Apple Releases iMacs

[yosoyjay]

Originally posted by jettredmont


I don't believe Apple has enough market to support a "Celeron"-style "value" line as well as a "P3"-style "consumer" line (G4) as well as a "P4/Itanium"-style "professional/server" line (970) of CPUs. The existing lines share a lot of common bits (controller chips, design work, etc); fracturing that into four roughly incompatible lines would dramatically reduce cost-effectiveness.

Your interpretation of Intel chips is mostly correct, but...
Celeron, P4, P4M, & Banias (or whatever it is called now) are the consumer chips. Xeon is the professional/server chip. Itanium/Itanium2 are the server chips.

Intel is the only semiconductor company that can afford to build such a range of chips.

 

[yosoyjay]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: not crap

Originally posted by jettredmont


Aw, hell. It's faster on my 800MHz P3 laptop (<3 hours to fully compile KDE 3.0 when it came out)! And that's using gcc (of course), which is insanely slow compared to MS's C compiler, and a highly un-optimized Linux installation ...

I compiled KDE on my 500 iBook and it took 3 days. It took my 366 Celeron about 10 hours.

 

[jettredmont]

Re: Re: Expensive RAM?

Originally posted by Nermal


Correct me if I'm wrong, but to go to 1 GB, wouldn't you need two 512s, one for each slot?

That was assuming that you have three slots, two open, so that you can just add 768 MB to go from 256MB to 1GB ... Not sure how many slots are open on the iMacs. If you had to throw out your original 256MB DIMM(s) then the cost to post-purchase upgrade to 1GB memory goes up to $240.

On the other hand, if you're talking about Apple's markup on the memory, then you have to remember that they won't be "throwing out" 256MB of memory; they'll just purchase 1GB instead, which means their net cost will be less than $180 for the upgrade (less because $180 already includes a markup from Crucial.com), and since they're chargine $400 for this upgrade, they have over 100% markup.

 

[possible switch]

Okay, I'm probably going to purchase the low end iMac tonight with 512 MB RAM and Office X. I think that would be sufficient for my final two years of college and probably law school as well. A few questions though that I need to consider:

1) What are the chances of the screen tilting? I know there are thousands of iMac users out there, so the complaints on Apple's support message board are probably a very small sample. Does anyone else have this problem? Do they fix it?

2) Are the fonts fuzzy? I've heard they're not as crisp as on PCs, and there's nothing you can do about it. Am I going to get headaches when I'm writing papers and doing research?

3) Are dead pixels common on these machines? I've heard some complaints about having pixels die in the middle of the screen, and unless there are a lot of them, they won't replace them.

Is there anything else I should know before making perhaps one of the biggest changes in my life and rendering my years of software basically useless for a $1600 iMac package? I want to be extremely happy for that much money!!!

 

[jettredmont]

DDR Memory and the PPC Architecture

Originally posted by TheCat


hi, i seem to remember that when the last Power Mac's were released last August that everyone was complaining that they wern't "real" ddr..
How is the new 17"iMac and the 2003-Power Mac's? DDR full or (err) not full?

Don't fully understand it, but just curious..
TIA
Steve

Like the PowerMacs, the iMac has "real" DDR memory. The path from the System Controller (heretofore refered to as the "chipset" even though it is only a single chip) to the memory operates at a double-pumped 133MHz (for an effective rate of 266MHz).

However, the complaint with the PowerMacs and by extension the DDR iMacs is that the System Controller - to - CPU bus is not double-pumped, and hence runs at precisely 133MHz. This means that the CPU-to-memory data rate is the same as it was for non-DDR SDRAM. To make matters worse, on a dual-processor system, both CPUs share that 133MHz front-side bus, which means that each processor (assuming both are contending for the bus at the same time) might only see effectively 1/4 of the overall memory bus bandwidth at any one time.

HOWEVER, the device-to-memory data rate is ALSO 133MHz, and so having DDR memory in there means that devices (like the AGP video card for instance) can access all the memory they want to without contending for memory bus bandwidth with the CPU (at least in theory).

