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The $899 Educational iMac
Valthan writes "Macsimum news has just released news about a new version of the iMac that is being touted as an educational machine. It seems to be a nice setup, and has the cheapness that us university students strive on, I think they just may have a winner here to get people on the Mac. Now if only JCreator worked on it ..."
From the article "Featuring a 17-inch widescreen LCD display, the iMac for education includes a Combo drive for burning CDs and reading DVDs, 512MB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory expandable up to 2GB and hard drive storage capacity up to 160GB. Every iMac also includes a built-in iSight video camera, built-in 10/100/1000 BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet for high-speed networking, built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11g WiFi for up to 54Mbps wireless networking, a total of five USB ports (three USB 2.0) and two FireWire 400 ports."
It'd be nice if Apple would release a cheap version with a bigger screen. I know it isn't really Apple's way, but it'd be nice to have the option. There are a lot of us out there that wouldn't mind having a slightly slower processor, a smaller HD, and no bluetooth, but would still appreciate the larger monitor for movies, etc.
Cheap for a uni student? I certainly didn't have that sort of money laying about when I was at university.
/got my computer for 50 bucks
//i didn't ask where it came from...
We recently bought a bunch of Dells - P4 2.8Ghz, 512 MB ram, 80 GB hard drives, DVD-CD burner, with a 19" LCD monitor for $450.00. I could buy two of those for the price of the iMac. Yeah, I know....windows....Mac OS X, windows blah blah blah.
OK, so the Dell has a separate tower VS the all in one design of the iMac....but the Dell costs HALF what the Mac costs.
-ted
Whoa there, if a $899 computer is what a student strives on, then what about student loans, rent, utilities, and groceries?
Get a prev-gen iMac for less than half the price and spend the rest on beer and hookers or callboys.
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
What school are you going to?
My Uni is one of the biggest MS sellouts there is and they still expect CS students to program on, and submit assignments on UNIX. Mac is much more compatible with UNIX than Windows is, so this would make sense for us.
the cheapness that us university students strive on
/Get off my lawn
$900 for a computer, for students, er yeah I guess some of them have that kind of cash. But I don't think they fit the stretched to the max, loans up the wazoo students that you'll encounter in today's universities. Those students still get by on the computer resources made available by the school.
In fact for $400 you could get a laptop from a couple of PC makers.
Saying that any price point is cheap and affordable only makes you look like an ass and makes other people feel bad.
-- taking over the world, we are.
Apple has no plans for financing that I am aware of.
Although that post was supposed to be humorous it is a problem.
My compaq v4000 notebook I got for $740 was financed with a high interest 14.4% APR loan. With these its about $35 but I had $300 cash from working and saving so it turned out to be affordable for college students. The best Apple could do was a 90 day loan. Uh sorry.
Apple loyalists claim their systems are like BMw's for the wealthy to make themselves feel supperior. Well it wont help spread the platform in the university market with options like that.
http://saveie6.com/
I graduated with an engineering degree in 2002, but took a few CS courses. All of the work was done on the CS lab UNIX boxes (Suns at the time, upgraded to commodity BSD machines right about the time I finished). Remember that CS is about teaching *concepts* rather than putting out functional code-monkeys - that's what "IT" programs are for.
-b.
If that were true, then Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and DragonFlyBSD would have to, when running on a regular PC, crash as much as Windows, too. If they don't, then perhaps PowerPC isn't as magical as you appear to think it is.
I could never have afforded to buy it back then, even with student discounts, and yet it was more or less a requirement to have expensive word processing software
You mean like OpenOffice for 0$? What features are needed in n school (or even university) paper that aren't more than admirably handled by OpenOffice?
and even massively expensive software like Autocad since the teachers didn't just place importance on content and academic achievement but also the way the reports and assignments were finished and laid-out and they lowered the grade automatically for what they judged to be clumsy and unprofiessionally laid-out reports or assignments.
You needed autocad to lay out reports? Riiiiiiight....
The school claimed that they had enough computers in their labs to cover all the student's needs but that was of course complete crap. At the end of the term the labs were packed and having your own computer could make the difference between finishing your big end-of-term assignments/reports or flunking out.
EVERY university I attended or even evaluated had ample computer labs to provide access to the more exotic software that was required.
Yeah at finals the labs were packed, but anyone with more than a half brain knows this happens, and ensures projects that need access to specialized resources are completed early, and if they don't have access to even a word processor they ensure they plan to be on campus for a several evenings a week or two before the paper is due.
What sort of machine you have to buy depends very much on what you are studying. I suppose you could get away with buying some older-than-your-granny Pentium II laptop at scrap value if you are a philosophy major and only need to run Office 95 or Windows ME but If you are an engineering student something of the caliber of this machine is pretty much an entry level requirement these days.
Not even close.
At the universities I attended the expensive engineering apps like Autocad, the software for designing/simulating ICs and stuff like that was on dedicated units in dedicated labs that only relevant classes had access to and the units therein that didn't have general internet access, or word processing software specifically to ensure that students didn't tie up the scarce software resources surfing the web, writing email, or writing their english paper.
Nobody was expected to purchase or run any of that high end engineering stuff on their own equipment.
For what its worth, yeah, at this stage I'd highly recommend someone purchase an entry level laptop, e.g. an ibook (used is fine) or a used PC but that is ALL they need to succeed at university in any field. You could even make do without, if you had to, but the convenience of not having to plan and schedule around lab access or be on campus to get all your work & research done is well worth the money.
