Apple Releases iMacs

[robguz]

Lame-O

GF2, no FW 800, no Airport Extreme on the 15", 100 MHz bus on the low end. No L3 even on the high end. Last week I played around with the 17" 800 at an Apple Store. It was embarrasingly slow. 15% faster is ridiculous after an entire year. Even the GF4 MX, which is really a slightly better GF2, is just lame.

the 15" needs to be $999, the 17" needs to be $1499. Both need L3 caches, and the high end needs 512MB and a 120MB HD. Both need FW 800. Apple is so far behind on the MHz wars, that they need to throw in all the bells and whistles. Seriously, why not a GF4 Ti on the 17" model? In the quantities Apple buys, it can't be that expensive, especially for a year old, soon to be obsolete chip.

Apple gets it wrong again.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Re: Poor graphics

Originally posted by iJed
I'm amazed that Apple is still shipping crappy GeForce 2MX and 4MX cards in the iMacs. Surely at the price they charge they could put in at least a low end GeForce 4 Titanium or a Radeon 9000 Pro.

From the reviews i have read the 900 pro(64 video ram) is about the same as geforce4mx(64 video ram) dont confuse geforce4mx(32) with the geforce4mx(64)! I would also guess that will get notched up again but remember you cant step all over the toes of the powermac line!

 

[TyleRomeo]

Originally posted by Chisholm
WWWWOOOOHHHHHHHOOOO!!!!!!
I just purchased a 17" with bluetooth and applecare! My first PERSONAL mac in 8 years. Now I just have to convince my wife its a good Valentine's Day gift for her (hey, better than a vacuum cleaner, right?)

cheers!
John

way to go john, congrats. Put a big bow around it and add some chocolates and maybe she'll buy it.

Ohh and for everyone complaining about the price gap issue. Look at it this way.

$999 emac
$1299 iMac
$1499 Power Mac
$1799 17 inch iMac

That seems fine to me for the desktops.

Good job apple.

Tyler

 

[MorganX]

Re: Apple Releases iMacs

Originally posted by Macrumors
Apple released their new iMacs today.

Vague rumors have been circulating since before MacWorld San Francisco about updates to Apple's consumer line. Detailed rumors ($1799 17" iMac) came just a week ago. Rumor wrapup to follow.

New iMacs

$1299, 15" LCD, 800MHz, GeForce 2MX, Combo Drive
$1799, 17" LCD, DDR, 1GHz, GeForce 4MX, SuperDrive

I'm going to bite. I said if Apple went with 1GHz and 64MB memory I'd jump in. Even though I'll be stuck there, I believe I'll enjoy it as much or more over the next year or two than my PC which I can upgrade to the moon and back. I hope my iMac experience is as pleasant as my iPod and Choplifter and Zork on Apple II expeirences are and were.

Apple is getting a 3rd chance with me. If they lose me again I'm not coming back. There is only one thing I have a major complaint about the purchase I'm not happy about, and that's memory. I can buty 512MB DDR266 for $90. But I'll have to pay and extra $100 to go to 512MB in the first slot which I hear is difficult to access.

Apple should have included 512MB for $1799. They should not try to make a profit on memory. They won't win that war and will pee off a lot of folks; switchers and die-hards. Don't do it. DO NOT DO IT.

Having said that, I'm looking forward to receiving my iMac 17, high end. Don't think I'll need bluetooth any time soon though. Will need 802.11g but I doubt I go with Apple's router, I'll go with a Cable Modem gateway in a couple months from DLink or Linksys.

BTW, I'm shocked to see how many Mac die-hards are not happy with this upgrade. You basically get 1GhZ, 32MB more ram and a $200 price drop. That's about as much as Apple can afford to do. I mean making a profit on RAM died out a long time ago. Clearly Apple is struggling to meet price/performance demands and keep profit rolling in.

 

[NitroPye]

Arg!

No wonder my tibook now says shipping this thursday (2/6) Arg!. It was supposed to ship last friday but they were probably putting all their effort into these machines or something

 

[yzedf]

Re: Poor graphics

Originally posted by iJed
I'm amazed that Apple is still shipping crappy GeForce 2MX and 4MX cards in the iMacs. Surely at the price they charge they could put in at least a low end GeForce 4 Titanium or a Radeon 9000 Pro.

A few reasons:

cost

size

heat generated

noise generated

The iMac is using a mix of notebook and desktop components to minimize the size, heat, noise, and costs involved.

GF4 Pro and the Radeon 9000 series cards don't fit inside the iMac enclosure. If they did, people would just compain about the noise and heat anyway...

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
Games are coming to the mac in droves!see inside mac gaming.The new high end imac can smoke with any game on the market for the mac as of right now! Doom3 well that may be another story but even all the pc stuff is going to struggle with that game!Again the new high end imac is very very solid!

Errr... the iMac has a GeForce 4 MX which is comparible to GeForce 2 era cards. It's fine for light to moderate gaming, but the only games it will "smoke" are games that are are a couple of years old.

The fact that a $2300 computer has a budget video card in it is rather amusing.


Lethal

 

[MorganX]

Originally posted by TyleRomeo


way to go john, congrats. Put a big bow around it and add some chocolates and maybe she'll buy it.

Ohh and for everyone complaining about the price gap issue. Look at it this way.

$999 emac
$1299 iMac
$1499 Power Mac
$1799 17 inch iMac

That seems fine to me for the desktops.

Good job apple.

Tyler

The closest you come to the 17" widescreen in the PC world is Sony's Entertainment Display. At $950 that means your getting the rest of the iMac for $849. I'll buy 1GHz for that. I can get more in the PC world but Apple's style and integration outweighs the extra power at this price point.

If Apple can maintain at these price levels and continue adding value (and stop gouging on RAM prices) they could do some serious damage. They just snagged an MCSE.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Originally posted by TyleRomeo


Ohh and for everyone complaining about the price gap issue. Look at it this way.

$999 emac
$1299 iMac
$1499 Power Mac
$1799 17 inch iMac

I forgot about the single 1 GHz PM....
Good one.

 

[MorganX]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe


Errr... the iMac has a GeForce 4 MX which is comparible to GeForce 2 era cards. It's fine for light to moderate gaming, but the only games it will "smoke" are games that are are a couple of years old.

The fact that a $2300 computer has a budget video card in it is rather amusing.


Lethal

A $2300 PC will drop frames unless you have a $500 video card in it. Game on Xbox.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Re: Re: Poor graphics

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
From the reviews i have read the 900 pro(64 video ram) is about the same as geforce4mx(64 video ram) dont confuse geforce4mx(32) with the geforce4mx(64)! I would also guess that will get notched up again but remember you cant step all over the toes of the powermac line!

I think you might be confusing the MX and the Ti or FX. The MX's are Nvidia's budget cards. The Ti's get spanked by the 900 Pro, and the FX Ulta (which will hit shelves next month) barely beats the 900 Pro in benchmarks, but it's also going to cost 1.5-2x as much as 900 Pro.


Lethal

 

[DakotaGuy]

I would like to get one of the 17" 1Ghz iMacs to replace my old iMac DV 400, but after reading all the complaints I don't think I will get one. It sounds like it won't have much better performance then my older iMac. ;o(

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Originally posted by Chisholm
WWWWOOOOHHHHHHHOOOO!!!!!!
I just purchased a 17" with bluetooth and applecare! My first PERSONAL mac in 8 years. Now I just have to convince my wife its a good Valentine's Day gift for her (hey, better than a vacuum cleaner, right?)

cheers!
John

Hey you did good i really think that is a great all in one,just get her favorite song playing on itunes,a rose and chocalates and when she walks through the door she will be yours!

 

[Centris 650]

Originally posted by Chisholm
WWWWOOOOHHHHHHHOOOO!!!!!!
I just purchased a 17" with bluetooth and applecare! My first PERSONAL mac in 8 years. Now I just have to convince my wife its a good Valentine's Day gift for her (hey, better than a vacuum cleaner, right?)

cheers!
John

Actually two years ago my wife bought me an iBook for Valentines day. I bought her a vaccuum cleaner(Orek). Believe it or not...we were both very happy! (My wife likes practicle gifts like that. Matter of fact she asked for it and picked it out!)

 

[utilizer]

LAME AS@ "UPGRADES"

How silly is this?! I usually don't respond but I had to this time around. The upgrades last week to the PowerMac line along with the new display pricing and products give me another reason to splurge and buy the that instead of the 17-in. PB and just wait for the dual-G4 17 in. model when that comes out later in the year.

This is absolutely nuts for them to price the iMac line at this price; It's waaaay too expensive in this economic environment and the 17-in. monitor doesn't cost much either and as we can see in the new entry PowerMac configuration, the G4, bluetooth, Airport extreme technology isn't either. They're going to rip off a lot of people with these machines, which have virtually no upgradable capability: the GeForce MX4? Top of the line????! Please!!

Anyways, sunnier days are ahead at the end of the year and I digress.

 

[springscansing]

I'd never get an iMac anyway, but I think Apple screwed up with bluetooth.

15" - bluetooth optional
17" - bluetooth ready
17" #2 - internal bluetooth

I mean.. damn. How confusing is that? Not to mention most consumers never even heard of bluetooth anyway!

Bottom line is, those computers are too damn expensive. All of them.

The current crop of powermacs are a good deal I think. Maybe $200 too much. But the LCD/form factor on the iMacs, while it is very nice, is very very pricey.

Ah well... I'll stick with my 21" CRT and dual 867. It's very nice, except when you first turn the monitor on, the screen gets bigger proportionate to how bright the image that it is display is. If I open a folder and a white window pops up, the whole screen physically enlarges.

And idea on that guys? heh It goes away after 5 minutes.

 

[e-coli]

They're wringing every last drop of profitability out of that pitiful, outdated G4 chip.

Clearly the compay is floundering to differentiate their models on all fronts.

sad.

 

[copperpipe]

I miss the old imac!

What happened to the sweet lovable and CHEAP mac! People need a Mac they can get for $800 (or less!) to do the basics - surf the net, use their digital camera, email, write a paper, etc... And they don't need a flat panel display for that! And the thing is that people that buy these computers will fall in love with OS X, and upgrade in the years to follow. The ol' imac was lovable, I still love mine, and it filled a very respectable niche. The new imacs are cool, but they're TOO MUCH! Listen up Steve, you're missing a huge segment of the switchers with this nonsense.

Cp

 

[danman]

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
I hear a lot of complaints but look at the 17" it now has 64mb video ram versus 32 and that makes a difference.Its now has a 133 bus instead of the 100 that is going to make a difference.superdrive 4x and cd read at 32.1ghz a 200mhz increase.These are all solid improvements and that makes this one fine little machine!This imac blows my almost 2yr powermac out of the water!Great!I Love it! just isnt enough though for me to get one so ill keep waiting for the 7457 or 970 to show but for anyone out there who was really thinking of getting one of these I say what are you waiting for?

Absolutely..
Someone in this thread complained about a 15% speed increase in the last year???
It -has- been a long time coming but 15% is _way_ off the mark:

Processor: 25% faster
Memory: 33% faster
Video Ram 100% larger (plus commented on, but unknown speed increases with this version of the G4MX)

Now Im sooo nearly tempted, but I know the machine will still have problems with 'snappiness' - that 256kb cache is a problem. stick a L3 in this machine and I would buy tomorrow (Im still holding on with my 450Mhz G4, which is _just_ serving my purposes still)

 

[IndyGopher]

Again I find myself utterly stunned by how much folks in here bitch and moan about every little thing. The only thing I can find fault with in these machines is the video chipset, and even THEN my only complaint is that they didn't go with a modular design (which even some notebooks use, notably the Compaq Evo's) so that the video subsystem could be upgraded. If you need that sort of upgradability, they do have towers.

 

[praetorian_x]

Originally posted by e-coli
They're wringing every last drop of profitability out of that pitiful, outdated G4 chip.

Clearly the compay is floundering to differentiate their models on all fronts.

sad.

Totally agree. Only fanboys could be impressed with these updates. (The ultimate iMac for $2,348.00? Are they f**king insane? You could get a dual 2 ghz Xeon with a FIRE graphics card plus a 17 inch flatpanel from dell for that!)

*Yawn* Wake me up when the 970 is released...

Cheers,
prat

 

[e-coli]

Well....to all of you who keep pointing out the DDR as a big improvement, it has been substantially proven that the G4 chip cannot, and does not, utilize the capabilities of DDR RAM.

...so it's a facade to make apple look better.

 

[yzedf]

Originally posted by e-coli
They're wringing every last drop of profitability out of that pitiful, outdated G4 chip.

Clearly the compay is floundering to differentiate their models on all fronts.

sad.

As others have said... this is what happens when you tie yourself to the sinking ship that is Motorola. All they care about anymore is cell phones

 

[possible switch]

Okay, I'm a poor college student with a Dell Insprion 4000 that blue screens at least 5-10 times a day. It runs hot. It's slow. I never carry it anywhere. It doesn't like to let me multi-task.

I was in the market for a new iMac. I almost bought the old low end iMac before I stumbled across macrumors.com. I've since waited patiently for upgrades. FINALLY, they're here. I just don't know what to do though.

The 15 inch one is just the old model, but cheaper. The middle-of-the-line one calls my name, but I don't have $1800 for the computer, $200 for Office X, and the extra bucks for a memory upgrade because 256 seems low.

I have about $1600 I'm willing to spend, but on a low end model that is now working on its second year?

*sigh* I guess I have no choice but to stay in the PC world. I haven't had much time to think about it, but I feel like I'd just be wasting my money by buying an iMac.

**I've heard too many bad things about screens and stuff on the eMacs and simply don't have room for something that size in my dormitory setup.**

 

[DakotaGuy]

Originally posted by danman


Absolutely..
Someone in this thread complained about a 15% speed increase in the last year???
It -has- been a long time coming but 15% is _way_ off the mark:

Processor: 25% faster
Memory: 33% faster
Video Ram 100% larger (plus commented on, but unknown speed increases with this version of the G4MX)

Now Im sooo nearly tempted, but I know the machine will still have problems with 'snappiness' - that 256kb cache is a problem. stick a L3 in this machine and I would buy tomorrow (Im still holding on with my 450Mhz G4, which is _just_ serving my purposes still)

Well this looks like it might perform a little better. I would like to order the new 1Ghz 17" iMac. Does anyone know what type of a difference I will see moving from a 400Mhz iMac DV? I have lost so much faith in Apple when I read the message boards, many times I am not sure if they are moving ahead or going backwards... ;o(

Is it a good buy or not for someone moving up from a 3 year old iMac???