Buyers Outlook for 2008-2009. Penryn iMacs Soon, Nehalem in 2009

[surferfromuk]

There are simple equations at play here ;

(slu = since last update)

> 9 months slu = Wait if you can

> 7 and < 9 months slu and you don't need to update now = Wait if you can but don't loose sleep over it

< 7 months slu = Buy and enjoy

Waiting for some 'incredible tech' X years away = You don't need a new computer now or soon and so exist outside the consideration of these equations.

> 2 years since you last updated = your gonna get a great computer no matter what so don't freak out

 

[50548]

I totally agree! I had just got an Amiga 2000 HD when the crap hit the fan. Boy did they blow it! So much it could do and run all 3 OS's at the same time. Ya know even it's 8 bit built in sound was outstanding and I loved the file structure! Tis a shame what they let happen to it. To put it bluntly their marketing sucked, especially here in the states! But oh well now we have Apple and IM content again. The thing I liked the most was the OS kick start (boot loader?) was in ROM. No need to worry about it getting infected. It was just a Great machine. Now back to our Apple!

The Amiga was good, especially for games with its custom chips (Agatha anyone? ). However, it was nowhere near the Apple IIGS in terms of overall refined OS experience (with the GS/OS), as the WorkBench looked AND felt rough as a system...

As for sound capabilities...the IIGS with its Ensoniq is, until TODAY, the best personal computer EVER in terms of sound synthesizing capabilities...

 

[50548]

If that's how you feel why not just go with Microstink on a Dell or something else? The point is that OS X is superb compared to Vista, and many, many people are getting years out of their Macs! My Toshiba is just over a year old, and already it is almost time to replace it. Boot up time is terrible, and it glitches on me at least 1 time an hour. I think that going to a Mac, while not necessarily having the newest and best options out there, will last you much longer, and give you much more bang for your buck. I also think that these new processors in the iMacs, especially if they upgrade the video card will be smoking anything else you put out there! You're not being treated like a sheep, and can go use any other platform you want, however, I think that that peace of mind about the longevity of a machine is much more important than concerns about having the latest and greatest, because most people just want something that works for them for a long time.

Ditto. This is trolling at its best...just ask a workmate of mine who just got a MBP upon my recommendation...he couldn't be happier, and has no idea of EVER coming back to a PC...design, stability, absence of malware/viruses, illuminated keyboard, multitouch trackpads etc...he had NO idea a Mac was THIS good.

 

[kresh]

What do release dates have anything to do with volume? Apple can stay Apple and give people some ability to plan around when machines will be released. As is, it's impossible to plan around Apple, which has nothing to do with volumes or pricing.

What does selling a (MSRP) > (Sum of parts) machine have to do with disclosing release dates? Apple may not be persuing enterprise, but enterprise is persuing Apple, more and more every day... and Apple is practically batting them away.

As so many people have noted already, most consumers don't wait for an update to buy new computers, they just buy as they need. A small contingency of people who hold out for an update will always exist. To either of these two groups of people, Apple disclosing the release date of an updated model will not change their behavior. Indifferents will remain indifferent and wait-ers will continue to wait.

What advantage does being secretive have for Apple?

-Clive

I did not claim anything about release dates either way.

I started quoting a post that talked about gradually reducing the price of the iMac as the technology became older.

Someone responded that PC manufacturer's do it all the time and I responded with the post you quoted.

The bit about revealing product release times was thrown in at the end.

 

[JitteryJimmy]

What's going on.

They used to do updates, price drops, or spec bumps every 4-5 months (and sometimes sooner than that) which was great. I don't understand why they now carry the same iMac, with the same specs, for almost a full year without lowering the price.

It depends on the model. The iMac was last updated 8 months ago.

In contrast, the MacBook was updated three times within the last year.

As for the reasons why Apple hasn't dropped the price of the iMac - clearly, Apple doesn't feel that would be good in terms of their bottom line. And that's not surprising, seeing how the value of the US dollar has crashed over the last year - meaning that Apple's real costs in terms of manufacturing and purchasing have increased dramatically.

 

[danvdr]

I have a PowerBook G4 from 2004, and I've been saving up recently to get a new MacBook Pro. I'm a student, but will be graduating in May, so after then I won't be able to get the education discount. Is it worth it to wait for the new Montevina/new design(?) MacBook Pros to come out, or should I take advantage of the discount now and go ahead and get one? Thanks for any advice.

Couple thoughts:
Congratulations on graduating--welcome to the real world (unless there's grad school...)
I'd wait and see. Nobody knows what the performance increase/design improvements will be until the new machines are actually out. If they are really good, then you'll be glad you waited; if they're not so great you can get a better deal on the old model (e.g. Apple refurb).
Besides, once you add in tax, the student discount isn't that much better of a deal than if you grab a bundle from one of the online stores.

