Powermac Mini. Would YOU Buy one?

[millar876]

THIS IS NOT A HARDWARE RUMOR IT IS MY IDEA OF WHAT WOULD MAKE A GRATE MAC!!!


All this previous talk of a headless iMac bugged me so i thaught, what if it wasnt a consumer nor a pro machine but a Mid range mac.

A powermac Mini if you will, a similar design to the Powermac G5 BUT smaller, only coming in SP models but at the same speeds as the full sise PM's with a FUll speed Bus, an AGP slot for graphics cards and PCI-X slot (perhaps 2 PCI-X slots instead of 1 of each and some mac compatible PCI-Express Graphisc cards{PCI-X and express are the same arn't they}) and maybe 4 DDR-Ram Slots suporting upto 4GB.

It would give apple users a greater choice. "do i spend £1300 on a top iMac and know i cant do anything withit except sell it in a year or 2 and buy 1 with better specs? OR do i spend a lot more and buy a bottem end PM and kick myself for not being able to affoard the top one, yet marvel at its performance? OR do i get a PM mini enjoy it for a year or two then whack another better graphics card and get another 2 years out of it?

Would anyone else buy one or is it just me?

PS how do i tell somone at Apple about my idea, i Know that even if they think it is a great idea i'm not likley to get a reply from them.

 

[iMeowbot]

Would anyone else buy one or is it just me?

I've always been a fan of the external bus/network approach. Internal slots don't do much for me. When USB and then 1394 showed up, it was like, cool, now stuff can be hooked up just like on real computers!

PS how do i tell somone at Apple about my idea, i Know that even if they think it is a great idea i'm not likley to get a reply from them.

You want this feedback page.

 

[FlamDrag]

To preface: This is not a flame, or a rant; I'm just thinking out loud.

It's a fine idea, and I'm sure that folks would buy it. However, it's in direct opposition to Apple's marketing plan. Having your PMini would further muddle the decision making process.

As you've pointed out, if you're deciding b/w a top-end iMac and a low-end PM the price difference is small (of course you DO have to get a monitor for the PM) but performance is better.

I submit that this works in Apple's favor. By using this thought process, you've already decided on, at the very least, the top iMac. IF you decided to get the low-end PM, then you begin thinking "well, it's only $xx.xx for the next step up" and you begin to climb the ladder and stretch your budget to the max.

From a consumer point of view, this middle mac is all good and well, but from a marketing standpoint, it's bad news.

 

[Chryx]

What would be better would be box roughly the same price as the low end imac.

with specs a smidge better than the top end imac (sans screen)

say..

a 1.8Ghz / 900Mhz FSB G5
two DDR2 dimm slots
PCI-E 16x slot (start with an ATi X600 or such and work up from there.)
superdrive
AE/BT options
SATA harddisk

put it in an enclosure that looks something like

and it'd FLY off the shelves into the hands of the geek contingent that doesn't buy Macs as they are right now because they're too expensive (and there's a lot of them, believe me.)

The key is to not attach the cube effect.. and that is.. don't make it the same price and LESS flexible/expandible as something else in the product line.

the G4 Cube was too close in price to the Powermac, it'd have been a lot more successful if it'd only been a bit more expensive than the iMac

 

[0490043]

What would be better would be box roughly the same price as the low end imac.

with specs a smidge better than the top end imac (sans screen)

say..

a 1.8Ghz / 900Mhz FSB G5
two DDR2 dimm slots
PCI-E 16x slot (start with an ATi X600 or such and work up from there.)
superdrive
AE/BT options
SATA harddisk

put it in an enclosure that looks something like

and it'd FLY off the shelves into the hands of the geek contingent that doesn't buy Macs as they are right now because they're too expensive (and there's a lot of them, believe me.)

The key is to not attach the cube effect.. and that is.. don't make it the same price and LESS flexible/expandible as something else in the product line.

the G4 Cube was too close in price to the Powermac, it'd have been a lot more successful if it'd only been a bit more expensive than the iMac

I would buy one!!!

 

[solvs]

I'm hoping eventually when the G5s are more abundant, and the FreeScale G4s are out, Apple will come out with a few new models. Like a single G5 mid-Tower for roughly around the price of the lowend iMac. And a cheaper G4-based headless mini-Tower, probably around the price of the eMac. Apple can't really compete on the ultra low-end commodity PC market, nor do we want a hundred different products like they had before Steve came back. But if they can have just a few more products to serve those who wouldn't buy the current products, I think they could gain a little more marketshare.

G4 mini-Tower, $599 ~ $799
eMac, ~$699
iMac, current prices
Single G5 mid-Tower, ~iMac prices
Dual G5 full Tower, ~current prices

I'm not holding my breath though.

