Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The new iMac has to be a Trojan Horse
- Thread starter Zellio
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Kind of pricey Trojan Horse that in the US might not sell well, but would be interesting to see how it fares in other countries in comparison with other all-in-one PCs.
I think that the price is still high for what you get.
If it becomes a success, then great for the people who like it, but kind of sucks if we continue to see this trend across all other Mac lines.
They can easily leverage the previous model year tech into the low cost option for customers as they do for the iPhone and iPad.
Hopefully these product cycles sometime in the near future will come back to have people sick of disposable devices and aim to buy long lasting devices that can be upgraded over time.
I think that the price is still high for what you get.
If it becomes a success, then great for the people who like it, but kind of sucks if we continue to see this trend across all other Mac lines.
They can easily leverage the previous model year tech into the low cost option for customers as they do for the iPhone and iPad.
Hopefully these product cycles sometime in the near future will come back to have people sick of disposable devices and aim to buy long lasting devices that can be upgraded over time.
No, it's fact. Compare any ultrabook specs to desktop and figure it out for yourself.
If portability does not bring a premium then why is the air not the same price as the pro spec wise? You get a lot less with the air for the price.
Last edited:
Remember - the success measure of the 'Trojan Horse' effect isn't how many wooden horses you sell, its how many Greeks you can get through the doors.
Here in the UK it comes out at £899 (including 20% tax), bringing the iMac entry price below the magic £1000. That should certainly help get the punters into the shop, at which stage any salesman with a pulse should be able to upsell them to the £1049 model with the better processor and graphics, if not beyond.
Who's fault is it that they use something that sells for it's portability as a desktop? Most that do that ALSO use the portability, you cannot do that with an imac. It's like comparing a land line desk phone to a cel;l phone. The cell phone is smaller but costs more. Why? Portability.
If portability does not bring a premium then why is the air not the same price as the pro spec wise? You get a lot less with the air for the price. Riddle me that.
Last edited:
Oh, it's not that hard to understand why such a machine was introduced... all my parents (and other relatives/friends) do is mail, skype and internet surfing. Do they need or want the quad core machine? Sure not! They also don't need 27" or even 24" of screen. For them, the "new" lower priced imac is just perfect. Sure, it could be $100 or $200 cheaper, but still... Macs are more expensive than PCs (usually). If you want/need/value the whole ecosystem experience, then it's the price to be paid.
Yes.. it's not expandable, but lots of people just don't care! There's lots of people with super simple use-cases for a machine, don't forget that. Also lots of people who are super slow using a machine..
And just to say... 98% of the time, the new iMac would be perfect for me too, but I wouldn't ever buy it.
Yes.. it's not expandable, but lots of people just don't care! There's lots of people with super simple use-cases for a machine, don't forget that. Also lots of people who are super slow using a machine..
And just to say... 98% of the time, the new iMac would be perfect for me too, but I wouldn't ever buy it.
It's clearly made as an option to make the higher priced iMacs more attractive looking in price to 95% of people who look at them.
.... Right?
While that may be a side-effect, I doubt it's an intended primary effect. It's classic downward line-extension, pure and simple.
It may be the first Mac sold at WalMart. It improves the likelihood that a PC-owning iPhone/iPad user will trade up. It will do well in emerging economies. And yes, it'll do very well in education, probably government and business, too (leveraging the iOS foothold in the government/corporate market).
None of these markets would consider MBA as a comparable device. They want a desktop-sized screen, and portability can be a negative. For most, the idea of 16GB RAM is inconceivable (8GB is still a new concept, and 4GB is still common at the bottom-end), so 8GB soldered (if they even know or care that it's soldered) won't be an issue.
The only issue I see with this iMac is if someone buys it as their first Apple computer, has a bad experience and decides never to buy Apple again.
Sorry, but I still disagree with your opinion. Value is in the eye of the beholder. By your logic, all Macs are a bad value. My Dell XPS has better specs than the most expensive iMac did at the time, and I spent considerably less money on it than the iMac cost. That was including a 27-inch Ultrasharp.
Apple has never sold "cheap" computers, but the least expensive iMac is now $200 less expensive than it was. The market Apple made this iMac for won't be concerned with having ultrabook parts in a AIO desktop. It is very simple. The people who will buy this iMac are people who specifically want an iMac and want the cheapest one possible without regard for specs. They're the ones who go to the store and ask, "My 'fill in the blank' wants an iMac. What's the cheapest one?"
Again. Explain to me why the air has inferior parts compared ot other MAC laptops at the same price. Explain to me why untrabooks have inferior parts when compared to other laptops by THE SAME manufacturer at the same price. ANYONE can figure out it's for the lighter, more portable size.
Your comparison of mac's and windows computers is just plain laughable, not to mention pure desperation.
It's not my opinion that anyone that makes ultrabook's/air's sell regular sized laptops with higher spec's for the same price where you get more for the money, it's FACT. Do some research.
More portability comes at a price, period.
The bottom paragraph also has NOTHING to do with it. My point all along is that comparing any desktop to any air/ultrabook is RIDICULOUS as EVERY manufacturer sells their air/ultrabook at a higher premium even than their other laptops. I NEVER said people would not buy it or that those that buy it won't be happy with it, don't invent something else to rant about.
Lets just leave it at your claim that air's have the same parts as pro's for the price and ultrabook's the same with their same manufacturers laptop's. I can only assume it's just YOUR world where it's like that and in the real world the manufacturers follow my OPINION and give you less for the money for the portability.
Last edited by a moderator:
Yeah, it should have been priced at $995. At that price, it would have offset its laggy performance. Otherwise, its a dog, 1.4 dual core with a 500 gig hard drive, kinda sucks. I own the previous lowest grade model as a home machine and it lags terribly on a regular basis. I'm sure they will sell a S$%T load to the educational market, but doesn't justify its price.
Have you used this computer? I have and it was much snappier than I expected. Don't sell this i5-4250u/HD5000 short.
Do you need above $1000 hardware to do some surfing, mailing and skyping?
You could do all those things easy with a $400 tablet.
You could do all those things with a $750 windows pc.
But after account for running costs and internet security , a $750 will end up costing the same after a few years. This new iMac has a 15 Watt processor, the total wattage of this Mac would be around 30 ideal, and 60 maxed out. I was reading into electricity costs of computers, and of the time of reading, the high end 21 inch iMac will cost you just over £8 a year. Unless buying a Windows all in one (which will cost around just under £30, a tower computer will cost way higher (I can remember the number, but it was in another league). I will try and find the site that gave all of the readings. All costs were added up as the amount of hours a year an average US user will be using the computer.
I don't think energy consumption matters that much for a desktop pc.
The iMac costs $300 more upfront.
Taking an average life time of 5 years, the iMac should have $60 less in power consumption per year. That seems like a lot.
you always have if you wanted to do those things on an iMac, now you can do them for 200 bucks less than you used to
You'd be suppressed. Unless going cheap, you are going to get a high specced PC for less than the new iMac and it will use a lot of electricity. For a mid PC, you could be looking at £50-70 a year, but I have seen high end computers running in at well over £100. For a basic Athlon X2 4400, with 2Gb of RAM, a 500 Watt power supply, and old dual nvidia GPUs (256Mb of VRAM), it was around $60. When using more current CPU's and GPU's (as the Nvidia cards were 5+ years old), and larger power supplies, this will greatly increase. And internet security on top of that is around £30 for Norton.
Last edited:
