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No, no, no! You just can't put clunky PC spare parts together and come up with a device comparable to the new iMac. Apple obviously has some very talented engineers and a CEO with a passion for well designed systems. The point is that the design more than makes up for the difference in price. (If you appreciate and care that sort of thing of course, I do.)

After seeing it on TechTV, I am convinced that the screen is really not that small. This machine deserves to be the successor of the legendary iMac. Now if I could only get my hands on one to see how OS X performs, I might actually recommend this Mac to people again.

I hope they allow you to change screen to portrait mode in a future version.

ciao
yc

I work in AUS$ and over here if I go to a brand PC (Dell, IBM, Compac etc) then the diffence between the low level iMac and them is less than $200(AUS). This would get me a standard PC (square box, seperate screen).

Taking you line then these companies are "ripping" me off just as much as Apple if not more since Apple had to design a none standard motherboard and case.

Could you post comparisons with major PC vendors.
Dell Deminsion 4400
Upgraded to have:
40gb HD
Modem
Network Card
CD RW
256mb mem
15" flat screen
Has GeForce3 card with 64mb
P4 1.6 processor
Total $3210(AUS)

YC, did you not read the article??? I gave $270 more US dollars for Apple as a breathing space, and said that the $730 system it would be ok to buy it for $1000. But the equivelant iMac system sells for $1500, not $1000. So, you say that I have to pay MORE than its 50% of its real value just because it looks like an egg? <P> I know now why you bought that eVilla.

Dear KMart...Please bring back the Bluelight PC!

I bought a BlueLight PC for kicks one day as an extra kick around machine
...and to find out what the hell KMart was up to going into the computer
business! My Bluelight PC was an earlier model, a 533 Mhz Celeron
with 32 Megs of Ram. Came with KMarts free Internet, which lasted until
the internet provider went out of business...

Found that I had to make a few configuration changes to really make
the machine run...mainly added a 128 Meg RAM module to get 160 megs total.
Had a Promise Ultra ATA PCI Hard Disk controller and a second older hard
drive kickin' around from some other PC. Got a 24X CD-RW drive for Christmas from my girlfriend, because she wants me to burn some
CDs for her...ended up costing me $299 for the computer
and figured around $200 bucks for the upgrades.

My Linux friends joke and ask me what the hell...at least change the
case of the computer or put some tape over the KMart sticker
at least....something...

This machine has been working without a crash or hangup since I bought it
a year and a half ago, and has not been shut off! Used the second hard disk
to install Mandrake 8.1 so that I could play around with MySQL for
work...believe it or not the BlueLight PC that I bought as a joke
at the time, surprisingly turned out to be a work-horse and definitely is
the most trouble-free PC that I have ever owned...all features seem to
work properly with both Windows and Linux, even the power management
and accellerated Video. I had to overlook the fact that the machine was
blue and came with a large Kmart Bluelight sticker on it...LOL....
found out the computer is made by LG International in Korea. It
and runs Mandrake pretty quick and solid in my book...
motherboard has accellerated Intel video which is good enough to play
Unreal Tournament on...overall a good throw-around computer! Im the computer
business cheaper is better, since they are just going to get obsolete
in 2 years anyway...I gave up spending big money on hardware that I ended
up throwing out later...getting mad at how useless the stuff became.
Bring back the old Atari ST attitude about PCs..."Power without the Price!!!"

Wanted to mention that Windows XP seems to kick ass over all previous
versions of Windows despite what people are saying about it and definately
makes Mac OS X seem kinda pointless.

DANO!

In my previous comment I forgot to mention the iMac price in AUS$. It is $2990.00(AUS). this is $220(AUS) less the equivelent Dell.

>Could you post comparisons with major PC vendors.

No, an eMachine is the iMac of the x86 world. eMachines only has four models total, there are no options (Dell are custom made), they have pretty good quality, support, configurability is limited, reasonable software offering for home usage, based on proven and cost effective technologies and hardware parts (even the gfx card is the same model for both imac and emachines). All in all, they are similar, in many ways, therefore eMachines is a better example. They are both targetting the home user mostly too.

PC's might be cheaper I agree with that beyond a doubt. But they don't run the Mac OS. And as Windows, in all it's variations, is inconsistant and clunky, I'll stick with my Mac OS.
In truth, there isn't a good OS out there. Mac OS is about the closest I've found. Windows and Linux are such a far cry I don't like using them anymore. Plus, PC's aren't RISC. I don't like CISC anymore, and the plethora of additions to the 8186 intel chip that the Pentium has become just doesn't appeal to me.
And I like stylish things. I was perfectly happy to spent 100 more for my visor edge, simply so it matched my mac.
Oh well. Seems like to some of these people the only opinions in the world should be their opinion. ;-)

>>So, you say that I have to pay MORE than its 50% of its real value just because it looks like an egg?
Absolutely! The thing is you can not get this very functional and beautiful computer anywhere else.

>>I know now why you bought that eVilla.
Absolutely right again! I really liked the eVilla, especially the interface, but I think this Apple hardware is much nicer. You know that if this thing ran BeOS/BeIA I would have ordered one already

ciao
yc

Hi YC,

>>So, you say that I have to pay MORE than its 50% of its real value just because it looks like an egg?
>Absolutely! The thing is you can not get this very functional and beautiful computer anywhere else.

I am sorry, but it seems that I am not as rich as you are. Are you available btw?

>>PC's might be cheaper I agree with that beyond a doubt. But they don't run >>the Mac OS. And as Windows, in all it's variations, is inconsistant and >>clunky, I'll stick with my Mac OS.
>>In truth, there isn't a good OS out there. Mac OS is about the closest I've >>found. Windows and Linux are such a far cry I don't like using them anymore.

Have you checked out Windows XP?...I use Linux and XP and am impressed
with both for different reasons.

>>Plus, PC's aren't RISC. I don't like CISC anymore, and the plethora of >>additions to the 8186 intel chip that the Pentium has become just doesn't >>appeal to me.

Like what do you mean? What is wrong with CISC if the actual throughput
is higher due to processor speeds and other Intel tricks? Not to mention
that fun to use Intel Assembly Progamming

>>And I like stylish things. I was perfectly happy to spent 100 more for my >>visor edge, simply so it matched my mac.

The Visor Edge was a neat choice, but is buying a computer for looks good
when its work done that actually counts? I think Apple is going for
style and high prices over real function. And diverting resources
to their own OS programming and Tools programming actually hinders the
company IMHO.

>>No, an eMachine is the iMac of the x86 world.

The Emachine that I saw recently was not too bad...

Two weeks ago I decided to 'upgrade' my personal motorised transportation device with an internal combustion engine, otherwise known as a car. For the basic purpose of transporting me around town, I could have settled for a $3000 Aus 15 year old bomb which would have done the job admirably. With the budget I had at my disposal ($15k-$20k Aus) I could have bought a decent family sized car not older than 5 years, with the standard accessories (ABS, AirCon and Power Steering) and been perfectly happy. Instead, I decided to fork out $25K and buy a 2nd hand luxury imported car with heated leather seats, a sunroof, woodgrain console, climate control, BOSE sound system, you name it, its got it, in other words 'the works'.

So, was it really worth buying a prestigous car or was it a dumb decision? I've got a grin from ear to ear, I absolutely love driving my car, and when passing motorists on the road have the attitude of 'take that loosers, look what I drive' ;-) The car makes me feel great, even though its sucked out my life savings. But who wants to live forever, I cant exactly take it all with me, that is, I dont want to die a rich man. I've decided to indulge myself, and spoil myself with a little bit of luxury. Its not only the car I drive, its my home entertainment system - a gorgeous Marantz sound/video system. Is it worth spending 2x-3x the amount than for an equivalent unit? If it makes you feel great, absolutely.

To sum it up, people will splash out for the design itself, regardless of what components ship with the unit. I should know, I bought the original RevA iMac on the day it was released (and regretted it, but thats another story). The new iMac is a status symbol, form over function doodah. It looks gorgeous and thats all that matters.

Having said that, for a few hundred dollars more, you can get a Powerbook G4 Ti.

One word...depreciation.

Not really sure where to start here. You mention lowest prices on pricewatch but you don't give shipping costs. Ideally you could get everything from a few sites but you still want to add around $50 (they rip you off) for shipping. Also, you have a case for $10 but no power supply? I can't believe you can get a case and power supply for $10. Also, a lot of these parts I can't imagine compare to Apple's. I would expect to pay a little more for a nice optical mouse, a better ethernet card, etc.

You also have to realize that there is a certain amount of R&D cost to design their case and make sure various parts work together. You could throw all of the parts you mention into a beige box and they could work smoothly together, but there's no guarantee. After building a few computers, you realize that testing components together really does matter (I'm still struggling with SB Live and Via chipset).

In reality, taking into account all of above I'm guessing the number is around 25% overpriced. However, you have to realize that buying Apple is more than buying a beige box. You're getting a stable, beautiful operating system/UI that isn't connected to Microsoft (a plus for me, but most you probably don't care) and that actually works for a desktop user (think GNOME/KDE... they suck). You also get the assorted programs included, iTunes (better than wmp and winamp), iPhoto (looks cool/useful), etc. And don't say that Microsoft provides the same. With the exception of IE and Office their programs in general suck (including the OS) in terms of use and stability. Taking into account the above, I would say it adds another $200 or so IMHO to the value which puts it only ~10% more expensive than PC's. Big deal.

Finally, if you really do think it's a rip off and not worth it, don't buy it. Speak with your money. There are many other people who think it's valuable and will buy it (including me after my PC ages for a while).

I like the move that apple made to take imac's to the next level, but it's sorta... lame on the price. i'd rather buy an graphite imac on their site, save $300. cause i'm not really syked about this knew ilamp thingy. their only upgrade it looks is the case, the graphics card, that's about it. (saying in a prespective of the cheapest ilamp(1299) to the most expensice imac (999))
Also i realised that IBM had already released something like this; except it was more made for the internet and was practically a computer. So i just kind of look at the ilamp as the IBM product, but much more shinier.

And the OSX thingy. I tried that on a pc once, The Darwin thingy. It was sort of funny seeing that _yes_ you could download the core of OSX, but it's not the shiny interface of aqua (i good thing i wasn't expecting much of the x86 version). And i've tried OSX, on the ibook, the imac, and the powerpc. I just simply didn't like it. Being a unixy person it wasn't impressed by the operating system, in the feel and look. I went into the command line and found a few nice things, and alot of weird folders apple added to get people from the old os to the new. i wasn't impressed with that either. and the interface was good, and i liked the dock idea. but i was expecting that they'd adopt multi desktops, for people that are more of a power user that loves to leave apps open and not have to see them hanging around. And i also like the fact that all your choice is for the interface is aqua, but i guess you could say os9 would be an option for an interface, but it's another operating system, i'm more of an X windows kind of guy. but i totaly respect that this is, for it's made for the common mac classic user.
but not for me.

I've also heard something about OSX and pc's. One thing for me is i personally wouldn't want to get this, not meaning there isn't groups of people that are going to go out and buy it. but knowing a majority of pc people wont even reconize it for a while, it'll probably one of those OS's that are more underground and more for people who were once apple users. that plus most windows users are anti-apple. you know the people who say "apples suck.", watch babalon 5, and claim to be experts on computers only knowing a few cool tricks in windows (mostly just guys who know how to burn cd's and have installed a sound or graphics card). yes those guys, will hassel people they know to use windowsxp claiming that to be the best os they've used(they themselfs never trying anything but mac classic).

I'm not saying all windows users, just a good majority. and really, i would of loved to have bought an ibook (new 14" screen sounds cool) and to use the OSX operating system, but i bought my compaq laptop, and i'm using mandrake linux. so i'm fine with that until i want to try BSD or something else.

my 2 cents.

So i just kind of look at the ilamp as the IBM product, but much more shinier.

>forgot to add to this

much shinier, faster, and better graphics card. but the IBM model i saw about a year ago and the ilamp i seen within an hour. so there ya go.

WTF? no way.. the quality is not the same

i didn't say that. i just said i'd rather save 300 on an apple by getting an imac than the new ilamp.
i say ilamp cause in shadow it looks like a lamp.

^ +i didn't say anything about qaulity+

Here in Germany, the new Imac with SuperDrive costs EUR2.550,84 (DM 4.989,01). That's unacceptable. I was thinking to buy one but no way that i accept such a rip off. Unbelievable. No excuse for design or something else.

OK I just speced out a Dell Dimension 4300s 1.4 GHz PIV system with 15 in flat panel, ethernet, modem (the imac dosent have a winmodem), combo drive, USB, 128 MB RAM, 40 GB HD. A system not unlike our new iMac. Price, you ask? $1569.00 WOW that iMac is expensive compared to this DELL!

Sure you can find a cheap ass eMachines on Pricewatch...and what name brand manufacturer do you have to back it up? Apple's are premium brand computers, not commodity trash, so you have to compare Apples with Apples....Apple vs. Dell is fair. Apple vs. eMachines is like comparing a BMW to a Yugo. Sure the iMac is the 325i of the line, but its an Apple and its backed up with Apple research, design and support.

You can price out the Dell yourself on their site. The iMac isnt competitive with eMachines, but its very competitive with Dell. (Note the 4300s is advertised at $899. I have given the machine a spec roughly equivalent to the iMac. If you would rather have a 20 Gig drive and look at a cheap nearly hemispherical CRT, then you can get the Dell for less. I wont argue that point.)