This is important, and is lost on far too many on these boards. The DDR memory bus can still be used to its full potential because the CPU and peripheral devices can, altogether, saturate the memory bus.

On the Intel side, the CPU-chipset bus is oversized, meaning that the CPU cn be taking up the entire memory bandwidth and still take in data from peripherals. This is good, as most peripherals can only talk to system memory via the CPU on the Intel platform. On the Mac platform, the chipset-memory bus is oversized, which allows a unique feature of the architecture (peripherals having more or less direct access to memory) to be further enhanced by faster memory.

Honestly the Intel approach is not technically any better than the mac approach. It is just different. On the Intel system you HAVE to have a super-fast and super-connected CPU because everything goes through the CPU. Each iteration of the Intel architecture since the Pentium has made this more and more the case (and this has allowed Intel to justify the "need" for faster CPUs - because now CPUs are expected to do some part of the jobs of everything from the modem to the sound card to the netwrk card to the video card). The Mac/PPC architecture allows devices to talk to each other without necessarily using the CPU, and so the CPU doesn't necessarily have to be super-connected.

On the other hand, if you run Wintel-style benchmarks, and even most consumer apps, you will see that the CPU-to-memory pipe is clogged and a definite bottleneck on the Mac. The platform is simply not optimized for churn-and-burn CPU-intensive apps. It is, however, great for "intelligent" peripherals, which is why you see so much better performance in audio/video capture and control applications than you would expect given the relative CPU benchmarks. This is, of course, assuming "intelligent" peripherals, of which every day there are fewer (more peripherals assume the CPU will be doing half their job now, because if the CPU is from Intel it will be ... Win/Mac hardware will not be optimized to take advantage of the Mac platform's characteristics!)

Calling PM DDR "fake" is incredibly oversimplifying the issue, and leads to a lot of people having no idea what exactly is "wrong" with the platform. The DDR is 100% real. It really operates at 266MHz effective. The difference relative to an Intel/AMD architecture, however, is that the CPU can't talk to the rest of the system at 266MHz; it talks at 133MHz.

 

[GPTurismo]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: not crap

Originally posted by yosoyjay


I compiled KDE on my 500 iBook and it took 3 days. It took my 366 Celeron about 10 hours.

Did you boot into console or did you actually have Aqua running at that time? It took 9 hours to compile on my powerbook g3 400 with 640 ram with aqua going and took 6 in console mode...

hmmm

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by yzedf


970 is rumored to start at 1.8GHz.

Correction: The PPC is stated (as in, by IBM) to debut at 1.2GHz-1.8GHz.

1.8GHz is the high-end of the stated potential debut range. The really nice power-consumption figures you see for the 970 are based on a 1.2GHz frequency, and I'd expect that Apple might use such an underclocked processor for an ultra-long-life, ultra-quiet, ultra-portable. But that's speculation, not rumor.

 

[GPTurismo]

Originally posted by yosoyjay


Your interpretation of Intel chips is mostly correct, but...
Celeron, P4, P4M, & Banias (or whatever it is called now) are the consumer chips. Xeon is the professional/server chip. Itanium/Itanium2 are the server chips.

Intel is the only semiconductor company that can afford to build such a range of chips.

Wrong, IBM can. They build a large range of High High end processors, and the G3s. Intel just has a corner squared away in the market.

Xeons are low range - mid range server chips. Itaniums are trash. And Intel, Motorola, AMD and IBM all make hundreds of other semiconductors (and very specialized for that matter) for hundreds of other applications that are for things (smart toasters ho ho ho) rather than standard computing.

 

[jettredmont]

Re: Re: Re: Waitting For the 970...(when) (which)

Originally posted by yzedf


Problem is... that is exactly what Apple is doing now.

In order for them to offer cheaper prices, they have to sell out of date hardware. They can not sell more, ala Dell, to fluidize production and keep all other overhead costs at a minimum.

Just think... at the Dell assembly plants, they never, ever, have mroe than 2 hours of inventory! None of this slipshod not having 5GB iPods available for weeks on end before anouncing a replacement. They just stop production, and start with the new. There are no extras, there is no short fall. It's just done right (from a maunufacturing standpoint). Lets see Apple do that for a change.

