crt imac very outdated, but still important in apple's lineup

[jefhatfield]

when i look at the lineup of apple's impressive computers, the crt imac seems outdated and out of place

but there are two things that save this machine

first, the price tag is very generous and good for a computer user on a very tight budget who still wants a mac

and compared to a pc with moniter for the same price, would you like to take home a celeron machine just over 1 ghz, 128 MB of ram, running windows xp?

dollar for dollar and in terms of reliability, apple's crt imac still gives the consumer a much better off the shelf complete unit which will be easy to use and last for many years...try that with a pc and external monitor for 799

 

[austincpy]

you're right

 

[Cursor]

RIGHT! The only product I'm not too sure about is the eMac. Where does it fit in? Will it last? I don't think so. Unless it evolves to take the place of the CRT iMac in the coming months. And the only way it can do it, is if it comes down to meet the iMac in price.

 

[ddtlm]

jefhatfield:

dollar for dollar and in terms of reliability, apple's crt imac still gives the consumer a much better off the shelf complete unit which will be easy to use and last for many years...try that with a pc and external monitor for 799

You should try looking at it again without the rose-colored glasses.

Gateway's front page is currently showing a 2.4ghz, 17" CRT desktop for $899, with free shipping. 40gig disk, CD-RW, 128mb DDR.

 

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by ddtlm
jefhatfield:


You should try looking at it again without the rose-colored glasses.

Gateway's front page is currently showing a 2.4ghz, 17" CRT desktop for $899, with free shipping. 40gig disk, CD-RW, 128mb DDR.

windows xp is a ram hog

and what kind of processor is the gateway running? a duron or celeron?

 

[ddtlm]

jefhatfield:

windows xp is a ram hog

And how about OSX?

and what kind of processor is the gateway running? a duron or celeron?

Pentium freaking 4, with 512k L2, and 533mhz FSB, hooked to the afforementioned DDR RAM. The iMac classic has... hmm...

Anyway, its a Gateway 500S tower thing, you can look at it if you'd like. I'm not going to look at other PC makers (cause I don't care) but I bet they can match it.

 

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by ddtlm
jefhatfield:


Pentium freaking 4, with 512k L2, and 533mhz FSB, hooked to the afforementioned DDR RAM.

that is very impressive for sure and if i need to replace my pc, i will look at this machine

 

[FelixDerKater]

A price of $699 or less would make it a more attractive item. Hitting the $599 price point wouldn't be a bad idea. There needs to be a low priced Mac that can bring over people who buy based on price.

 

[jrv3034]

Originally posted by FelixDerKater
A price of $699 or less would make it a more attractive item. Hitting the $599 price point wouldn't be a bad idea. There needs to be a low priced Mac that can bring over people who buy based on price.

Agreed. A Mac for $599 would bring in more people, who would then be able to experience the Mac OS and probably buy their next computer from Apple.

Or, even just having a Classic iMac ad for $599 would get potential buyers to visit the Apple store, and would possibly leave with a more expensive machine. You know the old "well, for an extra $99 you can get double the RAM, but what about upgrading to an eMac? It has a G4 and everything..." If you visit the Dell website, that's exactly what it's like! They hook you in with a very low price, and then you see the options in front of you, and for a few more bucks you can get something a little better!

 

[iAlan]

Bait advertising?

I would think Apple is too classy for that...

 

[rice_web]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... Apple needs to revamp the iMac while dropping the price to $499.

Low-End
- 600MHz Sahara G3
- 512K L2 Cache
- 256MB RAM
- 20GB Hard Drive
- GeForce2 MX
- CD-ROM Drive
- $499

"High"-End
- 800MHz Sahara G3
- 512K L2 Cache
- 256MB RAM
- 40GB Hard Drive
- GeForce2MX
- CD-RW
- $699

Yeah, it's doubtful. But I do believe that an update of this magnitude is in order to draw in more "switchers".

 

[topicolo]

Apple sooo does bait advertising. Look at the ibooks, for $999 you get a basic ibook but for $300 more, you get twice the video ram, a faster processor, and a 50% larger hard drive.

Tell me that's not "bait advertising"

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Posted something similiar but was lost so iam sayin it again-------the crt imacs still offer a lot in my opionion. If they could just put in say a 700 or 800 g3 and sell for say $699 that could bring a lot of young people and switchers into the fold. A freind of mine just bought a 2.4 ghz HP and it was cheap garbage. for example fire wire on back of tower/ only 2 usb ports on front. rollerball mouse and the cheapest keyboard i had seen again with no usb ports. all the plastic on this stuff i think was styrene sort of like what my models i use to build were made of. And get this it had 64 megs of video ram but was actually emulating this off the 512 system ram that came with the unit!no video card! He went to the store to get a decent video card for it and when he opened it no agp slot for card only pci so he had to take his card back!Games looked like crap !All this for $1000.00 bucks at wally world! Now just look at the software!Put a crt imac on the shelf next to this thing and the mac blows it away! sure maybe not cpu to cpu but in everything else no comparison! He is getting rid of a lot of software he had because of problems and problems.-----------Now for the imac crt i know you cant put a 800 in it cause then it would eat into emac sales and you cant increase emac cause of 700/ 800 imacs which cant be increased because of 867 powermacs. Therefore the powermacs are holding the whole line back! All this goes to motorola because of inability to go faster at the moment and to apple who dont want anything to take away from the powermacs! I use a powermac but i say they should market all that other stuff and stop letting the powermacs artificially hold back all their desk tops! THEY WOULD SELL MORE CRT IMACS MORE EMACS MORE LCDIMACS

 

[FelixDerKater]

$499 would be a good starting price for an extremely outdated, but still useful Mac. For a first computer, it would be fine.