Ok, I'm willing to admit that the new iMacs look slick (though the monitor could be bigger) and Macs with fast G4s running OSX are actually respectable machine, but honestly .. is a computer that looks l ike a desklamp worth all the hype it has received? I mean, what's next? If Apple figures out how much sex sells, I guess next year's iMac will be in the shape of a giant dildo? And stupid Mac zealots will hail it as the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Personally, I don't sit around looking at a computer all day, so I couldn't give two shits about what it looks like. I am more concerned with substance over style, and if Apple were more concerned about making OSX not run as slow as snot on a doorknob instead of coming up with these stupid desklamp contraptions, maybe I'd be a little more interested.
And to the person who said that iTunes was better than Winamp, please pass me whatever it is that you're smoking!

oh my god! i got ripped off buying a bmw when i could have bought a hyundai! jeez folks, comparing any mac to any pc parts is just not right. it's like saying that the bmw 316i and the hyundai elantra are exactly the same because they have the same displacement engine, same number of cylinders, same number of doors and seats, has a hood and a trunk, 4 wheels, and a spare. why buy bmw then? hyundai's will get you around the city pretty much the same. but then again, you don't get the prestige, quality of build, and ease of use of the bmw. you'd get a economical, questionable build, and difficult to use (example, lousy door handles, lousy steering, lousy brakes).

mac and pc. whats the diff? its quality versus quantity. pcs are cheap because there's just too much. macs are quality oriented however. you turn one on, use it. pcs, you turn one on, use it, crash windows (yes even windows xp). plus, macs have the advantage of actually having a sense of consistent UI. unlike windows, where it seems that everything is a little more troublesome to use (like why does my digicam default store pictures to C:\program files\canon\picbrowser ex\indexed photos\2001_12_12). i know the digicam thing can be easily set to another directory, but then why not just put it in a My Pictures folder?

finally, if you hate the new imac, or it's pricing, then you're not the target of the apple marketting department (or steve job's). so simply don't buy it. complain, let apple hear you, let us hear you. but then if you contradict what everyone says, then you're obviously not openminded enough to see the other side of things. my explanation may even irritate you mac haters. and if it has irritated you, or at least made you contradict everything i say here, then i've successfully attracted my target readers.

by the way, i use windows xp and freebsd. not enough money (yet) to get a new ibook. soon hopefully.

FWIW, I just priced out a Dell Dimension 4400 with 15 in TFT and superdrive (other specs similar to iMac w/superdrive). The Dell was a real price performer here too... $1990.00. This price comparison business is getting fun Eugenia! I imagine the next thing youre going to tell me is that you can buy some sand for 25 cents and fab your own 4 GHz Pentium4 so you save $100 or so. If $1500 is too expensive, go buy a eMachines. I wonder how many of the people saying its too expensive are really using $599 PC's (not build it yourself FrankenPC's but real honest to god $599 eMachines garbage).

http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/15660.html

-- a nice read about pricing. and second to the last section. shows that a comparable dell is actually $31 more expensive! sheesh. why am i even bothering.

"finally, if you hate the new imac, or it's pricing, then you're not the target of the apple marketting department "

You're right, because they're obviously targetting morons who think that Windows is too difficult to use, and who think Steve Jobs is God.

I wonder why you want to compare prices, is 1500$ so expensive ?
Mac world and 'standard PC' world are very too different,
I don't like to annoying me with questions like:
"will the xyz graphical card is supported by WindowsXP,BeOS, Linux and QNX Rtp?",
"will I have sound with this xyz card...?"
"will I find conflicts with these hardware?" etc...
With Mac it's simple, all you have 'inside' works. The software use your hardware. These kinds of considerations are very important IMHO.
What's more the quality and the 'design' are here. If I had to buy a new computer, I will choose a MacG4.
As soon as Linux works on the new Imac, I'm sure that this nice beast will be on my desk, in order to have a 'reference platform' for BlueOS maybe or just for fun! Expensive it is not if you really compare it to an 'integrated PC' from Dell, Compact... only Sony with Vaio can compete.

"wonder why you want to compare prices, is 1500$ so expensive ?"

Yes. For a low-end computer that is really expensive.

I had to return it. It never worked. That's what happens when you buy a POS. The imac is not for the geeks. Its for the creative industry and the mac lover who chooses to be different.

It costs $1500 in US. It means some $2000 in Western Europe and even more in Eastern Europe. Estonia, where I live, is quite a prosperous country by eastern european standards, but $2000 is worth about 7-8 of average monthly salaries (and almost doubles mine) here. No wonder, there are virtually none Macs here. At least I haven't seen any during 8 years of my professional carrier and preceding educational period. I guess there is no bright future for Mac on any market out of US

> mac and pc. whats the diff? its quality versus quantity.

There also quality pc components. You have the choice on x86 - you have no (or very limited) choice on mac.

> pcs, you turn one on, use it, crash windows (yes even windows xp).

MacOS does not crash? Haha. Tell this your grandmother. Maybe she believs you. I use Macs from time to time and I KNOW that macs CRASH!

> why does my digicam default store pictures to
> C:\program files\canon\picbrowser ex\indexed photos\2001_12_12

This is windows' fault? No! It's the fault of the developer of your digicam software (canon?).

> you're obviously not openminded enough to see the other side of things

Who's not open minded? There are some very cool parts of the mac (hardware & software) architecture, but macs are not heaven!
Mac hardware looks cool. OSX looks cool. But after a while you get used to it and it's just a Mac.
My PC is placed under my desk. I don't care how it looks like. I don't look at it. If I had a G4 it would be the same.

Lets do a comparison to similar specs of the 'All-In-One' design...

Gateway Profile PC;

$1699... $400 more compared to the new iMac with slightly similar specs (Gateway has some outdated hardware though, like a Pentium III for example)
http://www.gateway.com/home/prod/hm_aio_completeprofile.shtml

IBM NetVista X Series;

$1699... and nothing to compare, you get only a 20GB hard drive. The top model is $600 more and you get alot less!
http://commerce.www.ibm.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce/CategoryDisplay?cgrfn...

Apple new iMac (desktop lamp hehe) Please compare both old and new iMac models;

$1799... you pretty much blow away the competition with investment and get everything G4 and a SuperDrive
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore

Sorry folks, but your arguments are just not valid and you haven't proven anything! Apple has finally built a solution that not even PC users can argue with!!!

Here in G

Sorry, for the last post:
Here in Germany:

IBM NetVista X with 15' P4/1.6Ghz 128Mb/40Gb/CdRW is EUR2343 (from ibm.de)
which is only EUR150 more then the new Combo IMac with DVD/CDRW.

But keep in mind that if you want to buy a cheap PC you can choose whatever you want. If you want to buy a cheap Mac you have this old IMac which i don't think that they are faster enough for OSX. The point here is that you have, yes, a wonderful product, but you fail to attract new customers.

"Apple has finally built a solution that not even PC users can argue with!!!"

Well, if this solution had a 17 or 19 inch monitor, you might be right
Besides that, it's not really the price that turns me off. It's Apple hyping this thing up to be something it's not.
The new iLamp is nothing more than an all-in-one flat-screen display computer with a very good design. It is NOT some kind of technological marvel that's going to revolutionize computing, as Apple might have its followers believe. In other words, it's overhyped. Not quite as bad as the Segway, but Apple should be ashamed of themselves

Eugenia said :

<em>I am sorry, but it seems that I am not as rich as you are. Are you available btw? </em>

Poor, poor JBQ... :p

>>Besides that, it's not really the price that turns me off. It's Apple hyping this thing up to be something it's not.<<

It's no better than Microsoft who was hyping up Windows XP... it was ridiculous if you ask me, yeah I was hoping Apple would of had some more great announcements as well, like AppleWorks 6 getting some new features or something! But I can admit that Steve Jobs' keynote was great, he is a great speaker!

And as for the screen size, the other 2 PC models sport the same size (except for IBM top model NetVista X series)!

BTW ... one final thought:

Apple better hope this thing doesn't tank, or else next year's version may be called iQuit - LMAO!

>>IBM NetVista X with 15' P4/1.6Ghz 128Mb/40Gb/CdRW is EUR2343 (from ibm.de)
which is only EUR150 more then the new Combo IMac with DVD/CDRW.<<

I went to IBM German website (www.ibm.de), I live in Europe as well :-)

The IBM NetVista X series model to whom you are referring is 2,343.20 Euros, which calculates to about $2,087.80 US Dollars

I also had the pleasure of going to Apple's German website (www.apple.com/de/)to compare prices as well...

The new Apple iMac (iLamp hehe) is priced at 1,854.84 Euros, which is about 500 less to your mentioned model. A comparable IBM NetVista X series model "with the works" would be about 3,039.20 Euros... which is about 1,200 more Euros and doesn't have a DVD burner, but only a CD-RW/DVD-ROM.

So the prices are actually alot worse here in Europe than I thought! Oh well, I am in no rush to get a new Mac, I am curious though of how this thing will do in the public eye!

$730 for a comparable machine? You have to be kidding. This is business folks and nothing is free. Apple may give its software away for "free", but the cost of development is substantial, so the idea that they are making 50% margins is absurd. "Free" software is pure marketing. Read any finance page and you will see that Apple has margins in the the 20-30% range...compare to Dell's 20% (one of the few PC manufacturers still making money at all). Should the consumer expect such awesome prices that they put the computer company out of business or into the red? The average consumer is buying a machine for what reasons?: it looks good in their home or at the reception desk at the office, it has a manageable footprint, it is reliable, it is easy to use, it is bundled with a set of software that meets their basic needs, etc. The average consumer is not trying to get 250 fps in Quake 3, rendering 3D animation in 3DS Max, compile c++ apps, or trying to spend several hours on Pricewatch trying to find the best deals from several different sources...and then paying for seperate shipping costs, assembling the gear, and then having no support to speak of. And it is highly unlikely that anything but a very small percentage of the best PC tweakers are capable of building a machine that will run as reliably as a brand new Mac.

I have OS X running on a heavily tweaked and upgraded three year old biege G3 Mac (unsupported model) and it has not locked up once since March!

AppleWorks is better than Microsoft Works.
Mac OS is better than Windows except for compatibility with certain business needs and fanatical gaming.
iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, Quicktime, bundled games, iDVD (for models that have it), Diskburner, DVD Player, Quicken, World Book Encylopedia are all included and worth quite a bit and in most cases better products than comparable Windows titles.

Apple is not getting rich off of us. Microsoft is getting rich off of Windows and Office at the prices they sell for. Check out the profit reports.

I have built a machine using gear mostly found on PriceWatch and I would say that it took me approximately 20 hours to find it, order it, follow up on the orders, and build it. I then spent many hours configuring the machine and doing updates to software (via cable modem that not everyone has).

What do you make per hour? Multiply that by the above and you see Dell's and Apple's pricing. Obviously the percentage of people capable of building their own machine is quite small.

I still don't get the same level of support. OEM Windows = no support.

If you want to build your own computer, then you are less than one percent of the market, so quit complaining like an immature and ill informed baby. The reality is that Macs can't be built via PriceWatch, so use what is available and fall in love with the experience while occasionally bemoaning the fact that 500 game titles aren't released for the platform each year and that certan business needs can't be met in a Windows centric world (help build OS X into what it can be and that won't be an issue either.)

Yes, you are right about the price difference. I was using this 2 models because what you loose on one side (memory/dvd) you gain with the cpu speed; i wanted to make 2 points: the first one is that you don't really have a comparable low end model besides the new Imac, where you, on the pc side, you can always build a cheap (ok, ugly) one. The second is that here, for whatever reasons, we are paying a huge price premium which are getting the things worse.
This is a pity, because i wanted to give OSX a try. But now....

The IBM NetVista X Series top model is 3,085.60 Euros
Advantage; 17 inch monitor
Disadvantage; 40 GB hard drive, DVD-ROM/CD-RW

Apple's new iMac top model is 2,550.84 Euros
Advantage; SuperDrive (DVD-RW/CD-RW), 60 GB hard drive, 500 Euros cheaper
Disadvantage; 15 inch monitor

Sorry about that, I was looking at a couple different models!

>>This is a pity, because i wanted to give OSX a try. But now....<<

That is understandable, my advice to you is maybe get one of the old iMacs while they are selling cheap (unless you really want the new one). I am running Mac OS X on a iMac DV G3/400, and it runs just fine, it runs alot better on my Ti-Book G4, but for the most part Mac OS X is running good in the G3 (10.1 release, not the 10.0 release).

The iMac (second edition!) is new and as every new technological gadget, it came out with a premium price. Likewise, do you really think that a 2.2gz Pentium 4 cost 200$ more to manufacture than a 2gz? That's always the same rule in technology: you charge a premium for what's new to get back your R&D investment as quickly as possible so you can pay your future R&D.

Also some points I completely disagree in the estimation:
50$ only for software: developping OSX cost a lot of money and Apple needs some way to get that money back. By comparison, winXP home edition full version (not upgrade): 199$ retail! Even the OEM version is more than 100$. And due to the number of copies that M$ sells, there is probably no comparison on the return on inverstment between M$ and Apple.
10$ for the case (and power supply): tell me where you find one! Especially one so special as the new iMac.
Comparing Apple and eMachine is not fair, I guess the R&D at eMachine is minimum.
On the other hand, I also regret that a low cost Mac (like the 899$ Dell with just the basic) is not available. Maybe the price of the old iMac will be cheaper and that might be an alternative.

In germany you should buy your PC at the Aldi supermarket :-)

The last model had a 1800Mhz P4, 80GB disk, 256MB RAM
geforce 3, analog video in and out, analog and digital sound
in/out (proper sp/dif), usb, firewire,modem, 10/100mb NIC,
win xp home and the works suite and speakers for DEM 2400.
(or maybe even 2300DEM) and two weeks later a 15"TFT
for 600 or 700DEM.

which is in total less then 1500 EUR (including tax)

the middle imac with combo drive costs in the netherlands
2140 EUR (incl tax 19%) yes thats $1910.

Oh dear, are you gonna get flamed by the Mac-faithful for this one! Back in the days before & after the first iBook appeared, I was a member of an iBook mailing list. Once the orig, small-screened, under-powered iBook was released, I sent a price/perf. comparison of it & an similar Gateway laptop to the list. Tried to be really objective, gave the iBook points where it deserved them, but the Gateway still won out. More memory, bigger screen, faster CPU and about $150 cheaper.

