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."

Comments

Re:Unfortunately

[b0s0z0ku]

(for most any CS major, it is essential to be able to develop for Windows -- other operating systems are a huge plus).

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.

Re:Cheap, but not cheap enough.

[be-fan]

Are those P4's dual-core? Because if they're not, we're talking about two completely different classes of machine. Dual-Core Dells run $700+ on Dell's website. Also, the integrated form-factor is definitely a plus. As a recently-graduated undergrad, let me tell you that desk and floor space are at an absolute premium in any modern dorm.