Apple drops new educational iMac, kills off eMac

CRTs are so early 90's, don't you know? After threatening the death of cathode ray for years, Apple has finally managed the chutzpah to kill off their eMac, and have released a $900 Intel iMac to fill the educational void. The specs aren't bad for a $900 Mac, including a 17-inch LCD, 80GB SATA HDD, 512MB of DDR2 SDRAM (though they skimp with dual 256MB chips), a DVD-ROM/CD-RW disc drive, AirPort Extreme, a 1.83GHz Core Duo processor and Intel GMA 950 graphics. An Apple Remote will cost you $26 extra, but otherwise it doesn't look like Apple cut many corners, which students might enjoy, but that $900 pricetag might be unrealistic for most school budgets. That, and we're just jealous of those dang kids who get to mess around with an iSight cam and Front Row. We think we'll just stick with Math Blaster on our 6100 while we wait for that rumored LCD eMac.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[hmurchison @ Jul 5th 2006 12:13PM]

Not too shabby. I hope they eventually decide to have an Edu 20" model.

I could see the models they have for next year doing pretty well with the Conroe procs and faster integrated graphics.

[Crackpipe @ Jul 5th 2006 12:20PM]

that's cheap

[jesus torres @ Jul 5th 2006 12:25PM]

if i'm dropping nearly a grand on something for college, i might as well tack on that extra hundred and fifty or so and get a macbook ($1049 or so with the educational discount). such is the dilemma i'll be facing shortly... i just hope they don't bump the specs on the macbook anytime soon.

[Tom @ Jul 5th 2006 12:38PM]

Your comments: 50Cent + Apple rumor makes more sense now... With $900, there's probably going to be a sub $500 added to the line soon or later.

[Brian @ Jul 5th 2006 12:43PM]

@Crackpipe

That's not cheap AT ALL for a public middle or high school.

[DarrenJ @ Jul 5th 2006 12:47PM]

I think we should clarify something for posters hmurchison and jesus torres:

By "educational" they mean it's for student labs, not for personal consumption. Thus, a 20" is out of the question, and it's not trying to get you for college.

Not to say you couldn't use it for other stuff, but that's not what the EDU market is.

[bob @ Jul 5th 2006 12:56PM]

"That's not cheap AT ALL for a public middle or high school."

remember the integrated screen, thats $150, and it has stuff like wireless etc, and dont forget, the best operating system money can buy!!!

[hehehhehe @ Jul 5th 2006 1:06PM]

Considering the hardware and specs, how you guys think that's cheap is beyond me. Schools are better off buying mini-macs and a cheap 17" LCD, or even cheaper PCs.

[Magus @ Jul 5th 2006 1:20PM]

Educational buget is generaly very limited or directed at other things. Computers tend to be the last thing on the list. They generaly look towards donations and other sources generaly for their labs. Anything over 500 is extremly expencive unless its for specialized equipemtn like media or CS labs. (and those are rarely mac based)

[thegrey @ Jul 5th 2006 1:22PM]

@ hehehhehe

Its cheaper then what they had before, so thats is cheap.
And we really now how cheap PCs are...
PC+windows apps+tech support+ failed part= $$$$$$$
(sure Apple computers some of these problems, but its not as bad as windows)

[Clay @ Jul 5th 2006 1:23PM]

I can get an educational Dell for half that with better specs.

[Jacob Varghese @ Jul 5th 2006 1:35PM]

For an institutional setting (school labs, libraries, govts), there is no better solution than a network pc - server setup. Cheaper equipment and maintenance.
To really stay competitive apple needs to offer up some competition to MS term server.

[Josh* @ Jul 5th 2006 1:38PM]

Who really cares who can get what machine at what price, if it's not a Mac? It's like saying houses are too expensive, but you know a place that sells cheap pianos.

Tell me you know somewhere that sells Macs at half the price, then I'm all ears...

[Josh* @ Jul 5th 2006 1:39PM]

PS. Hi Clay :p

[TheVexedSoul @ Jul 5th 2006 1:40PM]

@ Clay

Even though they may be cheaper, you're still getting a Dell and all the maintenance costs and time associated with it.

[Jacob Varghese @ Jul 5th 2006 1:45PM]

"I can get an educational Dell for half that with better specs."

Prove it. Cause I just went to the Dell Florida K-12 Public School site and selected the closest thing in size to an Imac - Dimension 5150C, and though it has better specs, it also costs almost $1150.

Schools needs PCs for computer labs. Computer labs are pretty tight for space. Sure you can get a big clunky desktop for cheap, but Dell doesn't offer small desktops for cheap.

[Hans @ Jul 5th 2006 1:48PM]

I'm tired of people comparing Apple prices with Dell or other manufacturers. They aren't the same. Not to say either is better than the other, they're just different machines. It's like comparing 4WD's to Sports cars. But to each his own.

Anyway, not too sure if this will be sold to the general public or just for those purchasing in bulk for educational purposes.

[scott @ Jul 5th 2006 1:50PM]

"I can get an educational Dell for half that with better specs."

great! guess what? nobody cares.

there are plenty of school districts that can't afford either your cheapo dell shitbox or the edu imac. what would you say to them when they say "$500 is still too expensive!" most likely, you'll find some way to justify it in your (and hopefully, their) mind. there is already a system of have's and have not's wrt education. this just highlights it. schools that want and can afford these imacs will get them. those that either don't want or can't afford, won't. i know that's a profound statement on my part, so take a minute and let it sink in.

[Joe @ Jul 5th 2006 1:59PM]

My elementary and middle schools used to be Mac-centric, but because of the expense, and in the interest of serving the students a computer experience that might actually HELP them later in life when they'll more likely than not be using PCs, they switched to Dells. I don't remember them ever having any major problems with it. I remember a student loading a virus onto the network on only one occasion, and that was quickly taken care of (entire network was done for no more than an hour).

I don't see how a cheap Mac is a better option than an average to cheap PC (either of which is less than a cheap Mac). No offense to Mac users, but we're talking about school here, and a world that still leans primarily towards PCs. If school is for learning, then perhaps they should be taught how to use PCs, since most jobs and other situations call for one. If they want a Mac, they can get one at home, and they don't really need to learn how to use it in school because they're just so EASY to use, right?

[cycomachead @ Jul 5th 2006 2:01PM]

I'm pretty sure Apple gives discounts when schools buy in bulk- so it coud be cheaper
Also you have to think about things like quality and service and that though I compare Apple to Dell in price (its not that far off)- you have to realize what you want
Also the PC market is more competitive- so prices are cheaper

[cycomachead @ Jul 5th 2006 2:05PM]

@Joe
yes they are easy to use
thats why people should use them because teacher dont wait time teaching people what to do
Last year in the lb we used MS Word a lot ( being the tech) had to help everyone w/ thier problems- MS Word problems
yeah so I ran around teaching people how to use Word (but I got exempt from quite a few assignments :) )

[hmurchison @ Jul 5th 2006 2:24PM]

DarrenJ

I can add the iMac edu to my cart using my student login so I'm thinking this isn't about labs and whatnot but whoever qualifies for educational pricing. Apple's not kicking up any warning of any kind.

[Ian @ Jul 5th 2006 2:32PM]

I see this as being a nice cheap way for schools to outfit themselves with a small lab for graphics arts classes or photography classes. At my former high school, those were the only classes that had Macs due to how good they are at those types of tasks. For a whole school outfit, I highly doubt a school would spring for them. I can see it now: "Let's cut our music/arts programs so the schools can get Macs!"

[hehehhehe @ Jul 5th 2006 2:43PM]

@thegrey and others

Look at all the hardware problems Macs have had recently. You can't use that "Macs are better and/or worth the money because they pose less problems" argument anymore. That is unless, you want to believe everything said by the scruffy kid in the new TV ads. I have both and run both. If OS X was perfect, I wouldn't have to download bug fixes/updates would I?

Look at how much LCDs cost and how much Intel mobos with the same chipsets cost. Add a cute white box to hold it all in and produce in China (not sure about these macs but most of the Apple products I have were amde there). Apple makes a killing on these specifically because of the kind of loyalism shown here. Apple's educational discounts are usually pretty good, and that also proves they have a pretty big margin to work with.

[scott @ Jul 5th 2006 2:59PM]

hehehehehe,

have the imacs or mac minis had problems 1) since the switch to intel or 2)ever? just wondering. sure, there are issues with the mb and mbp models, but that's not what we're talking about here. what's next? complaints about airport and airport express???

anyone who says either os is perfect is an idiot. anyone who expects an os to not have periodic updates is also an idiot. but think about this - which system are you less concerned about when it to 1) stability and 2) virus issues? if you really think xp home/mce/pro is safer or more stable than osx, well...

[Jeffrey M Foster @ Jul 5th 2006 3:00PM]

nice.

[hehehhehe @ Jul 5th 2006 3:24PM]

The generalizations go both ways, as you know there isn't just one type of PC. So saying PCs breakdown all the time is a bit overzealous too. Ever since XP came out, I've never had the BSOD on any of my PCs. I've had some hiccups on my Mac though. This is coming from someone that used to run Linux Red Hat 4.2 since he hated Windows and MS so much. And yeah, Mac minis have problems too, as with any hardware, PC or Mac.

Unix security helps, but the big reason OS X doesn't have many viruses is because no one can be bothered to create them.

Again, I use both and both have their merits. $900 for those specs is not cheap is all I'm saying. I buy Apple products, but I also admit that they charge a premium, as any business should try to do. Why you guys try to pass it off and say "it's worth the money" is funny. In a bang for buck comparison, Macs would not bode well.

[dave @ Jul 5th 2006 3:44PM]

My public high school purchased $1,000 Dells, which near the end of this school years(2 years of age) are having hard drive failures left and right. For the art classes, they have either the G4 Powermacs, and we have two classes full of quad-core G5 Powermacs. And considering we've been on an austerity budget the past 2 years, it shows that at least some public schools can afford this.

[Michael @ Jul 5th 2006 3:57PM]

You get more bang for your buck with the Apple's, and a LOT easier setup, you also have to realize that when you are setting up labs for schools, they may have hundreds to thousands of computers to set up and they don't want to spend days reaching behind computers matching up colors, thats what made the eMacs more popular and now, it was even easier. I wish Apple could lower the cost, because schools just don't always have the money, even though the money for computers comes out of capital outlay not the general fund, they still don't have a lot of money to spend on them. Our school had to deciede between HPs and Dell's and the HPs were cheaper so they bought them, the Apples would have been way out of the picture.

Anyone notice that the eMac is still in the education store?

[Keith @ Jul 5th 2006 4:15PM]

What I haven't seen discussed in all of this is that the death of the eMac draws a big line in the sand for education customers still clinging to OS 9 Classic applications. (Intel Macs don't support Classic)

I had several education clients that had a ton of OS 9 software that they refused to get rid of. Once the PowerMac is gone, Classic will be dead once and for all (thank God, IMHO).

[TTop @ Jul 5th 2006 4:38PM]

About the headline "Apple drops new educational iMac" -- bad choice of words. Drop is a synonym of "abandon", or at the very least ambiguous in this context.

[Joe @ Jul 5th 2006 4:53PM]

@cycomachead

I wasn't saying that they aren't easy to use. I was merely saying that it makes more sense to teach kids in school how to use PCs because that's what the world uses. The likelihood of growing up to work in a job where Macs are the primary system is still less likely than PCs, so it's more beneficial in the education sense to use PCs, as it trains the students for the future. I'm not biased against Macs, I simply don't have a preference for them. I'm simply thinking logically.

Now, what might be an even better idea for schools would be if they were to equip their labs with both Macs and PCs. Since networking between the two systems is technically plausible, they could create a cohesive network and students could learn to use both equally. Even if a network weren't a viable option, just having both for training purposes is a good idea.

[Josh* @ Jul 5th 2006 5:05PM]

Joe -- Good lord, you do realise that Macs can run both Windows and Mac OS? Why would you bother having macs and PCs in the same environment then? The only difference is going to be the casing.

[Matty @ Jul 5th 2006 5:06PM]

"...interest of serving the students a computer experience that might actually HELP them later in life when they'll more likely than not be using PCs, they switched to Dells..."

With respect, this is nonsense. If your schools are teaching kids to use Windows, then they are failing miserably. Computers, of whatever platform, should be used to teach problem-solving and the core curriculum- math, reading, science, etc.

Anything else is a waste of time.

When was the last time those Apple II or PC-DOS skills you learned in school came in handy? Exactly.

It is a waste of time teaching a specific computer interface in elementary school. Outside of the most basic skills like point-and-clicking (and maybe not even those), it will be of no use to them in ten years.

[tiuk @ Jul 5th 2006 5:12PM]

So, regular people could buy eMacs at places like Best Buy. Will we be able to buy these?

[mastershake916 @ Jul 5th 2006 5:48PM]

No one has compared this to apple's current offerings.
I mean look, it's a $100 more than the expensive mac mine and look how much better it is.
I'm not a big mac fan, but lets just compare appples to apples.

[cycomachead @ Jul 5th 2006 6:38PM]

@Matty true

to all
yes there is a price point for a Mac and most think it is worth it because its the only way you can leagaly use OS X

also you pay for style
what is wrong w/ that - you pay for style u Win users (clothes)

And some PC makers charge extra for style too and/or they are the smaller companies (Apple is sorta both)

The prices would go down if more people bought Mac too
And I hae notices that Dells still have the same ultracheap price- but Mac keep comming down in price

[rickm @ Jul 5th 2006 7:12PM]

Put PCs in school so you'll learn how to use them? Lame argument. I bought a Mini for home and my 7yo, who never touched a Mac before, sat down and within an hour was creating documents. Even I, at 42, picked it up quickly. I have a coworker who hated PCs and Windows until she tried to open a Mac only repair shop (and realized she wasn't gonna be able to eat on taking care of that small client base, at least small in our town). She bought a base Dell with XP and learned it.

The same with software, nothing I learned in school prepped me for using the HIS (health info system) I spend most of my day working on.

[Veritas II @ Jul 5th 2006 7:32PM]

Actually I use DOS commands and write batch files all the time. It's faster than using a GUI, and there are some things that just work better that way (ipconfig, scheduler, etc). Lazy GUI fiends. ;)

[noname989 @ Jul 5th 2006 8:31PM]

You can argue all day long about TCO but if a school only has $600 to spend on a PC; it won't matter if it's a great deal or not. I think Macs are great deal for certain situations but not ALL situations. In multimedia classrooms Macs are the winners. Editing video on PC using Windows Movie Maker is useless. We tried it for a class project and it was awful. The Mac however was much better at it.

[celeste w @ Jul 5th 2006 9:18PM]

I'd like to ask the many informed commenters here whether this iMac would be good for Windows gaming (if Bootcamp were installed) as well as "education." Thanks in advance.

[solipsism @ Jul 5th 2006 10:18PM]

To Celeste W,

This new iMac has an Intel 950 video graphics card. Itwill get you (at most) 80MB of RAM for gaming. Also, this RAM is borrowed from the regular system RAM.

Despite what the hardcore, I-have-no-life-outside-my-3D-fantasy-world gamers say, you can play most 3D games over 12 months old quite adequately with an Intel 950.

BTW, are these imacs even available to the public yet or are they for schools only?

[Raider @ Jul 5th 2006 10:31PM]

They took a Mac Mini and slapped an LCD on it = edu iMac.

[cinder @ Jul 5th 2006 10:49PM]

CAN YOU PROVE ME WRONG?

CAN ANYBODY FIND AN EQUIVALENT COMPUTER FOR LESS MONEY THAN THIS iMAC? I couldn't find one, and I couldn't even find one within a hundred dollars of this iMac. I don't think one exists.

The requirments:
~ 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo [Don't even try to compare to a Celeron]
~ Intel 950 Graphics Chip
~ 256MB DDR2 RAM x 2 (512MB total) [this will undoubtedly be slower RAM but I'm not going to quabble about that]
~ 80GB SATA HDD @5400RPM
~ 17" LCD monitor [this will lesser quality than Apple's but I won't quabble about that either.
~ Optical Combo Drive (CD Burner/DVD reader)
~ WInXP Professional is a must. Home just isn't going to cut in a networked environment. Fell lucky I'm not requiring an anti virus, I'm giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming that the additional software has a corporate license.
~ A mouse and keyboard need to added, if they are not already.
~ No need to add 802.11G. Remove it if you can as the only reason this is being included is that it would be expensive for Apple to un-include it fromt he new Intel iMacs [that is my specualtion, but it's your favour]


Are you up for my challenge, Suckers!

[cinder @ Jul 5th 2006 10:51PM]

CORRECTION: HDD @ 7200 RPM

[leonard Nimrod @ Jul 5th 2006 10:56PM]

To Raider,

How is a Mac mini like an iMac. The Mac mini uses a mini motherboard (like in a notebook), a slim optical drive (like in notebook), a 2.5" HDD (like in a notebook). If you haven't figured it out yet, a Mac mini is laptop without an integrated keyboard, mouse, and monitor. have the same graphics card (the most popular graphics card produced, by the way) doesn't make it the same.

[thumbs @ Jul 5th 2006 11:16PM]

The whole arguement about pc's being important to learn on, because they are more common in the real world is irrelavant. In an educational setting the students rarely study anything to do with the opperating system. If they do the percentage is too small to justify a whole schools purchasing plan. It would be no different if a school bought all power macs because the art department needed them.

Macs are easy for beginers, and the software that is most important is available. I imagine office programs, internet accessibility, and perhaps media programs are an institutions main concerns. The standard software is the same for both macs and pcs. As long the educational tools are available on both platforms, neither is inherantly better. Its about what fits best for a schools needs.

[Tom @ Jul 6th 2006 12:04AM]

Just when i thought i was the only kid playing mega math blaster.... i told them it was cool...

[JSS @ Jul 6th 2006 3:41PM]

I'd like to take up the guy on his challenge to find an equivalent PC for 900 bucks.

http://www.slickdeals.net/#p7727

The only difference is the processor. It's still a dual core and it still performs well enough. At any rate you get 1 GB of ram, and a 24 inch monitor to boot.

These deals happen ALL the time. That's why it's silly going to dell and configuring a comparable system and comparing it to a mac. These coupons happen frequently and you often can get a sweet deal on a dell PC for an awesome price.

Hell of a deal if you ask me. Yes I know it's using coupons, anyone who buys a dell laptop or PC without using coupons is a moron - because these deals happen all the time. You just have to know where to look.

All this garbage that people are spewing about wintel box components breaking down more often apple components are uneducated as far as computers go. What do you think is in your intel mac right now? The same components in those wintel boxes. Do us a favor and get educated. The failure rate for components is the same - regardless of OS. Those intel chipsets, WD hard drives, etc are all the same and all have the same failure rates.

At any rate Macs are great. But the reality is reliable PC's for cheaper with better specs exist - and they won't break down all the time like some mac zealots would like you to think.

[Josh* @ Jul 6th 2006 7:29PM]

It's still. Not. A Macintosh. Matching the numbers still doesn't match the machines. I'm pretty sure my Mac Mini G4 outperformed my 3Ghz Intel P4 in some areas. Then there's the OS issue. Again, not something you can compare directly.

One day, people will get it. But today is not that day.