Man, did I get blasted. Took weeks for my singed-off eyebrows to grow back after reading some of the responses... ;->

>>That is understandable, my advice to you is maybe get one of the old iMacs
>>while they are selling cheap (unless you really want the new one). I am running
>>Mac OS X on a iMac DV G3/400, and it runs just fine, it runs alot better on my
>>Ti-Book G4, but for the most part Mac OS X is running good in the G3 (10.1
>>release, not the 10.0 release).
Uhm, maybe i will give it a try. I just heard reports about MacOSX not running too well on the G3. Thanks anyway!

and i forgot the dvdrom and cdrw

>>the middle imac with combo drive costs in the netherlands
2140 EUR (incl tax 19%) yes thats $1910.<<

Macs are very popular in The Netherlands... mainly due to the Dutch not liking Bill Gates and Microsoft!

There's an important question here. If Apple want to be the Mercedes Benz of computers that's OK but if they are only gonna target 5 to 10% of the population and not even try to compete with Microsoft/Dell etc. who is?

Seems they're happy being second. They probably have fatter margins than other computer companies hence the $4bn in reserves and that is there comfort blanket.

No-one I know has a Mac, they are rare and expensive

as OSNews reader Mario correctly spotted in our forums, a 700 G4, is equivelant to a 900-933 Mhz PIII - already far cry from the expensive and fast P4 that eMachines is offering for less!

You should know that a P3 933 equals a P4 around 1,2 GHz.
P4 is the first (?) CPU in Intels history which performs less work/clock cycle than it's predecessor.

This was just a note though... I DO agree that Mac hardware is far too expensive when compared to th x86 counter-part.

Have you ever shopped for a car? You have 100s of choices. They all exceed the maximum legal speed limit of 70 mph. They all have seats, steering wheel, etc. But what makes a Mercedes $60K more than a Hyundai? Engineering? nah. Materials? nah. Looks? nah. Marketing, marketing, marketing. Mercedes has developed an image an reputation and people are willing to pay extra for it. It's all legal. It's called free enterprise. AND for the 99% of the marketplace that does not have a CS degree, the appeal of an easy to configure and use computer is a major attraction. THAT adds value. In your price you also fail to give any value for the included software. Well, yeah, Linux has Gimp for photo editing, but no one has yet to come out with a free video editor. Finally, the inefficiencies of the Mac OSX that most people complain about have no impact on the typical, everyday user. Linux can only become a player in the desktop world when they understand K.I.S.S.

...and between - if you pick your own components for your PC you probably go by Athlon which gives more horse power per dime!

no one has yet to come out with a free video editor

Check http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/">this this" rel="nofollow">http://heroinewarrior.com/">this.

Between, I can't find out any major applications for MacOSX that is lacking on the x86 platform... inform me if I'm wrong.

>>If Apple want to be the Mercedes Benz of computers that's OK but if they are only gonna target 5 to 10% of the population and not even try to compete with Microsoft/Dell etc. who is?<<

When people got out to Wal-Mart and/or Circuit City to purchase an economical PC, they are the same type of people that would go purchase a Hyundai, they don't care about styling... they just want something to get them from point A to point B!

When a person goes to the Apple Store or CompUSA to buy a Mac, styling and something radically different with slightly better performance is on their mind of necessity, these are the same people who go out and purchase Mercedes Benz, BMWs and cars of that nature... styling is important, especially image!

Though Dell now has added styling to their PC line (and I really like what Dell has to offer, well except for Windows) they didn't 5 years ago, they use to be what Honda was in the late 70s, early 80s... now look at Honda, you can consider a Honda a Japanese version of a Mercedes, very well engineered and designed. Dell has followed suit in that arena, most of the other PC makers have not (except for IBM, which we expect perfection from them).

I think most people probably don't care what computer they have, as long as it gets the job done, whether it is for internet and email or just multimedia stuff I like my Macs, they fit my personality and I am willing to pay the price of a Mac because I know I am getting my money's worth and a great experience behind it. I've already owned a PC (still have it) and it just did not fit me, but just like computers and cars people are different and have different wants and needs. I could care less if Apple had more or less of the market share... if they gain more then fine I congratulate them, but being a Mac user is fun indeed since we are a rare and weird breed for the most part!!

ealm...

>>Between, I can't find out any major applications for MacOSX that is lacking on the x86 platform... inform me if I'm wrong.<<

You are right, but critics and analysts will tell you that Microsoft's offering for Windows XP (video editor) doesn't come close or compare with what Apple has to offer in the multimedia area or "Digital Hub" as Steve Jobs calls it!

First of all some of those prices are out in left field. $10 for a case, $10 for a pair of speakers. We know what you get with $10 speakers, garbage. A $10 case is not realistic. But those are penny's on the dollar in total cost terms. Once again there is no software cost. Unless you are shutting down your old computer or running a free OS, you have another $100 at least. Since we are talking about building a computer for your average user, you have to include software costs. As was also pointed out you neglected shipping charges for getting your individual components. Since we are comparing how much the Mac would cost *you* versus *you* buying the components and building it yourself, this is certainly a valid price to add in.

Lastly, you mention the wonderful eMachines as the example of "good" PC pricing. In case you didn't notice, they were on the verge of filing for bankrupcy before being bought up by EM Holdings. So their "wonderful" pricing structure proved as idiotic and unrealistic as it sounded.

http://biz.yahoo.com/fin/l/e/eeee.html

Bottom line, computer manufacturers need margins to make money. Dell, IBM, Compaq and all of them have similar margins. You as a personal builder has none, and it is reflected in your cost. The Apple machines are not rip-offs, they are priced competitively with equivalent PC's. Where they get lost is in the bargain basement computers, which is not a market Apple wants to compete in. That venture was almost as big a failure to Apple as the clone market--which didn't extend the user base one iota but did erode Apple's profits.





PS I will also take exception to the poster who said there is no modem on the iMac. There most certainly is.

>>No-one I know has a Mac, they are rare and expensive<<

I see them in Windows in Dutch house quite frequently, and you know how the Dutch don't cover their windows up! I am not nosy or anything, but one thing I can tell you Primafoon down the street from me sell Macs like hotcakes. I remember when they were first getting the new iBooks in last summer, I had to wait 3 weeks or so before seeing one in person... as soon as they would put one on display, it would sell. My friend went x-mas shopping at the Mega-Mall and said people were carrying out iMacs like there was no tomorrow. I am a witness that Macs sell well in The Netherlands from my experience, is that saying that every Dutch person has a Mac, NO! But they do sell well here!!!

Hey that comparison is fine and dandy but does that Geforce cerd ypu chose have a DVI interface - after all the TFT in the iMac probably is digital. Same goes for your LCD. Oh and I doubt the machine you speced out is as quiet as the iMac (25 dBA).
Sure Macs are more expensive but my figure is more in the 200$ - 300$ range and not 730$. But I'm probably talking out of my ass (but hey so are you!).

These 730 $ will buy you a crappy PC !! What kind of TFT screen do you get for 250 $ ? What kind of quality case do you get for 10 $ ? If you want to compare the iMac with some PC hardware, at least try to use same-quality elements. A good case and power is not 10 $ but 100 $. A decent TFT screen is 400 $, not 250 $. Etc... the bill adds up quite fast.

Of course, this statement applies...

"Steve Jobs has lots of style, unfortunately that is all he has.."
- magazine article and review

You are right, but critics and analysts will tell you that Microsoft's offering for Windows XP (video editor) doesn't come close or compare with what Apple has to offer in the multimedia area or "Digital Hub" as Steve Jobs calls it!

So what, none of them are professional. Even the free alternatives I mentioned in previous post are alot more professional then. Most Mac users use Premiere then... and it is available to Windows as well.

What kind of TFT screen do you get for 250 $ ?

A decent TFT screen is 400 $, not 250 $

Well... a decent 15" TNT screen should definately be able to view a res higher than 1024x768 (which is max for the iMac one)

If you like to install Win every year, than you are fine and you could buy a cheap PC. Where cheap means really cheap, lots of problems like crashes and so on, ask my collegue ;-).
I worked several years with Win and I just don't like it to have a bad feeling with every software you install, because you never know if your system will work after. and the best you can't go back to the state bevor the install !!
So I'm just tyred of installing and fixing and searching drivers (very often the ones which are delivered are buggy). I want a comp to have my work done, and not to fight with it so he is running.
Just for example I never have 'destroeyed' RISC OS on my 2 machines with installing software, the same goes for BeOS. With every Win machines I have it was the same. At first very fast and than with every month slower and slower until you had to install it again.
So since BeOS is 'death' I will go for a Mac
Just my 2 Rappen ;-)

Thöms

I have to admit, it is incomprehensible how consumers thinking one form of BS
over another is good flavored or not. The iMac has class, and that is all it
has. PCs have speed, and that is about all they have. Both crash regularly
if not configured 'just a certain way'. OSX is a PIG, 9.x is not much better
just a difference flavor. WIndows is garbage, we all know it. Linux is almost
to the point you can be a non-programmer and use it. BeOS is simple, clean
and fast, but abandonwear. In all, the only thing left i see useful to compare
prices is the cost of getting treatments for the headaches you get from reading text
online. iMac has one up, you have no choice but to read it off LCD, so now
we go from cancer treatments to eye bugging out treatments. Oh the joy.
When is the computer industry going to get it right?

It looks like you've gone out and priced the cheapest, most shakey parts you could find to put together your uber-cheap wonder box. I'd just like to point out the figures I take issue with.

Case $10 USD

Any case I ever saw for $10 was really quite a flimsy, poorly constructed (ripped my hand open on unfinished, unsanded, jagged edges), piece of tin, and it even lacked a power supply. The iMac has a newly designed, custom case. It costs money (and quite a bit, at that) to have a mold/stamp constructed to develop a completly new case design. Go look at a $300 Enermax case versus the $10 piece of tin, and not only will it look better, it's constructed better. Finished aluminum (which cools better), all the corners are smooth so you can't damage yourself, and it's sturdy. You wouldn't think twice about using it for a step ladder. Add $50 for at least a plain looking, better constructed case with power supply.

LCD $250

Again, you're comparing the lowest priced LCD to an Apple Digital Display. I won't say much about this except, put a regular Digital to Analog converted LCD next to an Apple Digital display, there will be no doubt that the Apple display is cleaner, crisper, and doesn't suffer from "trails" where there is fast action on the screen.

Motherboard $50

A good PC motherboard will run you $150, if you want the fastest bus speeds, ATA 100 all the way across, etc. Plus, the motherboard for the iMac has two firewire and three USB ports on it. You don't get that with a $50 PC motherboard. Now I can't say that I've seen the iMac motherboard, but I'm assuming it's been radically redesigned as well to accomodate the small footprint of the case. This again brings us back to production costs associated with getting stamps/presses/molds created to develop the brand new design.

Also at this point, I'd like to propose this "riddle", if you would. Why is it that a, say, Celeron 800 Laptop will cost you twice as much, if not more, than your $730 PC? I mean, it's slower technology. It's nowhere near as fast as a P4 1.4 Ghz PC, you don't get nearly the hard drive space (20 or 30 gig standard, versus the 60 or 80 gig standards on Desktops these days) and only at 4200 RPMs, at that. Yet people pay twice as much for them all the time.

The simple answer is, the technology is smaller, and smaller costs more to manufacture. The complex answer is... well, you figure it out.

NIC $10

This is more on a personal level, some people may be perfectly happy with a $10 NIC, but being the uber-network-geek that I am, nothing but 3Com NICs go into my machines. I prefer the quality, the history of the company, and the ongoing support to pay for them - and the fact that I've never had one die on me is a boost, too. 3C905 Nic, $40.

Speakers $10

You want to compare a $10 pair of tinny boxes to Harmon Karden built speakers? No comparrison. None. Sorry.


I could go on and on, point by point on almost everything you've quoted, but I guess I'll just sumarize with this. You've assembled essentially the Ford Pinto of PC's - they're mass produced, cheap and abundant. They're also old, outdated and pretty much haven't changed in design in 10 or 15 years. The iMac is new, freshly designed with some pretty neat and new technology stuffed into it. And let's face it, you pay for neat and new. I mean, I can go buy a disposable camera for $10, but the new Digital Camera I want is $999 - why is it so much more?! ...it's still just a camera!

-Rance

The digital hub idea is for amateurs only. Again, more of the target audience for the iMac. However, professionals have more choices on both platforms than Premiere. Macs use Final Cut Pro as well, and PC users have a few software options. Premiere is not the defacto standard for this realm, but it is quite popular. I would never run Premiere on a Mac if I had a PC available though. The time specs for premiere on a Mac, running any OS, are no where near as good as they are on a top of the line Macs. Unfortunately it isn't as AltiVec aware as other Adobe products.

Eugenia,

Apple is a PREMIUM brand. You're comparing COMMODITY hardware (less design, manufacture, etc.) to a PREMIUM product. Read the Time article - Jobs compares Apple to BMW and Mercedes, and after *thoroughly* researching them, so do I. You pay extra for the intangible user experience that you can't get with Windows. You pay extra for the "cutting edge" design (coolness). You pay more for running a functional OS on a RISC processor rather than the inferior CISC design. You pay more because you're getting iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iTools, iWHATEVER for *free*.

The arguments about Apple charging too much have been around forever, and it's never going to change. I, too, am an ex-Beos user (I think I went by Vertigo on BeNews Forums), and I hate Windows with a passion. I hate it. I hate being FORCED to use it at work. I hate all the little incompatibilities, glitches, errors, and crashes of ALL forms of Windows, including the sh*tty and overhyped WinXP. I admin an NT network, and NT SUCKS. I understand Apples are expensive, but you get what you pay for. I, for one, am willing to pay extra:

1 - NOT to use Windows ever again if possible
2 - To keep Apple (a viable alternative to Windows) alive
3 - To use an OS that doesn't make me tear my hair out or cry myself to sleep at night
4 - To be part of the Mac community (friends with common interests, etc.)

