burning SuperDrive and twice the drive space.
But like I say, for $800, this is a great system for those who don't want to make the investment in a G5 inorder to give OS X a try.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
The eMac has Firewire 400, not 800.
What a rip off Apple, no one is ever gonna buy the 40 GB iPod now - not when for just $300 more they can get a 40 GB music player with a combo drive, airport extreme & bluetooth support, and a 17" CRT for viewing cover art and playlists.
Plus it comes with Garageband and iTMS BUILT IN!!!
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Even with their update, the entry level Macs are still not even remotely competetive with today's cutting edge Intel machines. Apple fanatics, I don't understand why you continue to waste your money on such machines. Take a look at the configurations of the following machines:
Apple eMac
1.25GHz PowerPC G4, 256MB DDR SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA/100, SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
17-inch (16-inch viewable) flat CRT
ATI Radeon 9200 32MB
Mac OSX
= $999
Dell Dimension 2400
2.4GHz Celeron, 256MB DDR SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA/100, DVR+RW optical drive
17-inch (16-inch visible) CRT
Intel 3D Extreme Graphics
Windows XP
= $679
I specced the Dell to be similar to the high-end eMac. Suprise, suprise - it's $320 cheaper. The Intel equivalent is even $120 cheaper than the low-end $799 eMac! What's up with that?
But if we go ahead and spend the extra $300 on an Intel based machine, we get some really flashy upgrades that start to compete with Apple's high-end G5 offerings. For example, we can easily get a 3GHz hyperthreading Pentium 4 (which is 2 processors in one - an effective clockspeed of 6GHz assuming 100% efficiency running parallel tasks). For example:
Dell Dimension 4600
3GHz Pentium 4 with hyperthreading, 512MB DDR SDRAM
120GB Ultra ATA/100, DVD+RW optical drive
17-inch (16-inch visible) CRT
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128MB graphics card
Windows XP
= $998
Ta-da. Conclusion: Apple is still really bad value for money. For the same price as an entry-level Apple system, you could get a significantly powerful workstation capable of handling anything you throw at it - including games. If you're willing to go a step further and build your own machine from components (gasps from the Apple audience), you can get an even higher specced machine for about the same money.
An ultra-high end computer is $1000 if you're willing to shop around. Nobody should settle for anything less, or for overexpensive, underpowered solutions like eMacs. You don't even have to run Windows if you don't want to. Gnome and KDE await you on Linux and FreeBSD (on which Mac OSX was originally based).
~~~
First off I must say that while I'm not a mac fan (the only one I own is an aging PowerBook runningYellowDog) I've always admired Mac and wnated one since OSX came out. I think I'll wait till the G5 hits the PowerBook...but thats besides the point.
When I read the news I went to checkout what I could get as a minimum configuration... then I found that this clear plastic eMac stand COST $95 (you can find it when you select the eMac; price is from apple.ca). I'm sorry but thats WAY too much for a piece of plastic that should come with a monitor. I'm going to have to be very skeptical next time some MAcFan tells me Macs aren't over priced.
On the other hand it's nice to see the canadian prices being cheaper than it would be to go down to the states and exchange currency.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
But what does the 'e' in 'eMac' stand for?
Hopefully, not for electonic as that would be a bit redundan t.
Moderators are morons, the parent is a joke, not a flame
Since the moderators are on iCrack and modded down the parent comment, let me ask this:
WHY DO YOU LIKE APPLE PRODUCTS?
I really cannot fathom the reasons why you'd choose to buy an Apple over an Intel machine. They don't have any software. Nobody makes games for them - BUT YOU CONTINUE TO BUY THEM.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD - WHY?
I know, another slashdot Windoze/M$ vs. "two words: Mac gamer" flamewar is just what we need, but the parent is on topic and not flamebait. For dog's sake, if the editors post an advertisement for a new mac, people should respect a post that meets the ad on its own terms.
I'm curious to know why the PARENT is flamebait.
$749 for the combo/40gb, and $899 for the superdrive/80gb!!! That's $100 savings on the latter. Seems like it'll be a great buy for students who.
I know this is off topic, but I don't know where else to ask... What is Karma whoring?