Dell does not have a "2-hour inventory"! Maybe at a particular assembly site, but that's not saying much! Their motherboard inventory is about the same as Apple's, as is their enclosure and add-in card supply. You think Dell gets an order in, fires up the plastic extrusion machine to pop out one case, fires up the lithographs to produce a single motherboard, and runs to CompUSA to pick u a SoundBlaster and video card? BS!

Dell has an inventory (5-6 days on parts), and, yes, they also have an obsolete-inventory problem. You can get some decent deals on last-iteration models from Dell (go to Dell.com regularly and you'll see quite a few "closeout" bargains). Unfortunately for Dell, unlike Apple, their "next generation" of hardware is always announced for them by their suppliers before they have it ready, which costs them millions in obsolete hardware that no one wants to buy because the next new thing is due to come out any day now.

Reference:

http://www.itworld.com/App/741/IWD010312hndellchain/pfindex.html
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.06/wired_index.html?pg=13

 

[SwitchHitter]

HEY FOLKS, I HOPE SOMEONE HAS SOME GOOD INSIGHT HERE..

I just purchased the new Imac (the top end one) with 768mg ram, since they didn't have 1gig.

Anyway, a few observations from someone WHO HAS NEVER USED/OWNED a mac:

1. I personally think it's slow to download pages of the internet, even with DSL.. my laptop (right next to it) is faster.. Any thoughts on why this is happening? Seems to happen with both Explorer and Safari..... (this makes me sick).

2. I swear (and my partner) agrees, that the screen resolution is blurry compared to my laptop pc (a 3 year old Toshiba Portege). I called up Apple and we worked on the screen resolution, but it all is set correctly. Am I going to have to accept a lower resolution? It seems that smaller letters, etc. are a tad blurry (this makes me sick as well).

Did I make a mistake in buying an Apple???

 

[Greenlightboi]

Re: Re: Disappointed Also...

Originally posted by iJon

yeah yeah, we hear this all the time. i have a bling bling pc i built which is very very nice. I also have a dual 1.25 mac and a 12 inch powerbook. but i HATE working on my pc, i have it for games. i know a lot about windows and macs, but its just when i sit down at my pc it just plain isnt fun. yeah im sure my 2ghz pc is faster than my dual 1.25, but i dont care. It's just they gui is so friendly and nice to be around, i love just browsing the web and pulling up itunes and listening to somthing. windows media player just plain sucks and i hate it. i love the interface of mail, i refuse to check my mail in outlook any more on my pc because outlook is way to messy and bloated. i could go on and on. i work with computer customers every week, and if you were in my shoes you would learn that about 70% percent of the people i talk to dont give a rats ass about the speed. These people get so caught up in me showing them iPhoto, iMovie, Mac OS X that they dont even look at the spec sheet, they just tell me i want one and i want one know. I recently had an old lady, between 60-70 years old who was dying to breast cancer. She came in and told me she wanted to make the most of her final years and really wanted to have some cool stuff and have soem fun. We spend quality time together on the computers and I showed her the things she, a normal person could do. This is what she purchased from me that following week. She purchased a high end 17 inch imac, best canon powershot money can buy, a very nice canon camcorder, and a 20gb ipod and much much more. I talk to her all the time when she comes in and she can never thank me enough. She is living life to the fullest now and filming vacations, saving those precious moments listening to music all on her mac and doing things she never though possible, and none of it on a 2ghz windows machine. these are a majority of customers and this is what peopl want to do, apple cant switch everyone. but like i said, i got the pimp mac and the pimp pc, and i am always at my mac unless im playing a game. if apple cant do it for you, go to pc, its ok, itjust a computer. but just to let you know your telling us an old arguement and nobody can ever win.

iJon

iJon, I you didn't quite understand me. I am a die-hard Apple fan... but every year, Apple's market share gets smaller and smaller.... the newest reports being that we have 3.15%, and Apple's last financial report being that they have lost money. Yeah, my Macs are alot more fun, but they are in no means as capable as the PCs are on their way to be. I can't every imagine myself being a new windows machine... I shudder at the thought of it iJon. I try to flaunt every Apple strength, but she can't do it anymore. Apple simply cannot supply all the computers need to compete. Yes, Apple has done well since Jobs has arrived, but its back in a slump and that may very well be because of the fact Apple can't do it alone.