 

[rjc]

Bad Recommendations

This is a great article to demonstrate the flaws in the way macrumors thinks about the buying process.

Two problems with your recommendations:

1. An over-reliance on raw speed over other stats. Not very many people have a use for raw speed bumps. The increased speed of the Montevina/Penryn combo is fine, but it's not better for most consumers than the Penryn battery life gains. Those gains are by no means slight. 7-15% is not a slight battery life gain. 15 percent is huge.

Of course speed should be one factor in buying decisions, but this article is a good example of how rumors sites inflate the importance of speed--a stat which isn't actually that relevant to day-to-day consumer use. I will take a 15-percent battery life increase over a 5% speed bump any day.

2. There is no computer coming out in a year that is worth the wait. There will always be something better 12 months down the road.

I can't fathom that a site would even contemplate recommending that buyers wait 12 months -- it's completely ridiculous. If you're that desperate for the latest and greatest, you don't wait 12 months -- you buy what you need now, then sell it and buy a new computer 12 months from now.

 

[Digital Skunk]

This is a great article to demonstrate the flaws in the way macrumors thinks about the buying process.

Two problems with your recommendations:

1. An over-reliance on raw speed over other stats. Not very many people have a use for raw speed bumps. The increased speed of the Montevina/Penryn combo is fine, but it's not better for most consumers than the Penryn battery life gains. Those gains are by no means slight. 7-15% is not a slight battery life gain. 15 percent is huge.

Of course speed should be one factor in buying decisions, but this article is a good example of how rumors sites inflate the importance of speed--a stat which isn't actually that relevant to day-to-day consumer use. I will take a 15-percent battery life increase over a 5% speed bump any day.

2. There is no computer coming out in a year that is worth the wait. There will always be something better 12 months down the road.

I agree. There is no major gain from waiting 6 more months, unless it's a serious overhaul in the design that allows for better hardware or cooling. The jump from Merom to Penryn was small sans the battery life gains. And the jump from Santa Rosa to Montevina won't be as large as everyone seems I am sure. Nelahem may be different when comparing it to Penryn and SR, but that's about a year or more off.

 

[jaminthejar]

Well I think the point is, if someone doesn't wait until the new processors come out in 09, they might be kicking themselves. Of course, if you HAVE to get a new computer by then, just do it, but if you can wait a bit longer (if the upgrade is more of a want than a need), why not just wait the year and get the computer that has significant upgrades over the one that has minor upgrades? These processors, Merom, Penryn, Montavena are all pretty much in the same generation and more or less offer the same boosts over one another. I think Nahalem is supposed to offer a more dramatic boost based on the way its built.

 

[powermac_daddy]

not good

 

[Digital Skunk]

Well I think the point is, if someone doesn't wait until the new processors come out in 09, they might be kicking themselves. Of course, if you HAVE to get a new computer by then, just do it, but if you can wait a bit longer (if the upgrade is more of a want than a need), why not just wait the year and get the computer that has significant upgrades over the one that has minor upgrades? These processors, Merom, Penryn, Montavena are all pretty much in the same generation and more or less offer the same boosts over one another. I think Nahalem is supposed to offer a more dramatic boost based on the way its built.

I agree, but Apple may repeat history by that time and the waiters could be waiting a lot longer than a mere 6 months or so. When we were waiting for Penryn we assumed all things would be fine at WWDC which came late last year, like August. Then the MBP update didn't even come at MWSF, it came about a month and a half later, near the end of February.

I agree, if you have a machine that isn't that old, or you have one that is beyond old (G4) and you feel that it's a safe bet to wait until a possible redesign and Nelahem processors then do it, but it might not come by WWDC, or the new school year, or Christmas (for those capitalists) or even by new years or the end of January.

 

[Analog Kid]

Well I think the point is, if someone doesn't wait until the new processors come out in 09, they might be kicking themselves. Of course, if you HAVE to get a new computer by then, just do it, but if you can wait a bit longer (if the upgrade is more of a want than a need), why not just wait the year and get the computer that has significant upgrades over the one that has minor upgrades? These processors, Merom, Penryn, Montavena are all pretty much in the same generation and more or less offer the same boosts over one another. I think Nahalem is supposed to offer a more dramatic boost based on the way its built.

I guess it depends on what you own a computer for. If what you're concerned about is how much processor intensive work you can get done in a given amount of time, then your best strategy is to buy on a regular schedule. You might tweak a month this way or that to capture the a minor bump, but waiting 6 months for a new machine doesn't make sense-- you're likely wasting time using obsolete hardware hoping to gain an extra 5-10% in performance rather than getting the 30% performance boost you'd get updating now.