I got into BeOS because it was the most Mac-like thing I could find on the PC, (besides the uniformly crappy Mac emulators). We all saw what happened to Be. They were great, and I loved them, but there was no other way for them to end. A war with M$ is almost over before it starts... The world would SUCK if it happened to Apple too. If they give away their stuff, it *will* happen to them. Be, Inc. were NICE GUYS. Unfortunately, NICE GUYS FINISH (*DEAD*) LAST. You can't survive if you're giving out your only product in sad desperation.

I've been eyeing Apples since before 1998(!!) and haven't been able to buy one yet (wife, car, bills, took a bath in the stock market, etc.). I play on my Father-In-Laws G3 PowerMac as much as possible, and immediately noticed all the little things that Apple users take for granted. It seems that Apple actually CARES about putting out a quality product, but they understand that with <5% of the marketshare, they need every cent they can get. I'm okay with that. They're not trying to be MacDonald's. They ARE a niche player. I'm saving up to buy an OLD G3 iMac to get my foot in the door before I sell all I own and plunk down the big ca$hola on a G5 Powerbook in years to come. If you can't *afford* the best, you can't *buy* the best. And you can't expect Apple to give you one because you complain about the price. I've been longing for one far longer than you have, and I'm not complaining, so either take the hit and buy one, settle for an older model, or go back to BeOS. This is reality. Sell your PC(s) if you're switching. Get on a team and back it. GNU/Linux, Windows, BeOS, AtheOS, BSD, OpenBeOS, Mac, whatever. They all have good points and bad points. Unfortunately, one of Apple's good points is not price (although the VALUE for the money IS there, for me at least, when you factor in all the intangibles).

Change hurts, but you gotta ignore it and just jump right in if you want to, money be damned. You only live once. The most important thing is getting your mind set on which way you want to go. The rest will just happen in time. And if you don't think your happiness is worth it, you will choose the less-expensive "blue pill" and go to Windows XP like 95% of the world. And everything will be alright.


Best of luck in your post-BeOS computing life.
I hope the next OS you love survives.

The Oracle

The profit is slightly greater that 100% if the cost is $730 and the selling price is $1499 (not 50% profit).

> I am sorry, but it seems that I am not as rich as you are.

So the gripe is that you basically have no money. There's any number of thoughtful issues which could have been discussed concerning the new iMac but whether you can afford one or not doesn't really cut it for me.

Ohh, so users should pay twice as much for apple hardware to get a video editing program for amateurs only, that comes with MacOS.

Hmmm... IMO $750 is quite much for an amateur video editing app

Digital only LCD screens (as used in the imac)
are cheaper then the ones who have also a
analog VGA converter so $250 is a good guess.

I have a 17" TFT with analog input and with a good videocard
the quality looks the same as a digital only solution.

Apple may be a premium brand and people are willing to pay for
it the parts it puts in it's computers are the same everyone else
in the industry uses. Apple doesn't make TFT panels they buy it
by the 100000 from a manufacturer.

Euginia: You keep singing that emachines are comparable to Apple. The only problem with that is that eMachines is bankrupt and Apple has 4 billion in the bank. Emachines tries to subsidize your PC by selling Advertising and installing spyware on your new computer. That is why emachines are so cheap.

The hardware may be the same, but the target market is not as similar is you say it is. Emachines target people who would not have purchased a pc unless it was dirt cheap (hell with a 400 MSN rebate, all you had to pay of an emachine was the Tax!) Apple is not trying to sell the iMac to people who wouldn't normally buy computers. Apple is positioning the iMac G4 as an elitest computer like the Acura over the the Honda. It costs a little more and it does the same stuff as the cheaper model but you buy it because of its style and prestige. Apple to Dell is a fair comparison. Both are successfull computer hardware companies. You can't compare them to a company who's every product was a loss leader. Its not a valid long term business model.

-Jason

The included software is for amateurs only. That's why there are professional products available. The iMac's is more than good enough for professional video editing, but they will probably want a PowerMac tower because they'll want to add in more A/V cards for I/O. Side by side comparisons of iMovie and iDVD have never shown the low cost, much less free, Windows equivalent to be comparable in user experience. Just read some reviews. On Final Cut Pro vs. Premiere vs. other software, there is a lot more debate. A lot of the debate is personal perference as well. And once again (ad nauseum) you are not paying an extra $750. You are *maybe* paying an extra $200 compared to the same mainstream PC desktop system.

somewhere out that long list, i've read some arguements about my arguements.
sweet. at least there are still a lot of people using their brains.
you research about the products you see. you try and find out what you need and what you want. want a mac? want a pc? want a nintendo? that's fine. i want a mac. there. you want a pc. there. you gonna argue about me wanting a mac and telling me i'm stupid? fine. you believe macs are overpriced pieces of sh!t fine. you believe macs are worth the money fine.
i'll just say this. in our priority lists, we first check what we can afford. if we can afford a lot, then we go for what we WANT. if we can't afford something, we go for something else we NEED. just think about this... instead of arguing, get what you want or what you need or what you can afford. we're all gonna die anyway. why waste time arguing your point whether or not something sucks or not, whether something is too expensive or not. just enjoy life.
peace to everyone.

<p>You are right, but critics and analysts will tell you that Microsoft's offering
for Windows XP (video editor) doesn't come close or compare with what Apple
has to offer in the multimedia area or "Digital Hub" as Steve Jobs
calls it!

So what, none of them are professional. Even the free alternatives I mentioned
in previous post are alot more professional then. Most Mac users use Premiere
then... and it is available to Windows as well. </p>
<p>I am a Mac user, and I use Final Cut Pro. That is NOT available on Windows.</p>

Well...The cost for the system will be artificially higher at first to make up development cost and production cost for this type of all custom design, but the cost will be driven down qucikly as production gears up. Apple will be buying at a large volume which will drive cost down further, if the imac is a hit as the old one was. The pricing that Eugenia is using I find realistic and could even be less. When I buy by volume qulity parts I can drive down my prices 10% to 20% and what I consider volume would pale in comparison to Apple.

Eugenia, stop whining about the Apple prices. Buy the PC you describe. You'll get what you want (correct?) for the money you are willing to spend.
Isn't that simple?

Your (always the same) complains sound too familiar now ;-)

OS cost wasn't included with that price breakdown. How much does OS X cost when purchased separetly?
Also, what kind of an LCD are you getting for US$250?

People. Any one who cries about the price of a mac needs to buy one and sell it three years latter. You will find that it holds its value verry well. I sold a 3 year old 300mhz Blue and White for $1000(Canadian) this year so I could buy a duel processor g4 for $2400. Try that with a cheapolla PC.

Some answers to all of you guys:

1. What kind of LCD did you include?

15" 1024x768, same as Apple's. And don't tell me that Apple has a better quality one, because I don't buy it. The company they ordered them from, are also supplying LCDs for cheap LCD monitors for the PC world.

2. Software included, how much when purchased seperately?

Read the whole article carefully, the answer is there.

3. Apple is premium, it is the merceded benz of the computers.

No wonder it only has 3% of the market then. I would never buy a merceded benz. I am better off with a Toyota. It does its job perfectly.
But I want to run MacOSX too, like CattBeMac does and like Scott does and like Billy does. But Apple does not give a real choice.

4. eMachines not a good example, they are cheap.

eMachines are a perfect example. They are the low end of the PC world. And iMac is SUPPOSED to be the low end of the Mac world. Also, both are targetting EXCLUSIVELY the home user and have nice case design.
To my knowledge, eMachines quality is not bad at all.

5. The prices from pricewatch do not include shipping.

This is not included because when Apple is buying its parts, they buy in so high volumes (and in so much better prices) that the shipping price is included in the price of the shop I would buy it from PriceWatch. For example, if I say that a mouse costs at PriceWatch $10, the shipping is included, because PriceWatch as a wholesaler in order to get it from the factory, has already paid for it and includes the additional value to the $10. And Apple is a wholesaler too.

Please do not forget that I put a whole $270 dollars as an additional value to the $730 just for a breathing space for Apple to do their "premium stuff" they want to do. But I am not willing to pay more than that ($1000). I am not going to pay $800 MORE of the actual cost, just because Apple wants to be "Premium" or because it looks like an egg or because it looks like a desktop accessory. I am not going to be the village idiot for Apple's favor.

Apple should wake up, create a really cheap machine and ALLOW people to use OSX. I don't care how iMac looks. I don't care if they add horns into it. All I want is to run OSX respectfully in a reasonable machine. And that's the bottomline, my gripe, my pain.
Except of course, if Apple really want to be a niche locked at the 3% of the market and don't want to really compete with Microsoft at any level. Dunno. Go ask Jobs for it.

I'm glad eMachines *made* good hardware. They are out of business because of their amazing business savy and marketing.

1. They are not out of business (yet). Their machines still selling at Frys.
2. The PC world is much more competitive than the Mac world. Surviving is much harder.

Just go to the Mac forums (macslash.com for example) for a change. 90% of the people there were dissapointed as well from yesterday's keynote, iMac, prices and overly hype.

Also, News.com today has an article about new iMacs being expensive and that it will be difficult to compete in price and performance with similar cheap but modern PCs.

As you see, I am not the only one who was dissapointed yesterday.

You know what I don't understand? It seems to me that Apple's primary customers are educators and media development professionals. These professions generally carry a respectable, but not excessive salary. I just don't understand how Apple can believe that the pricing scheme for the new iMacs is reasonable for this audience.

All through college I had to use the same Mac that I originally got as a high school graduation gift. This was not because it did everything I wanted it to by my forth year (in fact it did NOT), but because I couldn't afford a new one, and was dead set against buying a Windows PC. Finally, with the iMac Apple started catering to the audience they have always captivated. They finally had a price range academia could afford. What was the result? Apple became the largest computer seller in the world for the holiday season after the iMac's initial release! Good, great, grand... finally Apple Marketing had wisened up!

Then they went and released this new iMac, apparently completely oblivious to the strategies which lead to their own success. It is too expensive '.'

I have one more gripe: What the hell use is increasing the screen size of the iBook to 14.1" if I can't do 1280x1024?!? What, people wanted to see their icons be bigger??? It doesn't give you any extra screen real estate! 1024x768 is fine for my mom and dad reading email, but it just plain sucks for writing code. I personally want the most pixels-per-inch I can get my hands on.

Shmegglefurt

Sure the iMac is the 325i of the line, but its an Apple and its backed up with Apple research, design and support.



HA! Dude, have you EVER called Apple tech support?!? I have never been on hold for >>less<< than an hour with them. Also, while Apple hardware is traditionally very good when running MacOS, it is certainly not perfect. Do you know why it is that you can't use PCI cards from a PC in a mac? The reason is that Apple has a flawed PCI implementation. You get to pay 30-50% more per-PCI Device just to get the Apple version because of (purposefully?) flawed engineering.

follerec

jeez folks, comparing any mac to any pc parts is just not right. it's like saying that the bmw 316i and the hyundai elantra are exactly the same because they have the same displacement engine, same number of cylinders, same number of doors and seats, has a hood and a trunk, 4 wheels, and a spare.



No, it is like comparing two computers which use Quantum fireball SCSI drives, have PCI implementations, use GForce2MX graphics boards, and USB Mice. The primary differences between Macs and PCs (generally speaking) is the cpu/motherboard arch. The components are practically identical, except for the PCI workarounds, of course.

NOTE: There are as many PC Configurations as there are stars in the sky. My point is that it is *possible* to build a PC which has almost identical components to a Mac.

>>I have one more gripe: What the hell use is increasing the screen size of the iBook to 14.1" if I can't do 1280x1024?!? What, people wanted to see their icons be bigger??? It doesn't give you any extra screen real estate! 1024x768 is fine for my mom and dad reading email, but it just plain sucks for writing code. I personally want the most pixels-per-inch I can get my hands on.<<

I think the main reason Apple brought this back (as I was told at the Apple Store when I bought my Ti-Book G4) that Apple customers were screaming for a bigger display on the iBook (like the ole Clam-Shell), though I run into people who want just the opposite.

>>HA! Dude, have you EVER called Apple tech support?!? I have never been on hold for >>less<< than an hour with them. Also, while Apple hardware is traditionally very good when running MacOS, it is certainly not perfect.<<

I can agree that Apple's technical support is not peaches and cream and I wish it could be better, but I don't call them often enough to worry about it either!

Since the markup on clothing is about 70%. I don't know how you have time to write articles like this with all the sewing and knitting you must do.

TaCo[Fungi], Yeah I've called apple tech support. Numerous times. Never waited more than five minutes. Once you get past the front line of ding bats, the support guys are real good (All tech support companies have a front line of ding bats reading from an answer book). I sent my iBook in last summer to have the AirPort antenna repaired. Called at 4pm CT on monday. Airborne Express guy shows up on tuesday morning, takes iBook. I figure by the next tuesday I'll have it. Thursday comes two days later. Airborne express guy shows up with iBook. It took TWO DAYS for them to fix my computer and get it back to me. Thats my experience.

I have PROVEN (read posts ~20-25) in my previous posts that one of the most popular PC manufacturers (DELL) has NO price advantage compared to Apple. Gateways and HP's are slightly cheaper on the low end, you might be able to beat Apple by a few bucks with them. The $799 quality PC is a MYTH and EVERYONE here knows it. A few of you built your own PC and thats cool, but the vast majority of people reading this are sitting behind Dell's and Gateways and HP/Compaqs. Sure you can configure a PC for $799 on Dell's site, but you dont get shit!

