New eMacs

[thatwendigo]

And Dell doesn't compete in the retail space. blah blah. Again I'd like to note emachines actually profits because of stremlined operations. Still counts. We disagree on who Apple should count as competitors. Well I nominate Acer...because they are the 3rd PC maker to make a profit (but they have a small US presence concentrating on notebooks...but whatever)

Emachines doesn't profit enough to matter. They sell even less than Apple and have a smaller slice of the market, though I might almost be willing to accept Acer as a competitor, were they to have a stronger showing here in the States. Acer does some of their own design work, in a much realer sense than the other OEMs do.

Anyway wouldn't you love to have high performance Apple computers only $200 more than Dells? It really kills the Apple premium agrument...without even talking about bundled software.

*slaps his forehead*

Wow.

You know, if you at all paid attention to what I was saying, then it would be obvious that the premium factors would have to be dead for pricing to drop like that. Let me try this again... The reason, the big reason for macs to cost as much as they do, is that Apple is using multiple parts and designs that are not commodity-oriented and must be produced in short runs that cost more per-unit than a comparable-performing machine on the other side of the fence. This is because manufacturing is set up in a such a way that larger numbers mean cheaper per-unit overhead, along with bulk discounts on materials, and other factors. As long as there is a hardware standard that sets Apple apart from the x86 OEMs (PowerPC, related ASICs and support systems, and so on), there will be a price difference.

I hope pricing like that arrives soon. The comparable hardware has comparable specs to pc-land.

Specs are already comparable on the pro-line, and cheaper for equivalent performance on the things that macs are typically used for. Anything beyond that is nicety and pnadering, unless supplies become more readily available.

The emac is already very competitve price and spec wise (a few minor details like the video card) but hey.. it is great, and it will help Apple increase sales......bring on similar pricing to the rest of the line up.....like the 14" ibook could be a little cheaper and more PC users will come in droves!

The eMac is now ridiculously competitive, period. Find me a PC all-in-one that's half as good at the same price point.

 

[jade]

*slaps his forehead*

Wow.

You know, if you at all paid attention to what I was saying, then it would be obvious that the premium factors would have to be dead for pricing to drop like that. Let me try this again... The reason, the big reason for macs to cost as much as they do, is that Apple is using multiple parts and designs that are not commodity-oriented and must be produced in short runs that cost more per-unit than a comparable-performing machine on the other side of the fence. This is because manufacturing is set up in a such a way that larger numbers mean cheaper per-unit overhead, along with bulk discounts on materials, and other factors. As long as there is a hardware standard that sets Apple apart from the x86 OEMs (PowerPC, related ASICs and support systems, and so on), there will be a price difference.

Specs are already comparable on the pro-line, and cheaper for equivalent performance on the things that macs are typically used for. Anything beyond that is nicety and pnadering, unless supplies become more readily available.

You missed it earlier...not speec and performance specs...but Actual hardware stuff: speed of DVD drive, hard drive space, standard RAM...that stuff.....in fact even if Apple costs more but serves up the same amount of RAM and hard drive space in similarly priced models I am happy. THis means that for $1500-1800 machines you get 512 RAM and 8x-12x DVD burners and 160gb hard drives 256 VRAM. or for $800-1200 you get 256-512 RAM, 80-120gb hard drives 64-128 VRAM and at the high end 8x DVD burners.....

For this processors and flat out performance are absolutely irrelelvant.

This is what I mean by on par to PCs in the price range....not how fast itunes encoded MP3s

With the downward trend in the price of components...and the supposed fact that g5 chips are significantly cheaper than the g4 chips it could be very possible to get to be that cheap. or at least in the range of a 25% premium.

Even though many component in PC land are exclusive to pc..more than half aren't. Apple is able to get the same valume discounts a sony...or Gateway or anyone else with similar volume orders for hard drives, optical frives, ram, ethernet cards, firewire cards and that basic stuff. It isn't like Toshiba or whever says to Acer ...sure we'll give you the PC discount and count your volume with DEll and HP.

So since that stuff is getting cheaper...the Apple only parts can stay at similar prices but the rest of the costs decrease..and Apple could lower prices!


Already the emac shows that Apple can offer very competitive pricing, and Apple admited they are not taking a margin hit on dropping the high end emacs price. That tells me it is very possible for Apple to lower prices and still meet existing profit levels.

 

[paulsecic]

The iMac is dead. At this point it would seem unwise for apple to try to premier a new iMac with specs comparable to the new powerbooks (the new G4s at 1.5). More likely this spells the end of the iMac (in its current form) as we know it and a new product debuting at WWDC. The cube G5, anyone?