If you have a specific need, then there is likely a threshold at which buying makes sense-- for example you may decide it doesn't make sense to buy a new laptop until you can load 16GB of RAM in it because your application is memory constrained. Or you may skip an update because your primary use is gaming and the latest generation hasn't improved the video hardware.

As I said earlier-- waiting for an breakpoint in the CPU performance curve is futile. Intel doesn't do that. They don't release parts that are 30% faster. They sequence changes in microarchitecture, fab process, and chipsets to throttle performance gains over time-- if they linked those releases it would, first, put their engineering, manufacturing, and test resources though massive feast and famine cycles, and second their sales would be a Wall Street galling roller coaster.

The software dev cycle further blurs the benefits of each CPU generation. By the time the next generation of CPU comes out, software *might* just be taking advantage of the features of the last generation. How often does Adobe update their applications? You won't see the benefits of SSE4 until they do, so that newfangled feature may not exhibit any benefit to you.

If you're waiting to buy just so you can have a CPU named Nehalem, I can't help you. I never understood the people that freaked out because they didn't want to own a machine called a G5 if Apple was just about to release one called a G6. That sounds like conspicuous consumption to me and I just don't think that way...

I guess what I'm saying is: if you can wait a year to upgrade, you don't need a new machine.

 

[mikey.f]

Thanks for the great service with the Buyer's Guides, I often found them useful before purchasing my apple gear!

Keep up the good work

 

[Dave00]

23" Apple Cinema Display for $899
24" HP LP2465 for $649
24" Dell 2408WFP for $599
24" BenQ G2400W for $400

I can hardly see the compelling argument for an ACD when so many other options are available.

Apples and oranges. The Dell and the HP are S-PVA, the BENQ is a TN-film panel. The Cinema Display still uses S-IPS, which has superior color fidelity. (Although not as fast pixel response time if you are a gaming type.) For me, accurate color is by far the most important attribute, followed by text readability. Working with photos on a TN panel is maddening, as even a slight tilt in the screen completely changes the contrast.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a less expensive Cinema Display. And I'm seriously looking at the Dell 2408 to hook to my macbook, although I'm a little leery because it's revision A of a product cycle and there have already been some problems reported. But simply showing that there are similarly-sized screens for less is disingenuous, as there are also $5000 24-inch screens.

 

[piablo]

thaNK YOU BUYERS GUIDE AND FORUm peeps

I love to e-search but somethimes it just kills the time until you have the cash and you buy what is proven - the aluminum imac is more timeless than the first plastic style one no offence to those who purchased but generelly the first ones are mildly awkward and suffer tech issues ask onyone who bought the first emac's - genrelly this issue is more prevalent for consumer level apple products - sometimes they get it right - G5 tower in particular - now that is a timeless design in my opinion. i think the airbook is lovely but i just dont trust the mainstream prototypes. right now in canda you can get the 20" imac 2 gig core2 duo for 1149 - so what if the next imac chipset came out last night when I bought last week - its a steal compared to the power macintosh 7500(performa piece of ****) 225 mhz that i purchased for $2749 in 1997 and was the biggest sans steve jobs boat anchor imagineable.


i can understad within weeks but even then proven hardware has its pros.

 

[Val-kyrie]

Apples and oranges. The Dell and the HP are S-PVA, the BENQ is a TN-film panel. The Cinema Display still uses S-IPS, which has superior color fidelity. (Although not as fast pixel response time if you are a gaming type.) For me, accurate color is by far the most important attribute, followed by text readability. Working with photos on a TN panel is maddening, as even a slight tilt in the screen completely changes the contrast.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a less expensive Cinema Display. And I'm seriously looking at the Dell 2408 to hook to my macbook, although I'm a little leery because it's revision A of a product cycle and there have already been some problems reported. But simply showing that there are similarly-sized screens for less is disingenuous, as there are also $5000 24-inch screens.

I am considering the ACD, but will be using it primarily for text and then for photography and videography. Would you (or anyone else) comment on using the ACD with text, especially for long periods of time?

 

[MattZani]

So whats the state of the Model Refresh for MBP? Im looking to buy one in the next month or two, but if a case change is on the horizon, i can wait, but if its merely a revision, i know im not going to see much difference.

 

[k2spitfire88]

So whats the state of the Model Refresh for MBP? Im looking to buy one in the next month or two, but if a case change is on the horizon, i can wait, but if its merely a revision, i know im not going to see much difference.

Most people believe that there is a case change coming with the new processors this summer, but they may wait until nehalem comes out in 2009.