But anyone who tells you that you need a dual core PC and Autocad to get a decent mark is just outright lieing. It would only be true if they were so disorganized and idiotic that they left an entire semesters worth of lab work to the last 5 days and then expect to have a unit waiting for them without any competition for it. And yeah, plenty of those people exist, but the proper solution is better time management not a fancy PC and $10,000 worth of stolen software.
I spend so much time in MATLAB that if my use of it had to be comfined to the lab, I would go out of mind. It's not just one part of the year. It's constant. Nearly day in and day out.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Until the price of mac's go down to $250 or the price of a mac laptop goes down to $550 i can't afford one;
Given the fact that the vast majority of computers in schools are Macs, and Windows is the dominant home desktop environment, I don't see how your "capture them early" theory holds water.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
much more powerful commodity Intel box (which is all Macs are now) and load up FreeBSD for around $300.
Bored again, so feeding the trolls...
You can't get a "much more powerful" commodity Intel (or other x86) box. The only "much more powerful" Intel boxes use very expensive high-end CPUs. No one here seems to realize that the cute cuddly little iMac has a 1.83GHz dual-core CPU; you're all comparing it with 2004 products.
For $300 your box will be significantly less powerful than the iMac *and* have no monitor. If you think otherwise, list the specific parts you're going to use, and the specific sources where you found your prices.
Not to say you couldn't get significanty more power (esp. graphics) than the iMac for *$900*, albeit in much uglier form, but come on.
I'd highly recommend someone purchase an entry level laptop, e.g. an ibook (used is fine) or a used PC but that is ALL they need to succeed at university in any field.
Maybe it's all you need, but your peers in the "Advanced Nonlinear Editing" class are going to be enjoying lots of practice time at home while you spend hundreds of hours in the lab, at school, late at night - because your iBook won't run any of the current NLE tools. Or maybe you're an aspiring photojournalist and need to quickly manipulate 30-50MB image files. A 2001 iBook isn't going to cut it.
Considering that many schools are $5-$10k per year, isn't even $2500.00 a worthwhile investment in a tool that with care will last through most, if not all of your higher education? Why are people here grousing about a $900.00 price point when it's clear that not only is this a great deal on a Mac, it's a very capable PC as well!
Misleading? WTF?
There are a total of 5 USB ports so that is what they advertise. EVERYONE does this. My aunt and uncle's pc (Dell?) has 6 USB ports and was advertised as such even though the keyboard and wireless mouse/remote receiver were USB (so by what you are bitching about they should advertise 4). Misleading "advertising," though? No. They are telling you EXACTLY what you are getting. It's not like they are advertising, "5 free USB ports after everything is set up." Personally, I would find it even more misleading if they advertised 3 or 4 USB ports when it ships with 5 regardless of whether the default accessories use them.
I'm gonna burn some karma here to complain..
/.), but this special discounts are really pi**n' me off...
./
Come on.. this is puRe advertisement about Mac, could you stop it!
No news here, just advertisement, and I don't want advertisement covered as a story (yeah, yeah, somebody is going to say, then don't read
If these are news, I would like to read the news about the special discount from Dell for grannies. I'm sure it rocks!
Please, don't get me wrong, I own several PowerBooks/iBooks (in fact I'm writing this posts in one!), so I don't have anything against macs, I'm against lame stories on the FrontPage of
Perhapse it's just the market in my city, but you can get a nice computer for 399 - 499 CDN. These type of deals are usually factory refurbished from the manufacturer, but are today's technology. if you watch the papers for a deal, you can easily get something good (with xp, dvd burner, and what not) for under 500 CDN.
Cheap is relitive to today's prices and goods. You can get a workable desktop for $350, monitor included. Will it be a good one? No. However it'll get your e-mail and do word processing. That is a cheap computer. $900 is a deceant computer. Nothing wrong with going for a deceant computer, but trying to bill it as "cheap" is misleading. For the same money from Dell you can get a Pentium D 2.8GHz with twice the disk capacity, twice the RAM, and a Radeon. You can argue till your blue in the face if that is "better" or not but clearly it's in the same realm.
There's nothing exceptional at all about this deal. Basically it looks like the main selling point over a PC would be the form factor, as PC makers are't big on the all-in-ones. MacOS would also be a potential selling point, if that's your thing. However it's no price demon in any capacity. It does not offer more bang for the buck than competition and you can get one for damn near 1/3rd of the price if money is a real concern.
You can bill it as a good computer of rhte money, but don't try to bill it as cheap, that's false. "Cheap as compared to when I was in university" has no bearing on anything.
Do car makers say their cars have "4 seats", because one is taken up by the driver?
No computer maker reports their product's number of ports based on what they thing you might or might not have plugged in to it. I just don't understand how saying your computer has 5 ports when it... has 5 ports is misleading.
"My car has 5 seats."
"NO IT DOESN'T! YOU BIG PHONEY! PHONEY MC-FAKERSON! FAKER!
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You spend 150 to 200 bucks on the machine and 50 on the crt or 150 on the lcd. If you use Ubuntu you can even save the 50 bucks for XP.
You get a total of 200 to 350 bucks minus the printer. I would use something that you can refill. Old sturdy inkjets or laser printers that now have cheap cartridges come to mind. You should really be able to stay below 400 in total and installing ubuntu is easier than to install windows nowdays. Especially because a computer illiterate would have problems installing all the anti spyware tools.
Does Slashdot get money for advertisements for Apple machines? Seeing how much they charge for a machine I suppose they have the spare money.