I guess I'm getting at clones, but that fight should prbably be in a new thread lol.

 

[Greenlightboi]

Originally posted by possible switch
Okay, I'm probably going to purchase the low end iMac tonight with 512 MB RAM and Office X. I think that would be sufficient for my final two years of college and probably law school as well. A few questions though that I need to consider:

2) Are the fonts fuzzy? I've heard they're not as crisp as on PCs, and there's nothing you can do about it. Am I going to get headaches when I'm writing papers and doing research?

Fonts is something apple actually has right... CPU this month did a test, a Apple vs. Linux. vs. PC and One of the good points about Apple is that the fonts are drawn very nicely, and I have to tell you, I whole heartedly agree, the aqua interface and its font smoothing will not give you a headache by anymeans.

 

[GPTurismo]

Apple isn't going anywhere. They mainly lost money because of the Tax Bills they had to pay and the bad economy. EVERYONE is doing bad in the market.

Also, who cares how much market apple has, as long as they sell well and they make decent money they will stay alive. Also with Mac versions of Adobe and Macromedia software being 30 - 45% of their sales, they will always support them.

As long as apple people whine about processor speeds, people who don't know jack about computing are going to see that and think that the intelmongers are right.

Also, apples market share is shrinking because so many people are able to run older machines for such a long time, not compared to the windows market where you have to upgrade every three years. We are using 5 year old macs at my work, including Beige G3's running Jaguar. Lets see someone put XP Pro on a 5 year old machine and it be usable.

So when those numbers appear, think about all those business computers that are bought yearly and are replaced and are constantly counted as "MARKET SHARE" even though they are outdated and unusable.

Linux is going to probably (hopefully) change all of that.

O

 

[Greenlightboi]

Originally posted by SwitchHitter
HEY FOLKS, I HOPE SOMEONE HAS SOME GOOD INSIGHT HERE..

I just purchased the new Imac (the top end one) with 768mg ram, since they didn't have 1gig.

Anyway, a few observations from someone WHO HAS NEVER USED/OWNED a mac:

1. I personally think it's slow to download pages of the internet, even with DSL.. my laptop (right next to it) is faster.. Any thoughts on why this is happening? Seems to happen with both Explorer and Safari..... (this makes me sick).

2. I swear (and my partner) agrees, that the screen resolution is blurry compared to my laptop pc (a 3 year old Toshiba Portege). I called up Apple and we worked on the screen resolution, but it all is set correctly. Am I going to have to accept a lower resolution? It seems that smaller letters, etc. are a tad blurry (this makes me sick as well).

Did I make a mistake in buying an Apple???

Lol, probably... I hope a few people hear this, as many people claim switchers and the like don't care about speed.

As far as the screen goes, I have no clue, is it dirty? Apple's aren't fast, but they render everything perfectly. Check your font smoothing options, it sounds as if this maybe the problem. Up the size of the smallest number to smooth the fonts on screen. You can find this in the General Control Panel.

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by SwitchHitter
HEY FOLKS, I HOPE SOMEONE HAS SOME GOOD INSIGHT HERE..

I just purchased the new Imac (the top end one) with 768mg ram, since they didn't have 1gig.

Anyway, a few observations from someone WHO HAS NEVER USED/OWNED a mac:

1. I personally think it's slow to download pages of the internet, even with DSL.. my laptop (right next to it) is faster.. Any thoughts on why this is happening? Seems to happen with both Explorer and Safari..... (this makes me sick).

Hmm. Well, first thing I'd check was network latencies: open Terminal and type "ping www.yahoo.com" (I'm sure yahoo wonders why I'm always pinging them, but they're an easy-to-remember site to ping). Look at the response times (you'll have to hit Control-C after a few pings come back or ping will go forever).

Then, on your Portege, run the same command in a command prompt window. Compare the results.