Greg

Thats why I didn't buy an Imac. My G5 and 17" Display came last night.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Alright I am finally serious about switching. The only cocern I have is that I use Microsoft Publisher everyday. Does anybody know of a program that is comparable to Publisher for the Mac.

I have used MS Publisher for my companies ads in the Washington Post and other places (with some work arounds).

In the Mac world there are no true replacements. What I did was move towards InDesign CS. And i could not be happier. For simple tasks (VERY simple posters, and fliers) I still use Publisher.

 

[jxyama]

Not my area but have you looked at Adobe, Creative Suite or Quark...?

quark is ~$1000. probably not a suitable replacement for publisher, which is practically free, compared to that. as someone else posted, go with indesign.

 

[thatwendigo]

You missed it earlier...not speec and performance specs...but Actual hardware stuff: speed of DVD drive, hard drive space, standard RAM...that stuff.....in fact even if Apple costs more but serves up the same amount of RAM and hard drive space in similarly priced models I am happy. THis means that for $1500-1800 machines you get 512 RAM and 8x-12x DVD burners and 160gb hard drives 256 VRAM. or for $800-1200 you get 256-512 RAM, 80-120gb hard drives 64-128 VRAM and at the high end 8x DVD burners.....

No, I didn't miss your point at all, but I compeltely disagree with you. That's what you don't seem to understand. I'm not at all talking about RAM, DVD drives (even though that's an issue), and other commodity parts. Those are going to be bought on the best bulk discount Apple can get them in, and that's not the issue. The huge difference in price comes from what they can't get on commodity, and that includes graphics cards, processors, and other parts that I have repeatedly spoken of. It's why you're not going to see macs get much cheaper, short of a differrent approach in the manufacturers, or a miracle of short-run production technology.

With the downward trend in the price of components...and the supposed fact that g5 chips are significantly cheaper than the g4 chips it could be very possible to get to be that cheap. or at least in the range of a 25% premium.

The G5 may be cheaper per-unit as a chip, but the motherboards aren't. Since we don't have hard figures, but I did price out what a PC board of equivalent level costs (~$380-450 for a motherboard), I don't think you're going to see it drop soon when the cheap, commodity side isn't lower than that.

Even though many component in PC land are exclusive to pc..more than half aren't. Apple is able to get the same valume discounts a sony...or Gateway or anyone else with similar volume orders for hard drives, optical frives, ram, ethernet cards, firewire cards and that basic stuff. It isn't like Toshiba or whever says to Acer ...sure we'll give you the PC discount and count your volume with DEll and HP.

Hard drives I won't argue, nor will I argue RAM or the physcial units for optical drives. However. the place that I keep trying to get you to understand Apple will be having to charge more, is in driver development for outside parts, research and development on their proprietary parts, and other important software-related issues that PC OEMs don't have to worry about. They just use a standard BIOS and go.

So since that stuff is getting cheaper...the Apple only parts can stay at similar prices but the rest of the costs decrease..and Apple could lower prices!

I'd be willing to bet that the parts Apple pays a premium for (processors, graphics cards, motherboards, and ASICs) are over two thirds of the cost of the machine as a whole. As such, you're not going to see much of a benefit from commodity prices dropping.

Already the emac shows that Apple can offer very competitive pricing, and Apple admited they are not taking a margin hit on dropping the high end emacs price. That tells me it is very possible for Apple to lower prices and still meet existing profit levels.

'Not taking a margin hit' could just mean marketing-speak for 'we were already not making (much) money on these, but the component prices went down enough that we could update the hardware to try to get a few more sales.'

 

[Griffindor73]

The thing that I want to know is this:

I work in education- I have looked at the eMac prices and I can get the basic eMac for £515.

Thats good price, thought I!

Then I looked at the US store ed price.

Then I converted it.

£419.

Why does the eMac cost an extra £96 here????

Or, why is everything so cheap in the US!- You lucky buggers!

 

[Kenny Pollock]

Well, in our currency (USD) it's considered alot to us. When you say the price is £515, I think THAT'S cheap.

 

[jcs_mac]

eMac Great Price For What You Get!!!

I order the new eMac(built to order) fully loaded:

1.25 Ghz G4
1 GB SDRAM
160 GB Ultra ATA Drive
SuperDrive
Airport Extreme Card
Bluetooth Built-in
eMac Stand

All this costed me with tax and 2 day shipping for only $1392.

I think that is a great price for what you get and blows away must PC's out there in this price range.