There are lots of things to consider...do $799 PC's offer 802.11 networking, ethernet, firewire? Are they expandable to 1GB RAM (talk about expandability most of these cheap PC's wont take more than 512 MB RAM, IF THAT!) You guys are upset that you cant get an iMac for $799, I understand that. If you REALLY want to run OSX buy a used G3, OSX runs fine on G3's (I'm running it on a G3) and stop bitching. By buying used you dont give any money to Apple, so you make your statement and still get OSX to try out.

You'll find that a used G3 costs quite a bit more than used PC's but $400 is still better than $1299. Macs just hold their value better. As a comparison heres a price breakdown of some of my used computers.
Computer New Price What I paid for it
IBM N40 Notebook $17,000 $300
SGI Indigo2 $40,000 $450
Sun SparcStation 5 $10,000 $230
Apple B/W G3 $1,500 $550

And that makes sense....which one do I use more? Guess.

I have no qualms about my disappointment. That was the first thing I posted. They needed to add DDR to the towers and up the MHz on the G4 into the mid-1000's. But that is completely irrelevant to whether the current iMacs are a good deal. These machines a bit pricey compared to low-end machines available from Compaq or Dell. But none of those machines have an LCD display, and most of them don't have firewire. The question is, does your average user need a DVD burner. Probably not. Which is why the machine may be expensive for that person buying it, but that doesn't mean that you are getting ripped off on the hardware you *are* buying.

I think Apple should take the now low end G3 iMac (the previously high end one), and wrap it inside of a 19" monitor for the same price. That would give you a reasonable OS X system for $700 with a 19" monitor and all the trimmings (256MB RAM, CD-RW/DVD drive, 40GB HD, FireWire, USB, Modem). How would that suit you Eugenia?

Does anybody remember the original iMac price?

>I think Apple should take the now low end G3 iMac (the previously high end one), and wrap it inside of a 19" monitor for the same price. That would give you a reasonable OS X system for $700 with a 19" monitor and all the trimmings (256MB RAM, CD-RW/DVD drive, 40GB HD, FireWire, USB, Modem). How would that suit you Eugenia?

Please read my yesterday's reply. I personally need a G4, because being a developer, I want access to the Velocity Engine.
However, for someone who does not care for a G4 as much as I am, then yes, the deal you are mentioning is very good.
However, there is a small problem again. The previous high end iMac at 700 Mhz G3, did not had DVD playback capabilities, which was my other problem with it. It was a simple CD-RW, not a combo.
But yes, if they add CD-RW/DVD and that G3 at 700 Mhz, it would be a good deal overall for $700 and it will allow people to switch to the Apple platform. That would have been a good thing to do. Even if they did not add 19" monitor, but they kept their 15", it would still be a good deal.
But Apple was unveiling yesterday "the official death of the CRT" (please!) and they killed the previous iMacs. Even after they have announced the new iMacs, they keep selling the previous iMacs at the previous prices with no discounts at all, as stock last.

Just out of curiosity, what code would you need to compile that would be velocity engine accelerated? If you are accessing pre-compiled libraries, then you won't need it to run or compile your application on your platform. Vectorization is not trivial, which is why people spend a lot of effort optimizing their code for it. Even if the execution is easily accessible, you have to design your algorithm around it, which can also be difficult. Same with parellel processing.

Some interesting points here. My opinions on the matter:

* I really like the new iMac's design. It doesn't take up much space and gets around one of the biggest problems of all-in-one units: lack of being able to move the monitor to suit your needs.

* LCDs are cool and 15" is fine for home users, but 1024x768, while acceptable, is disappointing. OS X craves more screen real estate than that.

* I really, really like what I saw of iPhoto (it's very much like what I proposed to BeUnited, except with even more features). Overall, I really like the iApps; Apple has wisely decided "well, if we can't have all of the hardware and software of the PC world, let's pick some things that are important to users and make them easy". And iPhoto is, in my opinion, much more important than either iMovie or iDVD, as digital cameras are much more common than either digital camcorders and DVD burners (DVD burning is a neat idea that won't reach consumers for a few more years, when the price drops enough).

* I am sick and tired of hearing about how crappy all PC hardware and software is; it's such delusional thinking. Sure, there is crappy PC hardware/software out there. But there is also hardware/software of remarkable quality. Apple's stuff is usually rather good, but all it takes is one quick look at Macintouch's reader reports or similar sites to see the various problems that people do have. Even Steve's iPod wouldn't sync during his keynote yesterday, and you know that was a machine that Apple employees set up and tested very carefully. Yes, Macs are good quality. But it's folly to pretend that there isn't good quality to be found in the PC world.

* As for OS X never crashing, try using being on NetInfo and then taking your portable home sometime. Quickest way to a reboot. Overall it's a rather solid OS, but it's not the OS of perfection that some make it out to be.

* For all its neat features and pretty graphics, I still contend that Windows XP is better overall (more task-designed focus, some really useful features, great handling of hardware and drivers, support for more technologies, better networking [ability to multihome, *much* better Samba than OS X], etc.). That said, OS X 10.1 is clearly a much larger improvement to 10.0 than XP was to Win2k. If OS X maintains this very impressive rate of improvement, it could do some great things in the near future. It's definitely one to watch.

* By biggest complaint about this forum is the constantly misapplied car analogy. Why do people buy BMWs? Because of quality, speed, handling, style, and status. Sure, in some ways the Mac is better than PCs in this respect, as they tend to have more style and are of high quality (but no higher than respectable PC brands). However, they clearly lose the speed comparison, and "status" is kind of a misnomer when referring to computers. Plus, there is one *huge* point that the analogy misses. If I'm buying myself a car, I don't care what brand of car you buy, because it doesn't affect me. However, in the computer world, it does. The more people that use my platform, the more software and hardware support it will enjoy, which directly affects me. Thus, it's very important that others share my choice. Mercedes can last just fine with a small market share, but that doesn't mean a computer company necessarily can.

(Some people might be tempted to argue that, well, the more people own Mercedes, the more repair shops will be around in my area, so what brand of car the people around me buy does matter to me. This is certainly true, but is much, *much* less important than in the computer world, where the basic usefulness of the tool is defined by the applications available for it.)

ummmm Eugenia.........They are still selling the older iMacs because that is their low end.......the new ones are not the low end PC line, they are the middle line that creates a nice spectrom of hardware from lowend with little expandability and power (when compaired to the rest of the line). a nice entry lvel system that is durable against kids; a middle line system that looks elegant and has the power and features a more seriouse home office proffecional needs to do work or for a general office workstation like word proccessing and reception (anything short of design/engeneering/grafic art); and then you come to the high end. with this moddle, you get the power needed to do design, engeneering, and graphics. this is the workstation, this is what you buy if you are seriouse about getting work done and need the extra power to do it.

the old iMac is going no where.

One minor clarification:

Where I said "For all its neat features and pretty graphics", I was referring to OS X's neat features and pretty graphics.

"Apple should wake up, create a really cheap machine and ALLOW people to use OSX. I don't care how iMac looks. I don't care if they add horns into it. All I want is to run OSX respectfully in a reasonable machine. "

Heh, I agree. Low-end computers should be, well, cheap. e-machines realized this and buys inexpensive parts at bulk rates. Thus they can assemble an inexbensive product.

If apple really wanted to attract more users they should build a 700 dollar machine. And, please, add more memory! 128? that's sad! i can get 128 megs of SDRAM for 20 dollars at bestbuy! There is no reason for apple to only include 128 megs. It's pathetic.

Person one - "boy i'm sick of windows! it's too slow (or wahtever"
Person two - "well, why don't you get a new iMac. The new 700 mhz g4 with 128 megs of memory is only $1299"
Person one - "$1299?! That's how much I paid that much for my 1.7 ghz athlon system! and it has 256 megs of memory!"
Person two - "well, a G4 700 mhz isn't really as slow as it sounds"
Person one - "well... can i run all my games and programs on the imac"
Person two - "no... but a lot of people are bringing the games over to the mac! And the mac has better software"
Person one - "what?! I've spent thousands of dollars on software! and i will have to replace it if i get a mac?! your insane!"

that's usually how it goes....

There's one more thing I forgot to mention: it's kind of pointless to debate what kind of PC you can get for the $1299 price of a low-end iMac right now, since that iMac won't be available until March. The real question is what kind of PC will you be able to buy at that point.

Anyone who thinks an Emachine is a good deal is full of it or doesnt know anything about system design, hardware or computer repair. Please, if you want to buy an emachine go to whatever crappy store they're selling them at and LOOK INSIDE. 90 or 70 WATT POW? 3 PCI SLOTS, NO AGP? Some crappy 4mb integrated video card? REMAN SEAGATE hard drives, and CHEAP REMAN memory.

If you buy cheap you get what you deserve.

" 90 or 70 WATT POW? 3 PCI SLOTS, NO AGP? Some crappy 4mb integrated video card? REMAN SEAGATE hard drives, and CHEAP REMAN memory. "

where did you get thoese specs dude? a 700 dollar emachine comes with a geforce2 mx with 32 megs of intergrated video memory. where did you get the idea about the 4 mbs?!

well, i see what you mean about the 4 megs of onboard video. my old eTower 366id has that. but they stopped making that years ago dude.

E machines top selling system

Specifications
CPU Intel® Celeron® Processor 1 GHz (w/128KB)
Chipset Intel 810 Chipset, 100 MHz FSB
Memory 128 MB SDRAM
Hard Drive 20 GB HDD
Optical Drives Built-in 12x Max. Write CD-RW Drive; 3.5" 1.44MB FDD
Video Intel DirectAGP 3D (810 shared)
Sound Intel 82801 AC '97 Audio
Modem 56K* ITU v.92 ready PCI internal Fax/Modem
Ports/Other 2 USB ports (1 on front bezel), 1 Serial, 1 Parallel, 2 PS/2, Audio In & Out, 1 Midi/Game on front bezel, Mic-In & Head Phone jack on front
Peripherals Keyboard, Mouse, Stereo Speakers
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It comes with the 810 chipset. I think that's an 8mb video card. It shares 4 more.

As far as the emachine model you speak of it's a little less than 200 dollars than a Gateway, the GTW has a better hdd and better CDRW.. Better support, better motherboard (MSI compared to emachine's who-knows-what boards)..

If I were the average JOE and i wasnt a stupid hill billy I'd buy the Gateway or a Dell.

That machine is their absolute cheap one these days. Please do not try to distort my article. I compared the MIDDLE range iMac to their current Pentium4 at 1.5 Ghz specific model which sells at $799 USD. That P4 machine is the one you should mention and analyze, not their absolute cheap a$$ one. Not fair sweetheart. Because the one you mention only costs $499 (and they even have a model selling at $399), and for that price, is a good machine indeed. But we are comparing their $799 model against the $1500 iMac here.

I just sat down with a very hard core Mac guy. Great friend of
mine, and we talked. Candidly, he frankly was ashamed, in shock and
horrified by what was announced yesterday. He agreed, the over price
POS looks and smells like a blob of clay with a stick in it. For
what price??? 900, 1000, 1100, nope. More. And for that he is now
for the first time looking at buying a PC or two for the same price
completely configured running, you guessed it BeOS. Yep, as I learn
and experience the power of BeOS, albeit kinda dead end long run, it
functions exactly for what I want, and apparently more so for him.
The funny part is, why buy a POS over priced blob of clay with stick
for 100-200% more when in fact they just outpriced and cornered themselves
depending on the G4 productions or even the vapor G5 from almost out of
business Motorola. Bottomline, yes the Mac does hold value, for idiots
that paid too much new will also pay too much used. That is a given, and
never ceases to amaze even me. But for that 'killer' app and way 'cool'
design, well you really have to hand it to the Steve Jobs Distortion field,
this one he outdid himself. Final note, when SJ rolled out the iPod 'flop'
as it is now called 'iFlop', he had a look on his face telling the story, of
disbelief himself. I have seen the same discusted look on his face this time around
and I'm wondering when the public will pick this 'energy' up and realize
even the shmuck shoveling the BS to the public is no longer believing his
own BS.

Best to you all, and I hope most realize this is IMHO, not to be taken
without water.

Eugina's comparison prices are complete crap, and his estimation of comparible function are obsurd. Cheap PC parts are just that, cheap, crappy, buggy, no drivers, no website, no aestetics, no quality. And considering a good motherboard and power supply are essential to a stable PC ... any estimate less than $50 Case, $100 Motherboard is just wrong. HOWEVER ... you CAN in fact get a really great PC, which competes with the top end MACs for less than the iMac.

Here's a REAL sample (from www.mwave.com):

$ 70 Enlight case w/340 watt P4 ready PS
$150 MSI nVidia nForce motherboard w/ Geforce2MX video
5.1 sound, 10/100 NIC, USB
$174 AMD 1700+ Athlon XP (retail w/fan)
$117 IBM 60GB HD 7200 RPM, ATA-100
$129 Samsung 8/4/32 + 8 CD-RW + DVD
$144 Crucial 512 MB PC2100 DDR RAM, 2x256MB (www.crucial.com)
$ 41 Yamaha 201 speakers w/ subwoofer
$ 30 nearly any keyboard you want (I buy $11 Misumi 104s)
$ 50 Logitech dual optical mouse
$142 Windows XP Professional
$ 46 Shipping and Handling
----
$1,093 WITHOUT MONITOR

Add KDS 15" LCD shipped <$360
Add Viewsonic 15" LCD shipped <$400
Add Your Choice 17" LCD shipped <$700 ($550-$800)
Add LG 915FT CRT 19" w/usb hub shipped $400

So ... for $1500 with your choice of high quality 15" LCD or 19" CRT you get a powerhouse PC, with a standard beige case and aestetics, and a deposit directly into microsoft's bank account ... but the thing will outperform the top of the line mac, for the price of the top of the line iMac. All assuming that these parts work together ... and you get someone knowledgable to install the OS and apps for you (maybe add $100 for that).