NOTE: the Windows box will not give you accuracy below 10 ms (in fact, the accuracy of the Wintel system clock is ~10ms, so you will get something like 10 ms or 20ms or 30ms, etc). The mac's clock will give you down to micro-seconds ("10.78ms" is a vlid elapsed-time measurement on PPC hardware, impossible to get on a PC). So, keep in mind that you might well see "0ms" as a response time in Windows, which just means that the response took less than 10ms, not anywhere near 10ms. If you are getting 10-20ms range on the Mac, network latency is likely not your problem. If you are getting higher numbers on the Mac, and relatively low numbers on the PC, then you have evidence that the latency is too high.

Personally, here at work I see ~10ms latency on ping on my Mac and on my PC.

Next, try timing a longer download. Find the URL to something fairly big (maybe www.digidesign.com/news/hotnews/PTv6/images/surround_large.jpg ... 148kb of a snappy server?) and go to the Terminal prompt again to download it using:

time curl www.digidesign.com/news/hotnews/PTv6/images/surround_large.jpg > blah

You should see something like:

% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Curr.
Dload Upload Total Current Left Speed
100 146k 100 146k 0 0 790k 0 0:00:00 0:00:00 0:00:00 75184
0.020u 0.040s 0:00.34 17.6% 0+0k 0+6io 0pf+0w

Look at the "0:00.34" area to see how long the download actually took in seconds (the last line there, bolded, is output by "time" ... "man time" to see the technical gibberish regarding what the various numbers actually mean ... the other lines are output by curl, and the "Total" column should pretty well match the "time" value, although only to the second, not to the 1/100th of a second ...)

You'll need to download cURL for Windows to do the precise same test on your Portege, but assuming you can get a download that takes minutes instead of seconds, a stopwatch with IE should give you a good idea of the Portege's network throughput.

Personally, here on a fast work net connection, I see identical download times on my Mac and PC. That doesn't mean your DSL will react the same to them though.

Now, I'm not going to tell you how to fix latency and throughput problems (that's a bigger topic than I have time for), but that will at least give you some concrete experimental numbers to take with you when you call up Apple support.

2. I swear (and my partner) agrees, that the screen resolution is blurry compared to my laptop pc (a 3 year old Toshiba Portege). I called up Apple and we worked on the screen resolution, but it all is set correctly. Am I going to have to accept a lower resolution? It seems that smaller letters, etc. are a tad blurry (this makes me sick as well).

Go into System Preferences (looks like a light switch with an Apple logo in the dock). Click on "General". Towards the bottom you should see "Font Smoothing". Change it to something lighter. Also, you can turn off font smoothing for larger fonts by changing the "Turn off text smoothing for font sizes ... and smaller" selection to something larger than the (default) 9.

Font anti-aliasing is a very personal thing. Some people love a lot of anti-aliasing; others hate having any whatsoever. Your "crisp" Portege most likely has font smoothing turned way down or even off entirely. Change your Mac settings until you are comfortable with the results.

 

[possible switch]

Originally posted by possible switch
Okay, I'm probably going to purchase the low end iMac tonight with 512 MB RAM and Office X. I think that would be sufficient for my final two years of college and probably law school as well. A few questions though that I need to consider:

1) What are the chances of the screen tilting? I know there are thousands of iMac users out there, so the complaints on Apple's support message board are probably a very small sample. Does anyone else have this problem? Do they fix it?

2) Are the fonts fuzzy? I've heard they're not as crisp as on PCs, and there's nothing you can do about it. Am I going to get headaches when I'm writing papers and doing research?

3) Are dead pixels common on these machines? I've heard some complaints about having pixels die in the middle of the screen, and unless there are a lot of them, they won't replace them.

Is there anything else I should know before making perhaps one of the biggest changes in my life and rendering my years of software basically useless for a $1600 iMac package? I want to be extremely happy for that much money!!!

*waits patiently to have all of his questions answered...*

 

[kangaroo]

Originally posted by possible switch
Okay, I'm probably going to purchase the low end iMac tonight with 512 MB RAM and Office X. ...