 

[Kirk]

I order the new eMac(built to order) fully loaded:

1.25 Ghz G4
1 GB SDRAM
160 GB Ultra ATA Drive
SuperDrive
Airport Extreme Card
Bluetooth Built-in
eMac Stand

Exactly what I am thinking about, without the Airport and Bluetooth.
Let me know what you think when you get it! (see thread below)
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67768

By the way: Does anyone here know if the HD is 5400 or 7200 rpm?

 

[NicoMan]

The thing that I want to know is this:

I work in education- I have looked at the eMac prices and I can get the basic eMac for £515.

Thats good price, thought I!

Then I looked at the US store ed price.

Then I converted it.

£419.

Why does the eMac cost an extra £96 here????

Or, why is everything so cheap in the US!- You lucky buggers!

Does the US price include sales tax?

 

[aswitcher]

By the way: Does anyone here know if the HD is 5400 or 7200 rpm?

Someone has complained that it is 5400...annoyed that for a great machine it was hampered by a slow harddisk and no option to upgrade. Fair point.

 

[byrdinthesky]

Thank You for your help!

I have used MS Publisher for my companies ads in the Washington Post and other places (with some work arounds).

In the Mac world there are no true replacements. What I did was move towards InDesign CS. And i could not be happier. For simple tasks (VERY simple posters, and fliers) I still use Publisher.

Thank all of you for your help. I pastor a small country church in LA. And I use Publisher to make our bullitens and flyers, etc...

I did check out Ragtime 5 Solo and feel that it will be more than suitable.

Thank you

 

[jxyama]

The thing that I want to know is this:

I work in education- I have looked at the eMac prices and I can get the basic eMac for £515.

Thats good price, thought I!

Then I looked at the US store ed price.

Then I converted it.

£419.

Why does the eMac cost an extra £96 here????

Or, why is everything so cheap in the US!- You lucky buggers!

a can of coke is around 75 cents here in the US. the very same can is about a dollar in Japan. some things are cheaper in some areas of the world. some things are more expensive. i believe apple prices their computers relatively to other goods and services in the local region.

 

[allpar]

The advantages of mass production are the main reason why so many are advocating a "plain box" Mac - just as we used to advocate moving to USB (thank Heaven that happened along with the move to PCI instead of NuBus, PDS, and the like.)

The largest computer makers in the world are HP and Dell. Let's look at Dell. I will assemble a computer to fit my needs...Dell Dimension 2400, $799. I configure it with decent (512 MB) RAM and DVD burner...and I get a 2.66 GHz Pentium 4, 533MHz front side bus, keyboard, 15" flat panel LCD display, fast 40 GB hard drive, modem, speakers, WordPerfect, Money, and a three year warranty for $913 after rebate.

I will admit the eMac looks good to *me* but to the uninitiated...that $500 base Dell system drags 'em in and then they get sold a $2,000 system "because they need a 100 gigs, right?"

Going back to the mass production thing...I don't look at my computer...I don't need an incredibly heavy and wasteful plastic case such as my G4 comes with. I'd be happier with a pizza box or a cheapskate PC beige case. I just want that Apple motherboard. If it saves $100...it's worth making iti an option. Question is, will it save $100?

We can speculate but we will never know, and with Steve at the helm, Apple will continue its policy of BMW pricing. (And yes, a BMW does compete well against a Mercedes, but will never have the volume of Chevrolet...but as I always point out, the aftermarket does not stop making parts for BMWs just because they fall below a certain market share. Perhaps they would if there were only three options - BMW, Chevrolet, and building your own car - and BMW had a 2% market share against Chevrolet's 94%.)

 

[jxyama]

Perhaps they would if there were only three options - BMW, Chevrolet, and building your own car - and BMW had a 2% market share against Chevrolet's 94%.)

this is where car analogy fails because there are functional differences between Mac and other PCs.

what if BMW came with CD player, cruise control, electric locks and windows, A/C, leather seats and all that "standard," while all of those were "optional" on the Chevy? would people still complain that BMW are priced higher than Chevy?

if people didn't want leather seats, cruise control, etc. then Chevy makes sense and it would be stupid to overpay for a BMW with feature they don't want. but it would be stupid to ask BMW to lower the price of their cars, while still maintaining all the "standards" just so prices would match the Chevy. (and their business philosophy will not allow BMW to strip their cars - that's not what they want to sell. they want to sell luxury, well-equipped cars.) if people didn't want (or didn't know they want) leather seats, cruise control, etc. to begin with, they won't see the additional value of BMW even if it was as cheap as Chevy.

out of the box, Macs are more capable of multimedia stuff than PCs. the important thing is, if you didn't know why Macs would be more useful than a PC box to begin with, then people won't buy Macs even if they were priced cheaper. (for one, PC makers will strip their machines even further just to lower the price.)

apple wants to sell a complete package. for example, that's why they moved toward offering combo drive in every computer - instead of selling bare mininum computers, apple feels that computer would be utterly lacking in these days if they couldn't burn CDs and at least read DVDs. so instead of "offering" an "option" to upgrade CD-ROM drive to combo drive like Dells and HPs, apple doesn't even offer CD-ROM drives anymore.