Opps ... forgot ... $40 for a firewire card. sorry.

And all I have to say is anyone who quotes a PC price under $1000 is buying crap ... and anyone selling a PC for more than $2000 is ripping you off (not counting extra software or SCSI raid setups ... etc).

I think those iMacs wouldn't be TOO overpriced if they came down $100-300 AND completely removed the idea of selling a 128MB computer ... that makes no sense at all ... all that CPU, held back by a memory starved OS.

all prices are USD.

Eugenia,

Face it... your head hunting and Apple (and it's new iMac) is in your path of destruction. I hate to say it, but you are starting to remind me of Oprah Winfrey, great actress, terrible talk show host; always one-sided and hardly ever makes a good point!

What are your thoughts on Microsoft's new Tablet PC stuff? You haven't given a 'Our Take' opinion, but seem to save that for Apple bashing instead?!!

Sorry Eugenia, I have much respect for you and I have followed your articles since BeNews, but this is really getting pathetic!!!

I had written previously, "Does anybody remember the original iMac price?" Since nobody answered, I'll assume nobody knows. It debuted at $1299. Some people balked at the price back then, but six million iMacs later, it's what ultimately saved Apple. This new iMac is better in every way, and it costs the same as the original did back in '98(?). Plus, if you really want to get OS X but can't justify the price, there's still the "classic" iMacs available for under a grand. Granted, it's still more than a comparable PC, but I don't mind paying extra for it. Imagine running Maya (available for Mac OS X for free in February) on this great little computer. Yum.

While I don't agree with E's assesment of PC hardware, I don't think she is overly biased against the Mac. You make it like she has some vendetta against Macintosh or Apple. If this were true, she would have blocked any kind of positive Apple news from the OSNews website--being as she is the Editor in Chief. I may disagree with her on some topics, but I don't consider her unreasonably biased in anyway.

I have tried for many years to move away from Windows. On my PC I ran FreeBSD, since Linux never ran on it (old P5-60). On my second PC computer I tried BeOS, and loved it. The only problem was it had no WinModem support and until R5 had to run in 640x480 grayscale. I still plowed through it, and loved it. However I saw the handwriting on the wall when R5 was delayed continuously and the promised JDK1.2 spport was missing from the R5 release. At that point I turned around my plans to buy a new system to run BeOS on. At work I loaded BeOS, Linux and FreeBSD and played around in each of them. Besides BeOS, I didn't see anything which made me want to jump over.

MacOS X turned my head early on, and when it came time to buy a new computer to run an alternate operating system I went ahead and did just that. I bought a Cube (paid too much for it actually) to run it and have it look cool on my desk. Finally, I have an OS that isn't made by Microsoft that I can truly use and love. It has its flaws, just as all OS's do. However, I wouldn't trade my cube for anything. My next new computer will definately be another Mac, unless BeOS makes a comeback somehow. If BeOS re-enters the race, I would seriously look into that again.

Still up and running. Now with 256 MB Ram and nice and fast (G3 233).

Too many numbers here in this thread.....

The new iMac is beautiful! I give it a 10! The emachine or Dell or any box you might want to compare is just plain ugly.

But, if all you want in your girlfriend is a hole and heartbeat, fine with me. I just prefer "Centerfolds".

JMHO

Sorry but her track record isn't good where Apple is concerned...

She did the same when Mac OS X came out, when the iPod came out and now the new iMac, I agree that Apple needs to figure out where the iMac stands, but comparing the iMac to low end PC hardware from a mom and pop shop is ridiculous!!!

oh my god! i got ripped off buying a bmw when i could have bought a hyundai! jeez folks, comparing any mac to any pc parts is just not right. it's like saying that the bmw 316i and the hyundai elantra are exactly the same because they have the same displacement engine, same number of cylinders, same number of doors and seats, has a hood and a trunk, 4 wheels, and a spare. why buy bmw then? hyundai's will get you around the city pretty much the same. but then again, you don't get the prestige, quality of build, and ease of use of the bmw. you'd get a economical, questionable build, and difficult to use (example, lousy door handles, lousy steering, lousy brakes).
--------
Yeh, so explain the cheap ram & slow (100MHz) system bus of the iMac, while PCs (ie. the Hyundai) have been using DDR and faster processors (real-world, not merely MHz) for ages now, and can be had for far less money. If you want to buy a novelty with the cheapest bottom-of-the-barrel OEM parts under the hood, go into your novelty store and buy an imac. All the car analogies in the world aren't going to hide the fact that Mac users are increasingly being forced to accept a book on its cover, and compromise on performance and 'handling' and of course the increasingly important ability to upgrade their 'budget' computers (which everyone knows don't stay in their prime for long). Macs were so far ahead of PCs in past years that it just wasn't funny, so it didn't matter much what they did. Not anymore...and people are starting to notice - lampshades and fruity flavours or not.

That said, 3 things I think are possibly -- and I hesitate to use the term for fear I'll become a new Jobs -- 3 things I think are 'cool' with the new iMac, and deserve some praise for actually making a difference (TM) to users:

1) The ability to orient the monitor quickly and easily far more flexibly than a monitor on a regular stand. Definite plus.
2) Power consumption.
3) The (fan, HD) noise of the unit I'd expect to be very low. Good thing.
4) Small footprint (but at the expense of real upgradability, I think not).

I'd hate to see where Apple will be in 10 years though. The gap between what they think they can get away selling to their loyal sheep and the tech advances on the PC side are just getting wider and wider. If there were a mac clone market, I'd probably own one now. There isn't, and the customer base, as usual, is stiffed by Apple and have to follow its course like some beggar asking for crumbs - any crumbs they receive they'll proclaim to be the most righteous meal they've ever had. I want real competition & the real tech advances only competition can bring. This doesn't cut the mustard.

Yet another PC vs. Mac Holy war. I'll just say that a properly configured Windows machine doesn't crash. Mine doesn't.

Cost inflation is also the result of going retail. Best Buy, Circuit City all shoot for a 30 - 50% cut. This offsets their own cost of shelf space, support, training, ad, Returns, Stock, etc. So if Apple's development and BOM costs reach $800 per unit (unlikely), then $1300 is rather reasonable for going retail. The flip side, however, is that this iMac looks as though it was meant to work as a 'Digital Home Hub' - aka appliance. (Serious PC/Mac users would *easily* forego processing power for a larger screen.) The target price for such a device is around $300. With this in mind, Apple is off by a WIDE margin.

>>That said, 3 things I think are possibly -- and I hesitate to use the term for fear I'll become a new Jobs -- 3 things I think are 'cool' with the new iMac, and deserve some praise for actually making a difference (TM) to users:

1) The ability to orient the monitor quickly and easily far more flexibly than a monitor on a regular stand. Definite plus.
2) Power consumption.
3) The (fan, HD) noise of the unit I'd expect to be very low. Good thing.
4) Small footprint (but at the expense of real upgradability, I think not).<<

Great analysis, I definitely agree with that!

>>I want real competition & the real tech advances only competition can bring. This doesn't cut the mustard.<<

If you want this, then you're not exactly getting it from the PC makers quite yet, they are still behind Apple in this arena... the floppy is dead, lets get over it and move on, the parallel ports are useless, lets get over it and move on, the PS2 ports are useless, lets get over it and move on! If it doesn't have FireWire and USB, then you are wasting my time... I have FireWire Drives and such, and I also use USB driven hardware, I don't have anything for the old tech anymore.

I still think the PC is behind the times and PC makers are ripping off the normal consumer, because sooner or later they will be forced to upgrade before their ready, my stepfather is realizing this now with his eMachine eTower 466 Celeron (and he is a gamer by the way) and his new games are giving him grief. He was asking me what he should do, so I went thru his specs sheet and upgrade options, not alot to play with other than RAM upgrades, and he is not a happy camper!

I see good things and bad on both sides of the table, but my experience with Macs have been alot better than with PCs by far! I'll keep my Mac thank you!!!

Sailfast wrote:

Since the markup on clothing is about 70%. I don't know how you have time to write articles like this with all the sewing and knitting you must do.

That, my friend, was truely hilarious!

Face it... your head hunting and Apple (and it's new iMac) is in your path of destruction

When you finish being lame, getting this Mac sad puppy zealot face and finding easy conclusions that only serve your blindeness and ego come back and talk. Also, please reread this in a week from now. You will see how stupid it is, especially when you read all the OSX reporting we do, the MacOSX week etc.

In all cases, I talk openly. I ALWAYS write what I feel. Wrong or right. And that is what makes people bitter against me. I am strongly opinionated and stubborn as a donkey. In the recent past, I have badly critisized Be, I have badly critisized Linux or Windows or Apple. And I have praised Be, I have praised Linux or Windows or Apple. Depending what they do each time.
In this case, Apple is selling the darn thing very expensive. There is nothing to talk about that. <U>It is a plain fact.</U> And I write it, because I wanted to be their costumer, but I can't afford it, and *even* if I had all the money needed, I would definetely not buy it just because it does not worth as much they sell it.

Make me rich for one day, and if I buy a single thing more than the things I really need, come and spit on my face.

You know, I will tell you yet another pretty personal thing, because this is how I am, I am not hiding behind my own words or my own shadow:
When I was little, as every kid does, I was asking to my father to buy me this or that. Most of the times, my desires were not reasonable, sometimes they were, but still, my family could not afford whatever I wanted each time. These times, my father was always replying:
"Eugenia, you were born by poor testicles. Not rich ones. Deal with it."

(Now you know from where I inherited my strong language

So, I know who I am, and what I want. Paying $1500 for something that costs considerably less than $1000 (no matter how much I desire it) is in direct violation of who I am, and my respect towards my husband. End of story.

"I'm glad eMachines *made* good hardware. They are out of business because of their amazing business savy and marketing"

How soon we forget how close Apple was to being "out of business" until Microsoft bailed them out...

"How soon we forget how close Apple was to being "out of business" until Microsoft bailed them out... "

If I had a dollar for everytime I read that urban legend (as in: not true), I would go buy a new iMac!

This thread makes me wanna barf. You cannot comment on costs regarding such things as technology. To compare raw hardware is ridiculous. There are such a number of factors involved such comparisons are of the likess as to which is a better OS, NetBSD or SCO/SUN? Think about it.

My 10 year old sister wants a Malibu Barbie Corvette. Guess what? Until she has the CASH, or someone else buys her one, she can't get one. And complaining to Hasbro or whatever isn't going to lower the prices. Jeezus.

Everybody KNOWS Macs are expensive. If you think they're TOO expensive, don't buy one. I am looking at a loaded Apple G4 POWERBOOK, at 3X the price of the new iMac, because to me, they're worth every penny. I wouldn't buy the new iMac, but I WILL buy the G4PB. I don't have the money yet, but I'll get it, and I'll pay it, because *I* think it's worth it.

And maybe the high price adds to the sex appeal. If my girlfriend sees a cologne for $100, she loves it. If she sees the exact same cologne on for $20, she avoids it like the plague. High prices make Mac users "elite", and not in the hacker sense. Maybe Macs are as much a status symbol as they are a tool and a toy. So Apple makes a markup. So what. Look at the markup Microsoft makes. Look at the markup Starbucks makes. EVERYBODY has markup, and lots of places have a BIGGER markup than Apple! At least Apple gives you a pile of great software free to compensate for the hardware costs.

To me, all coffee tastes the same, so I won't often pay the extra markup at Starbucks. My girlfriend sees VALUE in Starbucks, and is MORE THAN WILLING to buy coffee there. Eugenia doesn't see the value in an iMac, others do. Eugenia, don't try to change how a huge company does business BEFORE you're even a customer. Plunk down the cash, THEN you have a right to complain. It's like voting. If you don't vote, don't complain. You're complaining about the drive to the voting booth, hoping they'll move the booth closer to your house, and you're threatening not to vote until they accomodate you. NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

Scot's essays were constructive criticism, and were for the most part well thought out. Your stuff is destructive, and offers no solution besides "Lower the price, *I* can't afford a Mac at the current price. *I* WANT to be a customer, but *YOU* are stopping me. Change, and I will buy one". Then they lower their prices obediently, and by then you've changed your mind. "Sorry, Apple. OpenBeOS is doing good, that's where I'm heading".

I don't think you understand the value of, or culture surrounding, Macs. The macheads I know are a small group who KNOW they've got something better. Every one of them is happy with their computer. I use Win98, RedHat Linux, and BeOS (boxed version), and NONE of these systems are as ubercool as my friends Macs. I will have to incur new hardware costs to switch to a new OS, too, but that's life. At least you don't have to do it with the pathetic Canadian dollar like I do. Sell your other computers. Sell your CDs. Stop drinking coffee and eating out. If you want something, work for it. Don't expect a handout from a Fortune 500 company. And don't expect pity from others who are in the exact same boat.

And you don't NEED a G4. Just like you don't NEED a big screen TV or DVD or fancy car or whatever. You NEED food and water and shelter. Everything else is a luxury. ESPECIALLY computers. You've got x86 hardware, get a copy of Win98. Try FreeBSD, it rules. OpenBSD is supercool. Help the AtheOS guy if you're a programmer. Like Scot said, he'd like to write a book for MacOSX, but the Mac world is actually kinda crowded. The AtheOS world is kinda empty. You seem to think they need better widgets, make some. Kurt will appreciate it. Make your mark on that system, it won't cost you a cent.

If you don't want to join the Apple club, then don't. I do, and I will pay to join. The price is a barrier to stop people who aren't serious. And there are lots of people above who've done good comparisons of value and see Macs as just fine - for them. You have to go beyond dollars and cents to see what others see.

Some of you guys are real idiots and should go back to slashdot, macslashdot, winslashdot or whereever you're stupid selves came from. Especially people like you Zoober.