And in case I'm doing it right now, please keep your dogma away from my karma.
#|
Karma whoring typically involves
* Reposting material from the articles linked to. This works famously because Slashdot readers often don't actually read the article before responding to it or moderating. Thus, karma whores look like they are providing useful information when they are just regurgitating common material.
* Reposting common links, especially those that get around the "free registration required" to read articles on the NewYorkTimes? web site.
Karma Whoring is the act of posting something that you know will get modded up high, thus increasing your Karma (see below). The difference between Karma Whoring and just making a good post is that you do something like re-post the content of a slashdotted site from an article or something likewise mindless that doesn't really add to the discussion but gets you mod points.
Karma is a concept the moderation system uses to rank posts. Positive mod points increase Karma and vice versa. For people with good Karma, your posts automatically start off at a higher rating (2) than neutral karma users (1) or negative ones (0).
Positive mod points increase Karma and vice versa. For people with good Karma, your posts automatically start off at a higher rating (2) than neutral karma users (1) or negative ones (0).
/Positive / Good gets +1
i believe you're a little off there
Excellent gets +2 (you have the option to not include the extra +1 with each post you make)
Neutral
Bad / Terrible -1 (anonymous posting disabled)
The extra +1 for users with Excellent karma is actually just a threshold preference for registered users and the set display mode for someone who has not logged in. if you are a registered user it is by default to add an extra +1 for registered users with excellent karma, which you can change (most don't)
Cache = store, etc. I think you might mean cachet. That's pronounced "kash-ay" for you Americans that don't speak foreign.
specially when you're trying to run OS X on Intel's processor.
A lot of people I know bought a Mac because of OS X, it didn't matter if it was "slower" than a comparable Intel processor in certain functions. Show me an Intel processor than can run OS X (not just Darwin) then we can start talking about speed comparisons.
At last a reasonably priced Apple computer. And the international prices don't have the standard 50% Apple International tax, they are reasonably close to the US prices after currency conversion!
:)
For a laugh earlier I configured a system on Dells site with similar features. This was a 2.6GHz Celeron 2400C system. It came out higher priced than the eMac (eMac 549, Dell 580) for as close a match of specification as possible (and I made sure that warranties, etc, were minimal on the Dell, I'm not an Apple owner so I won't cheat like that!). Certainly not a bad deal in my opinion, especially with iLife and Panther included (after a year of using XP, I realise how much I loathe it). The Dell looked like a turd as well, if that matters to you!
SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW); writes DVD-R discs at up to 8x speed, reads DVDs at up to 10x speed, writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed, writes CD-RW discs at up to 10x speed, reads CDs at up to 32x speed
8X DVD-R speed, that's twice what they're putting in the G5s! Bonus points for that. It's nice that it's not a bare-bones low end model.
I tend to think that people who write in CAPS are trolls, but since I can't mod you down, I guess I'll have to answer:
Yes, OS X (10.3 at least) is a very, very good operating system -- I own an iBook G4 -- but only if you agree with the design philosophy. OS X was designed for completely different people who want to do completely different things with computers than, say, Linux users. Lots of people in these discussions don't realize this and get their panties in a knot about which system is "better". This is sort of like asking if a bread knife is better than a scalpel.
Apple provides you with a flashy, very consistent, closed, minimal-options operating system that starts with the idea that choice is bad and will confuse the user. Steve Jobs tells you what you can and can't do, and in return, you don't have to deal with the computer as such: You just plug things in, and they work (or they don't). It is ideal for people who just want to listen to music, surf, do some email, and chat -- that is, 90 percent of the population. If this is all you want from a computer, by all means, go buy a Mac. It is what I recommend to my computer-illiterate colleagues when they complain about the latest Microsoft virus or crashing Windows.
However, some people think choice is good, and want to be able to decide for themselves just where they want to be in the big computer trade-off of ease-of-use and efficiency. To take the cliche example, one mouse button is not confusing, but when you do lots and lots of cut-and-paste, three buttons kick ass all over the place. One single desktop is not confusing, but virtual desktops give you more room to move without having to invent flashy tricks like Expose. A mail program without TLS support is one less option for the user, but if your provider happens to require that extra layer of security, you're screwed.