 

[jeffgarden]

iBooks come with a cd-rom (not combo) option - but perhaps that'll change with this weeks rumored updates

 

[jxyama]

iBooks come with a cd-rom (not combo) option - but perhaps that'll change with this weeks rumored updates

no it doesn't. as of G4 iBook, every computer apple sells comes with at least a combodrive.

(the only exceptions are refurbs and edu. lowest iBook.)

 

[kgarner]

iBooks come with a cd-rom (not combo) option - but perhaps that'll change with this weeks rumored updates

Actually, they all come with a Combo Drive now. That was one of the changes in the last revision (when they went to the G4).

edit: jxyama beat me to it.

 

[jxyama]

i wanted to mention, before getting blasted for my prev. car analogy , that differences in feature for Macs/PCs are a little more subtle. but i hope i made my point.

apple would advertise: basic computer, $799, well equipped.

Dells/HPs would advertise: basic computer, $499. (what they won't advertise is $749 as "shown.")

something like that.

the big problem is, with computers, people aren't as aware of the capabilities. there are things i do with my Mac now that i didn't even know i wanted to do before i got one. most people are happy just checking emails and surfing the web - and for those purposes, people should just get the cheapest machine possible - Mac or Dell, it won't make any difference.

but i'm hoping that more people will want to expand their idea of what they use the computers for and if/when they do, i believe Macs are better equipped to handle those expanded desires.

 

[Lancetx]

By the way: Does anyone here know if the HD is 5400 or 7200 rpm?

I don't know about the new ones, but I have a 1GHz Combo Drive eMac (May '03) and it does have a 7200 rpm hard drive. The only way to know for sure is to run System Profiler to get the model number and then verify it on the drive manufacturer's site.

 

[wizard]

Okay, I'll bite. Please educate me: what are the uses for large amounts of VRAM beyond:

1) Quartz Extreme
2) Games

Please name apps if you can.

What is it with you guys do you need to be spoon feed. 32 meg is the minimal configuration for Quartz Extreme that in it self is telling. Frankly the GPU implementation is the worst feature that the new eMac has been implemented with, it completely destroys what would other wise be a passable machine.

Also, remember the "e" in eMac stands for "Education". These aren't for 24-hour Unreal Tournament deathmatches. These are for looking things up online and playing Reader Rabbit.

Well you may believe that the "e" stands for education but I suspect hat very few of these machine are actually going into education. Even at that; you are unfortunately promoting the idea that a proper amount of GPU memory is only usefull for games. That simply is a mistake, even if games never enter into the picture the amount of memory allocated to the GPU in this machine is to small.

eMachines has a GeForce 4 MX standard (far inferior to th Radeon 9200)
Compaq starts with integrated Intel graphics, and baby-steps up through nVidia's current 5xxx lineup.
Dell uses Intel 3D Extreme integrated graphics in their budget line.



Oddly enough, I think the exact opposite is true. If games aren't your primary obsession (and, I think, as a Mac user we've pretty much pre-selected that obsession out), this is a good, solid machine. It is more durable than just about anything else out there, from any company. It has more than enough horsepower for office/internet/kids' games/etc (even the ole 866MHz models had more than enough horsepower there). While you can get an eMachine cheaper, you won't have the solid hardware or software.

There is no doubt in my mind that Apples hardware is solid. That has been the case for a number of years if you exclude a few laptop issues. While comparisons to i86 hardware are usefull it misses the point of some of my arguments.

First; we have people calling this a good update, which is nothing but a load of crap. It is a modest update to a machine that hasn't been updated in a long time and has had a rather stagnet existance before the last update. I don't really know how anyone can look at the specs and come to any other conclusion.

Second; the gulf between this machine and the rest of Apples product line is going to become rather huge in a few weeks to months. That is unless Apple tries to manipulate the market by selling another revision of the G4 iMac. Performance wise that gulf will be much wider than what one sees in the i86 world between low end machines and the high end.

I don't know maybe Apple WILL wimp out and release another rev to the G4 iMac and bump its clock rate a few MHz. If they do it will be rather sad as the rest of the world will be passing them buy at a rather good clip. Hopefully they won't wimp out and will agressively try to retain market share or maybe try to increase share a bit. The problem is that with Apples current update cycles the machine will look rather second hand in a few months.

 

[allpar]

No, the car analogy still holds. You can get a Chevrolet that matches a BMW on features quite easily, and as you suggest, the price of the Chevy is only a little lower in that case. (We're not talking handling here - perhaps we should use Mercedes instead of BMW. Of course we know Apple also tends to have better quality which rules out both Mercedes AND BMW from a good analogy - so let's use Lexus and Toyota instead!).

Option a Chevy to Lexus levels, and you have almost the same price. Same with Dell and Apple I noticed. Guess what? Most people buy Chevys.

Again, though, with your Mac - I have one of each - can you run Perseus SurveySolutions or any other professional survey software? No? How about SPSS statistical software? Oh, yes, the slowed-down ported version. How about SAS? No? Do you get the idea now? You get a Chevy, you can have it fixed anywhere...and a replacement headlight is pretty cheap. You get a Lexus or a BMW, not all mechanics know their ins and outs, and a replacement headlight's pretty costly.

It's only an analogy. You can always find fault with it because it's only an analogy.

Point is, Apple really DOES need to increase its market share to keep the software coming, and they won't do it at current prices - regardless of how good the deal is. They need the old pizza-box model to go along with their premium model.

 

[wizard]

I deal with schools every day. People are generally more upset when someone bullies through an order for PC's with a mid-to-high-end video card and more RAM and HD than necessary, because it is frankly 75% wasted on the software the computers will be used for.

Well this is absolute garbage! It is expected when spending tax payer dollars to buy capital that will hold its value for at least a little while. I'm willing ot bet that the individuals generating these orders are doing so out of realization that the hardware they purchase today will be expected to funciton for several years in the class room. It is very unlikely that hardware updates will be easy to get. Invarably software requirements progressively require more memory, so it is very wise to configure the machines to reflect this reality.

Just who are these people that are so upset anyways? Probally a school administrator whom has never used or supported a PC himself.

What would a school use a high-end video card for? Please do tell. Would it make Internet studies more effective? Would it make self-learning programs run better? Would it make teachers' gradebooks easier to use? Would it make Word more efficiently handle footnotes?

Who here is talking about a high end card. Do you not realize what is happening in the industry? The 9200 is not an example of a high end chip nor middle ground or even low end, it is a dead end. The minute that ATI and nVidia start shipping there new chips, the low end will be populated by things like the 9600. Heck I've even seen indications today of price cuts from one of these manufactures.

High end or not the real issue is the RAM allocated to the GPU. it simply isn't acceptable for a desktop machine in this day and age. I'm sorry if that upsets some but if you live in a world of low expectations it is not likely that you will ever go anywhere.

You sound exactly like the people who end up overspending school IT budgets because they feel for some reason that if they don't max out the memory and hard drive Safari and Reader Rabbit just won't run!

The eMac is targetted for people with a known need, and their egos firmly enough in check that they don't need to buy up to the Maseratti to make up for other deficiencies. The 'e' people generally don't have budgets to fritter away on "but maybe someday" hypotheticals which only tangentially might possibly affect how they teach their students.

 

[wizard]

Frankly I'm not one for benchmarks though I'm willing ot bet tht the performance of this machine will be similar to any other Mac running at this clock rate. Considering how the G4's have lagged for so long that will be pretty bad performance. Proof is in the history of the line.

Just because Apple would like to sell these computers to the educational market does not mena that they are selling 100% into this market. That doesn't really matter though as my argument is that 32 Megs is to little for any desktop computer being introduce new to the market. The Mac just makes things worst as the overall performance of the GPU's on a Mac often lag the i86 platforms.

The problem is that most likely the PowerMac will have a PCI Express based GPU in the very near future. The rest of ATI's accellerator line will be bumped in down a notch even if nothing happens with Apple hardware. In the market place the 9200 will have all the appeal of a RAGE chipset. What I don't understand is why people seem to think that the educational environment has no need for sustainable hardware. Does it really make sense to spend your tax dollars on hardware that will not be usefull in one or two years.

Realize that the question of computer hardware is something that every school has to deal with. It is not practical to be constantly replacing hardware becuase its life span is measure in months. By not having a memory allocation that will support the eMac into the future it in effect erases itself from many schools approved list of computers.

in my opinion, you are all talk. you keep bashing in the eMac's performance, yet you have no proofs. have you any benchmarks? have you done any tests? i would think not. graphics card doesn't play an important role in overall computer performance, unless you are playing a game like UT. not even in video editing, no. making such a fuss over a graphics card, over an (again!) "educational" computer is senseless. if a PowerMac were to come with this graphics card, i would've agreed with you.