2) Are the fonts fuzzy? I've heard they're not as crisp as on PCs, and there's nothing you can do about it. Am I going to get headaches when I'm writing papers and doing research?
...

Goto apple.com,
select 'Support',
select 'Join Discussions',
select 'iMac',
scroll down to 'iMac (Flat Panel)' & select 'Displays'.
You'll find several threads including "iMac 17": A disgusted switcher" and "Does Apple Care - Fuzzy Fonts on Flat Panel" that highlight the problem you refer to.

Although OSX provides a way to adjust 'font smoothing' it's limited and may not provide the solution you're hoping for--it didn't for me.

 

[possible switch]

That's where I got all my information. If these problems are widespread, I'll just spend my money elsewhere. Ugh. Switching is harder than they make it out to be. I haven't even made it to the ordering phase yet. lol

 

[yosoyjay]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: not crap

Originally posted by GPTurismo


Did you boot into console or did you actually have Aqua running at that time? It took 9 hours to compile on my powerbook g3 400 with 640 ram with aqua going and took 6 in console mode...

hmmm

I was running Aqua, but I was also doing all my usual stuff like browsing, email, writing, etc. as well.

 

[GPTurismo]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: not crap

Originally posted by yosoyjay


I was running Aqua, but I was also doing all my usual stuff like browsing, email, writing, etc. as well.

that's what did it. LOL. KDE is a huge install.

try doing it in console mode doing nothing else

GPT

 

[shadowfax]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: not crap

Originally posted by GPTurismo


that's what did it. LOL. KDE is a huge install.

try doing it in console mode doing nothing else

GPT

When you compiled KDE, did you compile all 150 MB of the stuff? and, was it KDE 3 (beta or otherwise)?

 

[GPTurismo]

Originally posted by kangaroo


Goto apple.com,
select 'Support',
select 'Join Discussions',
select 'iMac',
scroll down to 'iMac (Flat Panel)' & select 'Displays'.
You'll find several threads including "iMac 17": A disgusted switcher" and "Does Apple Care - Fuzzy Fonts on Flat Panel" that highlight the problem you refer to.

Although OSX provides a way to adjust 'font smoothing' it's limited and may not provide the solution you're hoping for--it didn't for me.

Well one of those was due to shipping damage. I didn't even notice to see if he got it from apple or a reseller... and he blames apple. Hee

As for the fonts, I have unpacked almost 10 17 inch flat panels, and right out of the box the fonts aren't so nice. I don't know why apple did that. I simply went into system preferences: general and changed the font smoothing to medium: best for flat panel and it fixed the problem. It wasn't grossly bad, but noticeable. If anything, and you don't like the antialiasing turn the font size for it to start doing it to a real high font, not 9 point.

Also, people have a tendency in general to complain about LCDs when they run them in non native resolution.

Finally, if I were to hate dells for how they were shipped my comp just had 26 delivered where a majority were rained on before UPS picked them up.

A) Dell shouldn't have released them
B) UPS shouldn't have picked them up soaking wet.

The only reason we know this is because the boxes were soaked but UPS acceptence labels were perfectly water damage free...

Luckily dell is replacing them but it's going to take a week to get them since they were all BTO.

I hate people

 

[yzedf]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Waitting For the 970...(when) (which)

Originally posted by jettredmont


Dell does not have a "2-hour inventory"! Maybe at a particular assembly site, but that's not saying much! Their motherboard inventory is about the same as Apple's, as is their enclosure and add-in card supply. You think Dell gets an order in, fires up the plastic extrusion machine to pop out one case, fires up the lithographs to produce a single motherboard, and runs to CompUSA to pick u a SoundBlaster and video card? BS!

Dell has an inventory (5-6 days on parts), and, yes, they also have an obsolete-inventory problem. You can get some decent deals on last-iteration models from Dell (go to Dell.com regularly and you'll see quite a few "closeout" bargains). Unfortunately for Dell, unlike Apple, their "next generation" of hardware is always announced for them by their suppliers before they have it ready, which costs them millions in obsolete hardware that no one wants to buy because the next new thing is due to come out any day now.