 

[iLikeMyiMac]

I'd buy one because its not an all-in-one computer like the imac that you have to pay for a new monitor every time you get a new computer.

 

[iMeowbot]

put it in an enclosure that looks something like

... a Terra Soft briQ. Those are currently still limited to G4 processors, but with maconlinux, you'd basically have the coveted headless Mac. It can even be configured to take a PCI card for adding a Radeon 90210PDQ GPU

Now WHAT THE HECK DID I DO WITH MY MOUSE???!?!!!1!!! Safari with a pen is yucky.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

THIS IS NOT A HARDWARE RUMOR IT IS MY IDEA OF WHAT WOULD MAKE A GRATE MAC!!!


All this previous talk of a headless iMac bugged me so i thaught, what if it wasnt a consumer nor a pro machine but a Mid range mac.

A powermac Mini if you will, a similar design to the Powermac G5 BUT smaller, only coming in SP models but at the same speeds as the full sise PM's with a FUll speed Bus, an AGP slot for graphics cards and PCI-X slot (perhaps 2 PCI-X slots instead of 1 of each and some mac compatible PCI-Express Graphisc cards{PCI-X and express are the same arn't they}) and maybe 4 DDR-Ram Slots suporting upto 4GB.

It would give apple users a greater choice. "do i spend £1300 on a top iMac and know i cant do anything withit except sell it in a year or 2 and buy 1 with better specs? OR do i spend a lot more and buy a bottem end PM and kick myself for not being able to affoard the top one, yet marvel at its performance? OR do i get a PM mini enjoy it for a year or two then whack another better graphics card and get another 2 years out of it?

Would anyone else buy one or is it just me?

PS how do i tell somone at Apple about my idea, i Know that even if they think it is a great idea i'm not likley to get a reply from them.

Two things:

1. PCI-X and PCI-Express are two completely different beasts. PCI-X is essentially generation 2 of the PCI standard. PCI-Express is effectively generation 3 of the PCI standard, and is fast enough to replace AGP, unlike PCI-X. Therefore, if PCI-Express comes to Macs, we can say bye-bye to AGP.
2. I would not be interested in a "PowerMac mini". I'd much rather have the full power of a "traditional" PowerMac, even if I had to pay US$4000+ for it.

 

[EJBasile]

What about 17" cinema monitor. I think they would sell like crazy between mac users and pc users with a DVI port. Charge around $500 for it and i think it would sell definatly!

 

[freiheit]

Definitely would buy

I would definitely buy a MiniPowerMac. I don't think it would (or should) come between the price points of the fully integrated iMac and the full PowerMac -- it would be essentially the iMac without a monitor but with just a few (2 at most) PCI slots and maybe 1 additional hard drive bay. Therefore it should cost less than the iMac (that 17" LCD ain't cheap, ya know!). A single processor, fully G5 spec'd (full bus speed, PCI-X, SATA) MiniPowerMac 1.8GHz priced at around $1100-1300 would have been very attractive for me before I went and bought my dual G4. It would only need to come standard with an 80GB HDD and 8X SuperDrive, and maybe a Radeon 9200 (I'd choose that over a GeForce FX 5200 Ultra any day).

 

[mrilloraza]

marketing?...

well ok, so i understand the thought process that apple is trying to sway us towards, but think about this way, these mini powermacs could be the deciding factor in a possible wintel convert.
honestly, the imac g5 is rather expensive...and with little to no future upgrades, it becomes even more expensive. other than the form factor and the fact it's cheaper than the powermac g5's why wouldn't a windows user spend the 1300-1900 on a relatively powerful wintel desktop, that they know they can upgrade etc etc. it is a pretty expensive machine and the fact that it only has a 32mb videocard limits its longevity when dealing with games, pro video and graphics in the long run.
but.... i think the imac is kind of like apples version of a mini powermac...the emac is ridiculously cheap, im not sure if they are going to keep that line of computers, (even then i don't think it's worth it to buy those emacs) so the imac does seem like a nice middle ground, geared towards the computer user that doesn't want to deal with adding, or upgading, they just want it to sit on their desk, and work with their printers, ipod, etc.
i had an idea about making the powerbook being able to flip completely back, (reverse close, so that the keyboard is not visible) and making it mountable like the new imacs.

 

[mrilloraza]

oops, mistake

i understand that its a 64mb vcard not a 34mb vcard.

 

[Macmaniac]

I have wanted a mini powermac for years, I have yearned for a single processor G5 machine which is headless, has an expandable graphics card, and one or two PCI slots, Apple has really had their heads up their asses on this one. If they made a machine like this, and sold it for $1000 they would make a killing!! People want expandability even if they don't use it so this machine would give them that aura.