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Apple Details Differences in 20" Educational iMac (Mid 2009)
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Hell, if they're throwing away money on iMacs...
Uh... no need run network cables all over the place?
nine times out ten, people have their wireless base station in the same office as the Mac Pro, that being said... i cant think of many wireless base stations that don't include LAN connections.
Actually, many schools, including mine, use LEGO Mindstorms to teach programming and mechatronics.
Students CANNOT buy this. Only the school can buy it to be used for educational purposes. You have to be purchasing for an institution to get this model.
That's a good point....but some of those CAT-6 ethernet cables cost around $70. Rather just have wireless n.
As far as the cameras go, 90% of the professional cameras either have firewire output, or feed a compactflash card into a deck that takes firewire. While the consumer cameras (new ones only) take USB 2, I would find it kind of annoying to spend a grand on a new mac and then another grand on a new camera just to get 'up to date' with the technology.
Just my two cents.....
$70? What for 1000ft?
You can get 100ft Cat 6 ethernet cables for $11.99 at Newegg. Volume discount for even cheaper.
QFT.
I think people are reading "educational model" and seeing "student model", when that isn't the case.
My guess is that this is a config that educational sysadmins have been asking for, to make the Macs easier to lock down. (Just a hunch...)
Not when they are going to be building thousands of units at a time. Activity Based Costing, you retool the line once every x units when changing configuration; so the retooling costs can be spread out over a large number of units.
What difference does it make? The quality of the screen has no bearing on how good Microsoft Word, Safari, some kind of educational game acts. This is NOT a computer students can buy. This is ONLY for educational institutions such as K-12 schools and colleges. The quality of the screen isn't going to hamper the quality of education a student receives. If a school bought this particular iMac for something that requires better screen precision then that person needs to be fired anyways. This is definitely not a computer suited for those needs.
Dropping out bluetooth and IR doesn't mean anything IMO. I seriously doubt it would get used on a daily basis. What they should do however is up the RAM to 2GB.
Its still a great deal however. It puts it damn close to right on par with the HP desktops w/17" LCDs we get for the school I provide tech support for. The desktops are approx $700 plus the cost of the 17" LCD. Thats within $100 of the HP setup. The HP is the same basic specs, 2GHz C2D, 160 GB HD, 2GB RAM, and Intel integrated graphics. So besides the RAM, this is actually a pretty good deal. You're getting a larger display in widescreen format, its an all-in-one so it takes up far less space, it has way better graphics to run the everyday things smoother, etc. Its well worth the little bit of extra money.
Now if Apple could release an $899 MacBook for educational institutions!!!!
Not to push my luck, but it would also be great if Apple could further lower the price of AppleCare, especially buying in bulk. Even at $119/iMac when purchasing 30-40 iMacs thats an extra $4700 just for the warranty. Would be nice to see it at like $79 per iMac when buying 30 or more iMacs. That would save $1500 or more if you buy more than 40 iMacs.
Compared to the outgoing White 17" iMac with GMA950, it is a significant upgrade... on the order of the Mini upgrade.
Everything in a single package, and not as easy to stick in a backback like the Mini.
I'm the head counsellor of a computer camp at a University, and we make extensive use of Lego NXT robots. ITs a great way to teach kids the fundamentals of programming (conditional, loops, etc) without actually having to teach them:
if(this.distance<10){....
with that being said though.... the only thing we've really used blue tooth with is between the actual robots, not between computers. I've synced a couple to my MB, but thats been mainly for showing off. a USB cable is a lot easier hahaha
Yeah... but they did like what... 2 months ago? The $599 (CDN) Acer laptops at my work have blueray in them. Bag of hurt my @$$ if Acer can get them in a 599 machine and I can't get one in my 2500+ MP....
*sigh* as much as I would like iMacs to be part of my institution, I'm not seeing it anytime soon. Maybe in a computer lab (or the famed, hidden-in-the-back-of-the-art-building Mac lab) there might be some; my community college just is finishing two new halls to replace some very old ones. For good reason - on occasion, somebody leaning on a wall would go through it 
.
However, I would like to see in my institution a computer more powerful then a low-end 486 that take up a massive amount of space in lab. Yeah, chemicals around computers are bad, but at the same time working with those machines is a headache...
.However, I would like to see in my institution a computer more powerful then a low-end 486 that take up a massive amount of space in lab. Yeah, chemicals around computers are bad, but at the same time working with those machines is a headache...
The Mac Pro is the only machine that Apple currently sells that does not have WiFi standard. All other machines have WiFi and support "N". The Mac Pro doesn't need wireless in many cases, that is why it is optional.
I can find plenty of HP and Dell workstatons that do not have wireless either. They don't have BT while the Mac Pro does.
The point mmay be the the schools don't not want bluetooth and IR. They don't want kids moving data. I've even seen computers where the USB ports were filled with epoxy for the same reason.
In my graphics design class, we beam files over from iMac to iMac if we don't have our flash drives. And our teacher sends us files all the time.
You know how many computers I've tried to give away to schools? Three pickup truck loads so far. The schools will not take them unless they are two years old or less. They have a long list of specs and if you don't meet those specs they will not accept them. I sent them to the recycle place
Same here where I work now except it's way bigger. The guy here does not even try anymore. He just uses a big mettal trash bin.
If you school would aceept a and "older" machine, like say a Pentium PC or a G5 mac you could have hundreds of them.
Doesn't the school have to buy them in quantity from Apple for that price?
Does the school allow students to purchase them as well (you buy them through the school, not Apple)?
And you guys need bluetooth to do this? I have a feeling the bluetooth in the iMacs are Class 2 bluetooth, which only gives them a 10 meter range.
And if you need bluetooth, they can spend the 12 bucks for a class 2 transmitter or spend 15 bucks for a class 1 transmitter.
In a school setting, I can definitely understand why they won't have bluetooth. Students can tether their cell phone and get internet access, bypassing any Internet filters they have in place.