This is the reason why I will be installing Linux with KDE 3.2 on my iBook: I like choice, I am willing to learn things so that I can be more efficient, and the cozy, closed world of OS X is just too limited for what I want (and like) to do. Does this mean that I hate OS X or dispise it? No, it is just the wrong tool for the job in my case. No need for flames (or caps), just a rational assessment of my needs vs. those that OS X provides. Go forth and be happy with OS X, just realize that it is not the uberOS of the Gods. And please stop shouting.
As for the "best of Unix": Apple did the right thing from a business point of view. They realized that they could make all kinds of money without having to give anything in return by using BSD, and then even get to charge premium for a glossy GUI pasted over that. Basically, this is another case where the BSD people are helping a major corporation get richer (remember Micorosoft and the TCP stack?) while getting peanuts in return. If Apple had used Linux for the base system, they would have been forced to be part of the community and give full value in return instead of getting away with dropping a bone here and there. And they still could have sold that flashy GUI on top, made lots of money, made their users happy, whatever.
It is Apple's job (no pun intended) to be greedy: They are bound to shareholder value just like Microsoft. I just wonder if it should be our job to give them a free ride -- for any meaning of "free".
that the fan isn't as loud as in the previous model. It uses the newer G4, so there is some hope. But the quiet old fanless iMacs were really nice.
This is the first consumer Mac update in five months.
What are they up to? Where is my dual G5 PowerBook anyway?
.. then I found that this clear plastic eMac stand COST $95 (you can find it when you select the eMac; price is from apple.ca)
Note to readers: that's 95 Canadian dollars, or 59 US dollars. US$95 would indeed be a lot, but US$59 seems reasonable for a well designed accessory that does its job well and adds certain convenience. Feel free to skip it and buy an aftermarket stand, or make your own, or use an old text book.
Add some software to your precious Dell, bucko:
$679 will get you XP Home instead of Pro, no office suite, no movie software, no firewire & no optical mouse.
Add all that stuff and you are looking at $898 now. Your Dell is a whopping $100 cheaper, which will be quickly eaten up by your Anti Virus & Firewall software you'll have to buy and you still don't have anything close to iDVD or Garage Band. Add Adobe Photo Album to make up for your lack of iPhoto and your Dell becomes $925
I'd bet that a high percentage of entry level consumers, if presented with both alternatives in a FUD free enviroment would pick the eMac over the Dell.
Ta-da yourself.
Besides, what source doesn't Apple share already, that a GNU license would force them to? Darwin is totally open. You can download the source here.
http://www.rutemoeller.com/mp/ibook/ibook_e.html
It tells about how you can use an nvramrc to change graphic-options on your mac to enable monitor spanning (as apposed to monitor mirroring). It works on Radeon 7500 eMacs but it is unclear yet whether this trick will work on these new eMacs. Let's hope so....
I don't understand why apple does not produce something like the eMac without the hassle of a monitor. I don't expandability, nor do I need another screen to clutter the desk. All that I want is a small box that has the guts of the eMac that I can connect to the monitor that I all ready have. One would think that apple could produce something like this with a single pci slot and make it available for less than the price of a comparable eMac.
You'll be much happier with vi.
the eMac was originally introduced for "education", it was in fact only available via edu channels, i.e. at your university bookstore or via the Apple Store after you proved you were a teacher, student or school administrator. After initial sales, they opened up the buying to 'everyone'.
Think of it as the VW bug of the Mac line... the sad thing is it's now 30% or so faster than the original iMac that I spent a cool grand more on a couple of years back... that's tech for ya.
Unfortunately there are many applications (including a few decent games) that don't boot, or run buggy from X running "classic." My faithful laser printer doesn't print from X running "classic." I can understand why it wouldn't work with a G5, but how difficult would it really be to allow dual-boot with the remaining G4 computers?
ADD A FAN! Put a nice 120mm fan at the bottom of the case that is thermally controlled. The cube may have to be a little bigger this time but I would still buy it.
Make sure the machine is not connected to the Internet when the installation completes!
Otherwise, you'll get a virus anyway, even if you don't touch the computer.
Yes, my friends: it's that pathetic.
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"