I'm not a Mac loyalist. I come from the Wintel world. But after researching prices between the two platforms over the past year, I found it hard to identify a variance greater than 10 - 20% when a true feature to feature comparison was made. I found that Apple is doing a respectable job at matching feature and performance with major Wintel suppliers, and keeping the price relatively competitive.

When forced to upgrade hardware to run XP, I instead chose to purchase an iBook for about the same price (excluding software licenses for the new platform). I can now say that the ease of transition, the quality of hardware and software have more then made up the price difference in my opinion.

I wish computers were cheaper, but I expect to pay enough to keep the suppliers in business. I guess I remember when the IBM PC was first introduced in the early 80's - a really good one was about $3,500. I guess I've gotten use to the fact that top of the line computers will always be in $3,000 range, high end systems will be in the $2,000 range, and good low end systems will be in the $1,000 range. I've built a few for $500 or so, but time is money and you're on your own as far as support is concerned.

Did anyone calculate electricity bills?

I think my Dekstop puts 35 bucks a month onto my bill, including monitor.

I bet you are charged less then a third as much as a comparable desktop PC with that iMac.

Lets assume the iMac is 1/3rd the energy cost of one of the decent end p4 desktops, even though it probably alot less. thats at least a 200 dollar a year savings.

Whoops there go all price comparisons.

...If my girlfriend sees a cologne for $100, she loves it If she sees the exact same cologne on for $20, she avoids it ...

So what is so good about it? What you say that you willing to pay, for stile and quality of the product, and people who don't, are not belong to the "sex appealing" elite? It's OK with me, and about 95% of computer users. And not all of them are stupid or lacking sex appeal.

Well, people, I really like PC hardware bashing you do here But this is not the point for lots of people.
"Cheap PC parts are just that, cheap, crappy, buggy, no drivers, no website, no aestetics, no quality."
No website? who cares?
crappy/buggy/no quality? hmm, it is usually configured my PC manufacture and works all the 3-years guarantee time (after that people usually buy another pc, don't they?). if it's really bad, it is changed or free.
no drivers? Joe User does not know about drivers. it just has a system he bought from the shop
no aestetics? well, a lot of people in the world don't have any computer and are forced to buy as cheap as they can. most people need functionality as cheap as it gets, aestetics is for those who have nothing other to think about.
Surely, you will not understand my point since you live in prosperous countries, but affordable home computer for the most of the world (5.5 billion people, 2 of them are more concerned about what to eat tomorrow rather than choosing a new PC) is definitely not the new iMac
Have a nice day

people who use iMacs dont care that they lost RAM. They are just simple users. if you want more, then go somewhere else. They brought out the iMac... you dont have to buy it, they arent making you. You, eugenia, as the consumer, dont have to do anything. Buts its there if u want it. You guys are forgetting that this iMac isnt about whether you can build a similar PC for cheaper... seems that apple gave up competing against PC's in that area long ago. What the iMac gives you is convenience... that thing is less than half the size of my computer combined. There are NO PC designs out there that can offer what that does... no matter how slow... there is the new shuttle spacewalker.. but getting the LCD on there wouldnt be too easy.
Eugenia.. you almost sounded like you knew what you were talking about.. almost a respectable opinion. As a consumer, you should try and find out more about what you buy. There is no such thing as a $10 case, unless you just wanna buy a piece of sheet metal. And if there is, i wouldnt touch it with a ten foot pole. A $50 motherboard?? mebbe if its broken. And the G4 is an apple chip... i thought you were building a PC? I wont even bother commenting on the rest of your poorly researched prices. Did you not even bother reading actual reviews on the Northwood P4 and realize that its only a "tad" faster. And how can you say the quality of eMachines is "not bad" when even you speak of their impending doom (" not out of busines (yet) " ). You sure dont match up to the qualifications listed in ur biography.

fine. dont buy apple. i'm sure they wont care if they lose a consumer like you. If i was steve jobs i wouldnt.

first of all, that's fine if you want to have a cheap pc that you can sit in your bedroom and watch all of your favorite divx porn from, but imacs are to be seen (unlike beige boxes). $10 for a case isn't going to even get close to the design work apple does for these things. i almost want to go back to what my mother used to say... "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all"... you just can get the equivalent machine from a bunch of spare parts. if that is what you want, then go buy a gateway. at least they're spare parts are shipped in fancy decorated boxes...

good grief... you leave an internet bulletin board for one day, you come back and you feel like rip van winkle...

but i somehow got through most of the comments posted here, i think the last thousand left me a little blurry...

but points well-said here already that i'd just like to second and support:

1. even with the fan, the imac is quiet
2. the mac os is far superior to some luna-imitation windows that wants me to e"xp"erience (experience quirkiness and blah)
3. the imac is extremely energy efficient
4. the mac software blows any moviemaker, media player, and other poor imitation crap apps to hell
5. you can't make dvds as easy as this
6. the imac is much more than the sum of its parts

...the space on my desk is already made.

If you don't think that Microsoft played a HUGE hand in helping Apple stay afloat, then you are only fooling yourself.

They did not play a hand at all. Bill Gates bought a minority share in apple, but that is it.

>>If you don't think that Microsoft played a HUGE hand in helping Apple stay afloat, then you are only fooling yourself.<<

Basically he story goes like this... 1996 Apple bought NeXT Computers and it's staff for about $424 million, Steve Jobs takes over as interim CEO (and now full-time CEO) and decides to form a Strategic Alliance with Microsoft, but before that could happen Bill Gates had to agree to paying the settlement (un disclosed amount) over the intellectual properties that Microsoft had taken from Apple way back (probably something to do with Windows and Mac OS, maybe not anyways). Bill Gates asked Steve Jobs and Apple if he and Microsoft could purchase $150 Million worth of non-voting stock to show a sign of good faith. Don't forget Apple had made a profit in 1996 of over $8.5 billion, so money wasn't the issue, but Apple was also not expanding nor growing as a company, which if you don't grow, your stock price loses value and stock holders start to freak.

Strategic Alliances happen all the time (especially in the Tech Industry) and usually company A will invest into company B or vice versa. For Microsoft, this was probably a good investment indeed.

So in a way Microsoft did help Apple and Apple has returned that favor both past and present :-)

I didn't read all of the 131 comments, but I noticed two things about the original article...

1. No Software

Macs and (most) PC's are sold with operating systems pre-installed. You've priced the hardware, but ignored the operating system cost. The OS cost is not "close to ZERO", as you claim. Until a few years ago, vendors paid about $40 USD per copy of Windows which gets passed on to the customer, of course.

Also, you ignore bundled software. Macs come with Internet Explorer, iPhoto, iMovie and more. This bundled software is also not free; PC vendors often do the same.

2. Hardware Quality / Bottom-Dollar websites

The websites (PriceWatch and PriceGrabber) from which you obtained your pricing focus on providing the lowest possible prices for any particular piece of hardware. This has some interesting ramifications.

2a. Vendors will often list items on PriceWatch and PriceGrabber below cost just to get sales. You sometimes even have to tell the vendor that you saw the price on those websites in order to get the part for that price. This is similar to video card manufacturers optimizing their drivers for a particular benchmarking program in order to get better reviews.

2b. The components with the lowest prices are often rebuilt parts. These parts may have failed once already and been returned to the manufacturer. Apple has historically used better parts than most PCs. This is appearant to me since I still know of several MacSE and original Apple LaserWriter printers that are still operational and used today.

Eugenia,

How about this?

http://www.microcode-solutions.com/home.htm

The Oracle

As Cattbemac said, MS bought 150 million of nonvoting stock.
Apple had around 5 billion cash in reserve in the bank at the time.
Apple settled a copyright lawsuit with MS.
The Strategic Alliance also included assurances that MS would continue to develop Office for the mac.

The statement written "How soon we forget how close Apple was to being "out of business" until Microsoft bailed them out... " is one of those misconceptions that persists because it has taken an urban legend type life of it's own.

Ok...you got everything wrong.
Have you bought a car?
What choice do you have?
Depend where you are....but let's figure this.
You have the choice of a Lada....cheap...cheap...cheap. You pay for what you get.
Then, you can buy a VW Beetle. You will have to give some money for the R&D, the Industrial Design, etc, etc. This is part of the process of making the car....you have to pay for it.
Then, you can buy a porsche. .... be prepare to pay more for what you will get.

Now, what you want is a fuckin car that have 4 wheels and an engine...no more.
THen, get a Lada.
If you want to be in a pretty car...you will pay more. Obvious...isn't it?

Now.. this simple example show you how any market work.

You want a computer running OS X. You don't want to pay the price of the new iMac....well, get the old iMac....or, an Old Mac that can run OS X. You have some choice there.

Your buying parts example is really stupid. Comparing to a eMachine is too.

Hope you get the point.

Stop with the Emachines comparisons. I am a Mac user and a PC user. Computers are tools. Creative tools, industrial tools, entertainment tools. Pick the right tool for the job. Pick the to YOU LIKE the best. But please, when comparing tools, don't compare the $19.99 saw you buy from Pic-n-Save with the life time guaranteed Craftsman you buy from Sears. In my experience, (42 Emachines), Emachines makes cheap tools that may work some of the time, but fail more often than not. Yes, I said 42 Emachines computers. I have 56 RMA numbers to go with those 42 Emachines. I have a bill for $1,300.00 that is just for replacement power supplies. Another bill for $1,700.00 that is for replacement floppy and CD drives. I have personally owned 8 Macs, and cared for 36 others since 1988. I have replaced 1 logic board in the first generation iMac, 1 floppy drive, and 2 motherboard batteries. So, pick your tools, but compare comparible tools with eachother. We live in a world of choice. I will buy more PC's. I will buy more Macs. Each will have its own purpose.

Okay, first a few things about eMachines. They are/were a POS manufacturer. I have friends with machines from them, and believe me, their markups were significant (about 50%): one friend worked for Staples, and got hers at an employee discount, which generally means at cost. Nothing but the purest junk. She's in the process of dumping it at the moment. I know of nobody who's used an eMachines product for two years (well, probably not even one year) without problems. (On my current iMac, bought almost two years ago; I had a slightly defective keyboard which began to misbehave about three months after I got it; Apple replaced the keyboard in under two days - I've had no other problems.)

Now, on to the pricelist.

Case 10 USD

This is a junk price. Any reasonable case will run you at least 30-40 USD.

LCD 250

I have to wonder about this. $250? Most of the NEC and Sony LCDs I've been seeing are in the $400 range or so (although there's one at http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=MT3908&cat=pc&ori... for $379.95). And that's the fair comparison: Apple's LCDs are famous for quality (ever hear about the Cinema Display?)

Firewire 20

Okay, um, fantasyland. Try this: http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=VW57881&blind=no&... which is $70.

Motherboard 50 *

Again, fantasyland. Well, not completely, but in order to support a processor that competes with a 700 or 800MHz G4, you're going to need to blow at least a hundred bucks on a MB. More likely, a hundred and fifty or so. A 50-dollar MB and you're stuck in crap land.

NIC 10

That's cheap, but not insane. I'd suggest more like 20 bucks for a good 10/100 NIC.

Modem 20

Here we agree. 56k is cheap, and gradually becoming irrelevant except for faxing.

GeForce2mx 40

Here, I'm not sure, but this seems reasonable considering the prices I did find.

256 SDRAM 40

Actually, I got a stick of 256 for 40 Canadian a few months ago. But I digress. OEMs stockpile RAM anyway so aren't able to react quickly to RAM prices coming down the way consumers can.

DVD/CD-RW 100

I assume here you are referring to the mid-range model here. DVD burners cost quite a bit more than a hundred bucks. However, still: Apple's drive is a 12x8x32x8x drive. IBM makes one of those for $280:
http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?dept%5Fid=3474&cat=pc&pf~...

Sound 10

Okay. Not on your life: not to compare with the iMac's sound. Try something like this: http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=EX8941&blind=no&c... which is $28.

Speakers 10

The Harmon Kardon speakers that come with every iMac are worth a whole bunch more than 10 bucks. Try a hundred. I'm really trying hard to be generous here.

Keyboard 10

For a USB keyboard? Once again, dream on. $10 will get you a POS keyboard with a PS/2 port - only. Perhaps this might do: http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=IN9260&blind=no&c... even though I hate Microsoft keyboards; it's $40.

Mouse 10

For a USB mouse even remotely comparable to the Apple Pro Mouse? Logitech's mid-range optical mouse: http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?dept%5Fid=395&cat=pc&pf~*... for $50. I like Apple's mouse better; I do have my eye on a Logitech cordless trackball though. Mm.

40 GB Hdd 70

Well, this is a 60GB HD, but otherwise resembles greatly the iMac HD: http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?dept%5Fid=3453&cat=pc&pf~... and it's $130. I can't see anybody selling a 40GB for half the price of a 60. Why not just buy two? I would suggest a more likely estimate around $100. (Actually, $110, but I'm trying to be generous.)

So then, the recap. This is cost before CPU and OS, all in USD.
Case 10 30
LCD 250 380
Firewire 20 70
Motherboard 50 100
NIC 10 20
Modem 20 20
GeForce2mx 40 40
256 SDRAM 40 40
DVD/CD-RW 100 280
Sound 10 28
Speakers 10 100 (conservatively)
Keyboard 10 40
Mouse 10 50
40 GB Hdd 70 100
Total 650 1170
Okay. Now add processor costs and OS costs, which are difficult to compare; processors because it's hard to find a precise equivalent to the G4 in the Intel world, and OS because in the Intel world it's a separate item and in the Apple world it's built into the final price of the piece of hardware. I would suggest a 1.1GHz Celeron as a possible substitute for a single-processor G4 like that found in the iMac; I would expect it to be slower on some tasks but should be overall comparable. That's at http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?dept%5Fid=3637&cat=pc&pf~... for $120. Now, Windows XP Home Edition: http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?dept%5Fid=5567&cat=pc&pf~... for $200. We've arrived at a subtotal of $1490. Then, factor in the cost of producing a custom (unique) mobo plus a custom (well, unique again) case, assembling it all, and I'm sure you'll see we're getting pretty close to that $1499 pricetag. Or maybe even past it. Whoops.

