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Apple Unveils 24" iMac
beren12 writes "Apple today announced a new model in the lineup of iMacs, a new 24" HD model. It comes with a 1920x1200 LCD, 2.16GHz or 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1-3 GB Memory, 250 or 500GB SATA Drive, NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT or 7600GT with 128MB GDDR3 Video card. Also posted is a new lower end iMac, which looks very similar to the education iMac. Also available is a small speed boost to the Mini line, which now sports a Core Duo 1.83GHz Processor. "
1.66Ghz Core Duo in the low-end, 1.83Ghz Core Duo in the hi-end. No pricedrop though :(.
If you look at look at Apple's recent history, then you will see more often than not feature upgrades with maintained prices. Apple usually only drops prices on products they want to clear from the inventory. If you want a cheaper version of the Mac mini, they buying a recent one second hand is probably your best bet or seeing if anyone has discounted the previous model (assuming they have any left).
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The cube wasn't an iMac without the monitor. It was a PowerMac packed into a very small case.
Why it failed:
Price... period.
You could buy a cheaper and faster PowerMac for $200 less (with expansion bays [still important in 2000], space for a 2nd [or third] HD, space for a full sized video cad, etc. etc.) Benchmarks showed that the singe 400MHz PowerMac was faster than the 450MHz cube [Macworld]
In my humble opinion, the cube would have sold much better if it had been $1199 ($100 less than the iMac of the time) while having the same feature set and a nice mini-tower type enclosure. It was VERY difficult to justify the price of the Mini in contrast to the PowerMac.
It all depends upon what you do with it. For me the cost savings from using OS X over Windows is significant. The cost of using OS X over Linux is very high, since I don't think I can do my job at all without software not available on Linux. I don't know the cost of a good 24" monitor and I'm indifferent to whether on not it is an all-in-one or not. The labor cost of my assembling it all, figuring two hours for assembly, installation, and drivers/troubleshooting is also pretty damn high, considering how much I make hourly. Combined with the cost of the labor every time I do an upgrade of installing an new OS, and moving all my settings, certs, software, licenses, data, accounts, etc. instead of plugging in a firewire cable and having it all automatically migrated easily combines to pay the cost difference (4-6 hours of work usually).
Everyone has different cost/value propositions though.
Old Mac mini: $500, Bluetooth and Airport for $100 more
New Mac mini: $600, Bluetooth and Airport included!
Brilliant!
(Yes, yes, I know... the new Mac mini also includes other new features too)
For more information, click here.