Apple discontinues eMac, intro's $900 education iMac

[Boyd Ostroff]

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jul/05imac.html

NECC, SAN DIEGO–July 5, 2006–Apple® today introduced a new $899 configuration of the 17-inch iMac® designed specifically for education customers featuring a 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, a built-in iSight™ video camera and iLife® ‘06, the next generation of Apple’s award-winning suite of digital lifestyle applications. The 17-inch iMac for education is available immediately and will replace the eMac®, Apple’s last CRT based computer, providing students and teachers everything they need to learn and create in today's digital classroom, all in the ultra-efficient iMac design.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Apple also has a promotion you might want to consider if you're a student. If you buy one of the qualifying Macs you can get a free iPod Nano or a rebate to apply to other iPod models. Unfortunately the entry level iMac isn't eligible however. Full info available here: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...ckToSchool2006

[Bob Zimmerman]

$899 is a great price for the imac

[Heath McKnight]

Only catch, you have to be a student or teacher. Maybe it'll go the route of the eMac...for everyone! Why was the eMac was history for 6 months before this came out? I read an article that may have hurt Apple a bit.

heath

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Heath McKnight

Only catch, you have to be a student or teacher. Maybe it'll go the route of the eMac...for everyone!

I kinda doubt that. The eMac was sort of a special case since it was a piece of hardware that could only be bought by students and faculty. Apple got so many requests from others that they finally gave in and offered it to the general public. For years it really was the best bang for the buck in the Apple lineup - we bought one at work. But the education iMac is really just an iMac at a lower price, so Apple isn't witholding a product from the public the way they originally did with the eMac.

BTW, somewhat lost in that announcement is the fact that Apple no longer sells any CRT's.

[Heath McKnight]

One more thing, the iMac for schools seems to have some slightly less features, like no blue tooth, smaller drive, etc.

heath

[Zack Birlew]

To be honest, as a student, I'd much rather get a regular retail one because unless I need one to do just homework and internet surfing on, I'd be giving up performance in everything else, especially video stuff. Although, it wouldn't be bad to go this route if you were considering a Mac Mini, I'm typing this on my 1.4ghz G4 Mac Mini at the moment and it does just fine for video editing and just about everything else, except gaming of course, that goes to the Intel Macs with Bootcamp.

Also, you may want to look at the summary on the new Educational iMac at www.hdforindies.com and decide if that's really what you'd consider "a good buy".

[Heath McKnight]

Same processor, lesser graphics card and smaller hard drive.

heath

[Daniel Hollister]

You need to put it into perspective though. There's not much you cannot do with this iMac in terms of video. Yes, the card supposedly sucks in comparison to higher-end iMacs, but then again, I used to edit feature films in a 533MHz G4 with no problem. You can edit well on damn near anything these days. ;)

These are education iMacs anyways - not meant for professionals or serious editors/users. But many video classes would love to have them anyway. The old high school class I taught was using a bunch of old eMacs, and they did marvelous work. A class like that would EASILY benefit from iMacs like these. Even if they're a step down from the higher-end, they're still lightyears beyond the kind of old equipment many schools have these days.

[Heath McKnight]

Daniel,

I did two or three cuts on Final Cut Pro 1.0 and a G3 400 mhz Power Mac back in 1999 and 2000. By 2001, I was on a G4 733 mhz and FCP 1.2.5 I think. All for a feature film!

heath

[Daniel Hollister]

Well then you understand as well how easy it is to edit on modern machines. :) I don't like it when people have spec wars over their computers, when I can pull out a film I made five years ago with an old G4 and very old Fina Cut Pro that probably looks better. The movie is what matters!

[Steven Davis]

Well I've been looking at Mac's now that they will run Vegas etc. I'm starting to teeter back and forth about possibly buying a mac lap.

[Heath McKnight]

Of course, Daniel, that's something I think most of us say on these boards. Content, content, content. I used to get caught up in the "bigger is better" philosophy until I was broke!

As for a decision, go with a Mac laptop and buy Windows XP Professional and use Bootcamp to boot up into Windows and cut away on Vegas.

heath

[Steven Davis]

Originally Posted by Heath McKnight

As for a decision, go with a Mac laptop and buy Windows XP Professional and use Bootcamp to boot up into Windows and cut away on Vegas.

heath

Heath, hehe, it's a hard mental switch to think of buying a mac. The main reason would be hardware stability. Certainly Mac has always enjoyed a more stable system. Partly because they dont' have every Tom, Dick, Jane and Harry making parts for them, or i.e. 100000000 drivers etc.

So yeah, I'm several months out from a laptop, so I'm still researching.

[Heath McKnight]

Steven,

Plenty of time to research and relax.

heath