The iMac also comes with part of the support needed for IEEE 802.11b wireless networking support built-in. You can get a 3Com Airconnect card at http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?dept%5Fid=3592&cat=networ... for $110, while the AirPort card from Apple is $20 cheaper at http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?dept%5Fid=3592&cat=networ... presumably because the iMac has the aerial already. Also, Apple's AirPort Base Station I believe is the only 802.11b hub that supports AOL; it's also viewed as being one of the best. The tiny size of this new iMac has to suggest to people that wireless networking is really getting to be the way to go. Get an AirPort, a wireless keyboard & mouse/trackball, and look! the iMac now has no cables except power, with a couple receivers for the keyboard & mouse stuck in 2 USB ports. Happy days

And finally, for Eugenia: You say you're a developer. Well, fine. Do you code for a living? Are you planning on making money off of programs that you write that utilize the Velocity Engine?

This is a reasonable question, I think.

If you are, then is $2K US really a lot of money?

How much do most professionals spend on the technologies that they need to practice their profession?

More than $2K. Hell, cab drivers spend more than that each year.

And you don't even want the DVD burner. (Which is inexplicable to me. I'd love to have a DVD burner in a developer machine. What better way to archive large amounts of data? Other than Firewire tape drives, I mean.

Somebody asked how much OS X costs when bought separately. It's at http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=SYS1079&blind=no&... for $129. So, cheaper than XP, but probably still somewhat subsidized by hardware sales (unlike MS which has to make back all of its money from OS sales). There's also a $50 rebate if you buy both Office v. X and OS X at the same time (Office is at http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?dept%5Fid=4168&cat=mac&pf... for $450).
BTW, OS X runs fine on a G3. One of my exes runs it on her iMac 400 with 192 MB RAM. No problems. It doesn't need 4GB of RAM just to start up, despite what I hear sometimes

iTunes vs. winamp flamewar: I like winamp, it's one of the better Windows apps out there. However, iTunes does things it doesn't. Like: (a) it allows me to drag and drop MP3s on my Rio 500; (b) it encodes MP3s elegantly inside the same interface. Winamp was a breakthrough program, and rightly deserves an elevated position above the things that came later (especially RealJukeBox, gah); but what iTunes really is a fully integrated MP3 environment, while winamp's just a player.

Finally, as for the whiners who complain about all their expensive Windows software. Assuming you're too technically incompetent to just set up a network and run both machines next to each other, get Virtual PC 5: http://www3.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=COM1401&blind=no&... for $240. It's capable of running 9 separate operating systems for Intel simultaneously, and comes with Win2K bundled. And yes, it really works, as well as Windows ever does anyway.

[qoute]And that's the fair comparison: Apple's LCDs are famous for quality (ever hear about the Cinema Display?) [/qoute]

yes I've seen it, it a standard LG display

http://62.245.135.198/ds/product.asp?dept%5Fid=104&sku=HD10021

The 17" is better, Apple doesn't make TFT's they buy it
form Samsung and others and charge more for the design...

you list the costs retail. fine. I have two comments.

How much does it cost to assemble this heap of parts? I'm talking about the time it takes you, with your retail bought parts - you CAN buy all of these parts retail. too many PC hardware nuts make up the costs and don't figger in their personal time. I don't have time to build my own machine, too busy doing actual work on it. (oh, and playing games)

Apple's costs may be $730 for parts but then you describe the software as FREE? Was iDVD free? It does COST something to develop these apps - this sort of simplicity takes a lot of work. And what's for tomorrow? What new things will we see. All developed for free as well I suppose. What about the stores? What about shipping? Marketing? Look at MacWorld, you think 15 Gigabits of streamed data per second is free? Yes, the PEOPLE who want the machines want all of these things. They want TV adverts, they want apple to be in the public eye - this all costs money.

If you don't GET it now then you never will. I wonder why it is that half a dozen people have told me that they have ordered the new iMac - the top of the range new iMac - it's because they've done video editing on windows, it's because they use Windows every day and it's because they recognise value as being more than just the sum of the parts.

I understand what you mean when you say you want a cheap G4. I do really. I'd like one but I'm willing to pay a bit more to get what I really want.

Want a G4 for under £1000?

There's a Cube on eBay.co.uk for less than 900 quid (ends today!) and a G4/400 with half a gig of RAM and a 17" CRT plus printer, scanner, zip and CDRW..for....£1080.

You want it but you don't want to pay for it. sounds sensible enough. not the most original idea but there you go. If you disagree with the price then don't buy it. It's not an insult against you so get over that already! You could, of course, get a better paying job than hanging out here at OSNews all day?

One benchmark that has not been accounted for is the good ole' fashion RC5 benchmark. The dnetc client does a good job pushing the integer/vector unit of the CPU to its limits.

A 800 MHz G4 is WAY faster than anything AMD or Intel have. Take a look at the client speed database...

http://n0cgi.distributed.net/speed/

We see that an 800 MHz G4 gets about 8,243,188 key/sec, while a Athlon XP 2000 gets 5,847,268 keys/sec. I won't even mention what the Pentium 4 gets... hehe.

Apple is battling the same issue that AMD has... MHz are not everything.

So to equal a G4 running at 800 MHz you would need to get a dual Athlon machine. Something like dual Athlon MP 1.2 GHz ($154 each on pricewatch) or a dual Athlon MP 1500 ($163 each) would be about the same speed as a single CPU 800 MHz G4.


I would say that would bump the price of your machine up a lot. Here is what I have calculated. I gathered prices based on what _I_ would pay if I bought all the hardware right now...

2 Athlon MP 1.2 GHz $308
1 Dual Athlon MB $200 for okay one ($250 for a good one)
2 Heat Sink/Fans $50 (for copper hs/fan...)
1 256 Meg DDR DIMM $72 from Crucial (PC2100, non-ECC, unbuffered)
1 Case $50ish (Maybe cheaper, depending on options)
1 Geforce 2 Video Card $40
1 DVD-R Drive $400 (once again, price can change a lot)
1 15" Flat Panel $270 (cheapest on on pricewatch)
1 Crappy sound card $10
1 60 Gig HD $90 (maxtor... :-()
1 USB Mouse $20 (for an "okay" one)
1 USB Keyboard $10
1 Set of speakers $40
1 Firewire card $15-20?
---------------------------------------------------------------------- --------
Total: $1575

$1575... without any shipping... and this is assuming you can actually buy an item for the lowest price that pricewatch lists.

This is the closest Apple have been to a machine that costs what it should. Once you throw in the fact that is looks cool, is pre-built, and you get to run OS X... it is a pretty sweet deal.

That is all I have to say about that.
-Ryan

The author of this article apparently does not feel that the free trade system that this countries economy is based on is worth her time and wants someone to give her something that a lot of people put a lot of time and effort and work into for next to no reward. She also seems to think that she can go out and buy a single G4 chip for around $80. While you may be able to get the chip itself for that price, finding the facilities to solder it onto a carrier card may be a little bit of a hassle and quite a bit more expensive. Maybe you should try buying one that is already socketed and ready to go into a machine, which would run you wholesale around $250 to $300. And that's if you buy in bulk. Also, a $250 LCD is not quite the same as an LCD that is mounted to the machine for you, thus the wonderful enhancement of the all-in-one design. As for your wonderful endorsement of emachines, hmmm, can we say, oh, I'm a cheap-ass, don't know what I'm getting with this new iMac and think that all computers are the same. I'm sorry, but an IBM AS4000 is also a computer but the last time I checked those run for around $150,000 for the bare bones model and don't come with a flat panel display! You also have to consider that since Apple certainly does not like to give things away for free (really, they don't, it's mostly smoke and mirrors when you get "free" software from them like iMovie, or iTunes, you've already paid for them by buying a Mac) so the cost of the OS is included in your purchase price of a new iMac. But we'll forgive you for thinking you have some sort of inside knowledge of how Apple's books are balanced. So if you're through being a completely useless end-user who apparently thinks her computer is just a box that beeps occasionally and does pretty things on the screen, we can actually discuss what is involved in the actual manufacturing and construction of a computer that serves for more than just a word processor, web browser, and e-mail checking tool. You can make a movie on this machine! That used to cost upwards of $50,000 dollars for the hardware alone, not to mention the guy to run the machine, since you as an end-user are not very technically savvy and don't have the 4 years of training required to run an AVID or Media100 workstation. For $1500, you get a machine that allows you, an end user, to shoot, edit, and burn to DVD your very own movie! For $5 a pop! $5 for your own copy of your own movie on a DVD! And that's not worth $1500 to you! AAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! WHY ARE PEOPLE SO FREAKING STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU MORONS DRIVE ME INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I MUST EAT ALL YOUR BRAINS BECAUSE YOU APPARENTLY HAVE NO USE FOR THEM, YOU BLIND, BABBLING, DROOLING, WHINERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that I've said that, I feel much better. Thank you for entertaining me with your silly antics. I will no ignore you for the rest of your life.

If macs are such wonderful value why doesn't everyone have one?

>You could, of course, get a better paying job than hanging out here at OSNews all day?

Thanks to the wonderful (and free) country of USA, I am not allowed to work here. I came to USA in May, because I got married to a person who works here. Before May, I had a very well paid job as a web master of a business ISP in UK.

Also, a $250 LCD is not quite the same as an LCD that is mounted to the machine for you, thus the wonderful enhancement of the all-in-one design.

YES it is, the Apple one is the CHEAP digital only version,
It doesn't have an expensive analog VGA converter.

Have you applied for a green card yet? they are not realy that hard to get.

gfx: The Cinema Display is a 22" display. It's beautiful. Anyway.

Jeremy: She probably didn't marry a citizen. A green card is easy to get, if you marry a citizen; however, it's tricky if you've just married somebody with a green card.

she married a french man (or french Canadian) I think. what about if she goes to school? students canget greencards no? or perhaps she could send her resume to a few places and see if they will front for a work Visa for her...or...she could go the normal route and becoem naturalised....most other countries let their natural born citizens retain citizenship after becomeing a US citizen.

Work from "home" (keep your old job)?
VNC is a great thing, I don't have to even get up to find out the Win2K box down stairs has crashed, and I have to go down stairs to reboot it... ;-)

as for the Mac vs PC argument, well, it's ugly so I don't care
That said, every time I see it, it grows on me that little bit more... I'm going to take a trip into London to see if I can get to have a play on one.
The TiBook is nice, and at the sort of price I would pay (even though it is more than the "equal" x86 stuff).

mlk

You're probably happy your not living in Sweden Eugenia. The three versions of the new iMac including tax goes at 18.495, 20.995 and 24.995 respectively (all prices in SEK).

Hmm...that be about $2000 for that mid-range machine of yours...

Eugenia said:
>>Apple should wake up, create a really cheap machine and ALLOW people to use OSX. I don't care how iMac looks. I don't care if they add horns into it. All I want is to run OSX respectfully in a reasonable machine. And that's the bottomline, my gripe, my pain.
Except of course, if Apple really want to be a niche locked at the 3% of the market and don't want to really compete with Microsoft at any level. Dunno. Go ask Jobs for it.<<

I do not whant to flame anyone, but do you think it would be so hard to make that OSX running ot that cheap emachine you are talking off?
It's UNIX, not some kind of arcane unveiled to us by the Mighty Allknowing Steve job: UNIX is on the market since the middle Sixties, and has been developed to be a multiplatform OS, so, the reason because Apple is selling so hipriced hardware is to keep their costumer tied to itself.
The bulk (90%) of the Apple market are those who really need a Mac to get their job sone (like me), and here price is not an issue (for Apple at least).
The number of those buying Apple because is CLASSY is small as an absolute number, but important for a niche company as Apple is, and many of them would leave the boat if they ever should feel like the apple is no more as TRENDY as it is nowdays: what would happen if Apple puts on the market a cheap, affordable Mac in the range of prices of the current IMac G3, but with a G4 in the box?
After all, a G4 is not so much different, nor as much more costly than a G3 is: Both are ageing quickly, and Apple can't squeeze any more mhz from them.
But it has a Marketing cost: what amazes me is that you can buy, paying an awfull lot of money, a totally obsolete tecnology like a G3 if you buy from Apple, i.e, an hadware who can't support present day OS, where an equivalent hardware would be junk on the PC market.
This suits well to Apple as well as to their SNOB costumers, and all are fine.
Many on this forum complain about Apple hyping the iLamp, but what about the supposed MFlop monster attitude of the G4 (dual proc)?
how many flop (Floating Point Operations) it takes for a G4 to do the same workload that takes a single clock cycle on a more conventional CISC processor (like a humble AMD) which runs around 2,5 Mflop (and this is the reasons why in the last 10 years no one has seriously considered the Mflop benchmarks) ?
The answer is: Different tecnologies do not compare, like apples and pears!
Still, Apple keeps hyping this way the Mflops output of their Top-Of-The-Line product, and Apple owners feel proud of how much money they have invested on their G4 (and I could point out that for the same money they could have gone for a real monster like a Compaq/Digital Alpha server, Risc, fast, 10 time faster then a G4 when talking about MFlops).

But as Apple teach us: THINK DIFFERENT: common sense is for the dumbs!

LvP

I don't think the analogies people have been making between cars and computers is relevant. Unless, of course some very expensive, but well built cars (read Apple) have to use specially-ordered gasoline (read software) that is only available in some places and still costs more.

Also the idea that Apple's OS is more user-friendly is a carry-over from the days of DOS and Win 3.1, when it really was more user friendly.

I was comparing computer prices a couple of years ago, although not the very bottom end machines. I thought that Macs cost about the same, but didn't come with anything. No CD-RW, smaller screen, etc.