 

[MacFan25]

I agree that a price of $499 or $599 would be great for the CRT iMacs. It is a very dependable computer that will probably last a long time. Like a poster above said, it would make a great first computer or a great computer for somebody on a tight budget. They may be outdated, but that doesn't mean that they can't still be great computers.

 

[alex_ant]

Originally posted by rice_web
I've said it before, and I'll say it again... Apple needs to revamp the iMac while dropping the price to $499.

Low-End
- 600MHz Sahara G3
- 512K L2 Cache
- 256MB RAM
- 20GB Hard Drive
- GeForce2 MX
- CD-ROM Drive
- $499

"High"-End
- 800MHz Sahara G3
- 512K L2 Cache
- 256MB RAM
- 40GB Hard Drive
- GeForce2MX
- CD-RW
- $699

Yeah, it's doubtful. But I do believe that an update of this magnitude is in order to draw in more "switchers".

I think this is a fantastic idea. I don't understand why Apple is just letting the classic iMac stagnate while not lowering its price. The problem is, now that they've introduced the flat-panel iMac, there is some name-confusion going on between the new and old iMacs, so if they update the old one, what are they going to call it? The New Classic iMac?

What if they made an eMac out of the classic iMac? The high end being the 17" G4 as it is now, and the low end being what was formerly the classic iMac, updated to include a 600-800MHz G3 Sahara. They could make these new mini-eMacs all-white, to match the eMac more closely. (Those Rage 128 Pro graphics would have to go, as well...)

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Apple should use faster single cpus in everything starting up from the classic all the way to the imac Lcd and dont let the powermac hold all those lines back! the bottleneck is motorola/powermacs! and that post of a geforce2mx in the classic would be terrific! I want my 1.25 or better imac LCD and i want it now!! pretty please Steve


If only he visited this site we could give him all the answers!

 

[Macmaniac]

If Apple updated the CRT iMac and lowered the price, I'm sure that the CRT iMac would remain a vaible option for education. A cheap computer is just what schools need.
Our school has many aging computers that could use replacment and the iMac would be ideal.
For the moment we get new Dell P4s for our library Come on a P4 for internet browsing and typing????
Whats even funnier is that our CAD lab has P3's while the library has P4s. Talk about irony,
Heck we have 300mhz celerons that handle internet and word processing just fine.
A 600mhz iMac would be a speed champ in our library

 

[CrackedButter]

While i think it is a good idea there is something to point out. Walmart have their $200 dollar pc without a monitor, if the old imacs were also to become "an internet pc" then its changing its purpose, some people know that processors are not everything thats why the walmarts pc's are selling (Lindows as well i might add which ISN'T a plus!), they have like a VIA 800mhz processor in it so a G3 600mhz isn't that much difference. Basically highly inferior machines compared to the imacs.

Also the classic should have something more than a basic cd rom, maybe a DVD drive at least, i would expect that as the minmum now. CDRW as an extra.

This would help with switching and aim the classic towards the same type of appliance as the walmart pc, but just for a little bit cheaper maybe $499 or even $399. It is an old pc after all and its market share they should be after if they think long term.

Why don't people email these ideas? I would snap 2 imacs like this for my family right away.

 

[Ajmbc]

Don't you think that selling any Apple PC at a Walmart would tarnish the Apple name? Really, I wouldn't trust any computer i bought at Walmart but, mabye a Circuit Cit2y. I remember they used to sell Macs at Circuit City. It might generate more sales.

Just my 2 Cents

 

[topicolo]

Who cares about tarnishing Apple's name if you can sell more macs. Remember: more macs = cheaper macs, more software, more hardware, better products from apple

 

[rice_web]

Well, the expected price cuts on the FP iMac will cause a stir in the Mac line-up.

For one, if the iMac receives a price drop, what about the eMac? Would the eMac shave $200? If so, the eMac would start at $899, just a hair above the Classic iMac.

So, this Tuesday, we may either see the Classic iMac pushed aside or updated / receive a price drop.

EDIT: If the Classic iMac is updated, please include FW2 and Airport Extreme.

 

[benixau]

NO!

the classic imac must NOT have fw800 and AP-X. Why? it needs to have some features to gain by getting an emac for example. the classic imac needs however, CD-RW and a lower price. CD-RW because people buy a machine thinking that they can share files in a 'hard' copy. CD-ROM doesnt allow that. lower price instead of CPU u/g, why? because the ow CPU means that apple can sell to a lower $$$ market.

also, the emac does fit in. it is an imac with a CRT. think about it. it has identical features, identical processors, and identical software. of course the 17" FP is a nother story, but really. if you want a G4 and you want a SD and you cant afford AUD3695, then for AUD3295 you get an identical machine without the FP, just a good CRT instead.

apple just need to lower the emac and classic imac prices by about AUD300-400 and they would have hot sellers again.

oh well, i have my bite of the apple. (MDD2002)

 

[Bear]

I can see the classic Mac being in the lineup until the end of June as a machine that can boot OS9.

After the end of June, it will probably (pure speculation) go away quietly.

Or Apple could be waiting for the sales of the iMac CRT to drop below a certain threshold, at which point they'll discontinue it.

 

[backspinner]

15 inch eMac (G3)
17 inch eMac (G4)
15 inch iMac (LCD)
17 inch iMac (LCD)