Reference:

http://www.itworld.com/App/741/IWD010312hndellchain/pfindex.html
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.06/wired_index.html?pg=13

Care to reference something other than articles from 2001 and 1999 please?

Your argument is ludicrous.

http://specials.ft.com/ftit/FT352151L0D.html

Although its 5 hours inventory based on 2 hour old orders. My bad.

 

[scorpion]

an alternative

Let me know what the experts think.

1) Why buy an iMac? I just got a digital camcorder after Christmas (despite the ludicrous argument heard often here by people who own $4,000 computers that DV camcorders are owned only by a few people, they are now competing with analog camcorders in terms of price and beating the pants off them in terms of quality) and find my beloved iBook 500 isn't cutting the mustard in terms of processor or hard drive space (even maxed out at 640MB RAM). So, I called the Apple store, picked up the bottom of the line G4, and asked for a DVD-R drive (didn't think I'd ever want one, but how else will I share movies?) Paid $200 more and without discounts end up at $1,699. (Yes, I got discounts.) And yes, I now have to buy a reasonable display. OK, so I pay more for the total package but at least I can upgrade it.

2) Why all the whining about numbers and processors? If your computer is good enough for you, it's good enough. Apple sells really nice machines that work well and are user friendly. If all you do on your computer is play games you may be better off with a PC. But as someone who has owned Macs for 17 years and used mainly PCs at work for the last 13, I find Macs (particularly with Office) are better business machines. I consider myself fairly computer literate and an Excel power user. I know Windows machines have their place; but that place is getting smaller and smaller. And for those who say the computing experience doesn't matter -- you're a little addicted to a number which has no real value to the home user (the overwhelming majority of purchasers). People buy computers based on perception -- the perception now is that the Mac is an expensive artist's machine. The truth is it has a lower TCO and can do everything the average PC user wants it to -- better. And you can thank Bill Gates for that.

3) Life is about choices. Apple's given us a lot. The fact is Apples (or any computers) are essentially overpriced because (short of cars) they are the most rapidly-depreciating purchase you can make. So if you're going to burn your money, you may as well do it in a way that keeps you warm, not just pays the match salesman.

OK, waiting for the flames.

 

[shadowfax]

Re: an alternative

Originally posted by scorpion
Let me know what the experts think.

1) Why buy an iMac? I just got a digital camcorder after Christmas (despite the ludicrous argument heard often here by people who own $4,000 computers that DV camcorders are owned only by a few people, they are now competing with analog camcorders in terms of price and beating the pants off them in terms of quality) and find my beloved iBook 500 isn't cutting the mustard in terms of processor or hard drive space (even maxed out at 640MB RAM). So, I called the Apple store, picked up the bottom of the line G4, and asked for a DVD-R drive (didn't think I'd ever want one, but how else will I share movies?) Paid $200 more and without discounts end up at $1,699. (Yes, I got discounts.) And yes, I now have to buy a reasonable display. OK, so I pay more for the total package but at least I can upgrade it.

2) Why all the whining about numbers and processors? If your computer is good enough for you, it's good enough. Apple sells really nice machines that work well and are user friendly. If all you do on your computer is play games you may be better off with a PC. But as someone who has owned Macs for 17 years and used mainly PCs at work for the last 13, I find Macs (particularly with Office) are better business machines. I consider myself fairly computer literate and an Excel power user. I know Windows machines have their place; but that place is getting smaller and smaller. And for those who say the computing experience doesn't matter -- you're a little addicted to a number which has no real value to the home user (the overwhelming majority of purchasers). People buy computers based on perception -- the perception now is that the Mac is an expensive artist's machine. The truth is it has a lower TCO and can do everything the average PC user wants it to -- better. And you can thank Bill Gates for that.

3) Life is about choices. Apple's given us a lot. The fact is Apples (or any computers) are essentially overpriced because (short of cars) they are the most rapidly-depreciating purchase you can make. So if you're going to burn your money, you may as well do it in a way that keeps you warm, not just pays the match salesman.

OK, waiting for the flames.

no flames here. can you clarify your third point? i am not sure i understand it properly.