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theapportioner · #1

it's out, and it's purtty -

The price is right too (though the RAM isn't). Will this increase Apple's market share significantly above the what, 1 percent it's at now?

AChimp · #2

No. It still sucks and the technical specs are a still a few years behind PCs. The only redeeming quality that they have at the moment are the LCD displays, which are some of the best on the market right now... except that you can't just go out and buy an LCD screen from Apple and hook it up to your PC.

They're advertising CPU speeds up to blistering 1.8GHz, and the biggest hard drive you can have is 160GB, with a default of 256MB of RAM.

You're right about the price, though. At least this thing won't cost you $3500, but it's still a pile of plastic shit with absolutely NO software worth using.

theapportioner · #3

You can't compare CPU speeds. 1.8 GHz however is fine for most home/office work - if you want more, go with the powermac.

I guess the RAM thing is to keep the price under 2000 bucks. It can be expanded to 2 GB, which is also more than adequate for average home/office work.

Mockery · #4

Quote:

Originally Posted by AChimp

You're right about the price, though. At least this thing won't cost you $3500, but it's still a pile of plastic shit with absolutely NO software worth using.

Pretty much. Macs are all about how they look, rather than what they can actually do for you. That's why so many computer illiterates are suckered into buying 'em.

AChimp · #5

The main thing is, though, for $1200 I can build a 2.8Ghz PC with a 250GB hard drive and a gig of RAM.

I worked with Macs through all of my school years. Today's applications definitely need more than 256MB of RAM, despite what Apple says. We actually had a tech guy from Apple come out to tell us that we don't need to have virtual memory turned on because "blah blah blah fancy fast RAM blah blah" and that 64MB was enough to run anything.

They are basically *making* you pay more for extra RAM that you WILL need.

ArrowX · #6

Less power more flower

theapportioner · #7

I don't think it's true that you "definitely" need more that 256 MB. I have an imac G4, and was using 256 MB for a little while. But at 256 MB you can run programs just fine - it only became a problem when you have a bunch of big apps running at the same time - especially when I'm using the TV tuner while running stuff like Powerpoint and browsing the web and opening up PDFs and IM'ing people. Usually it wasn't a problem and I think it was slightly faster (at 256 MB) than my Sony laptop, which has a 2.80 GHz Pentium 4 and twice as much RAM. But I've since upgraded the imac to 1 GB RAM.

256 IS low but it's not a big deal if you're only going to be doing basic MS Office or internet type work, which is what 90+ percent of people do with a computer.

It's a business, and Apple selling a middle-end computer (they don't want iMac sales eating into Powermac sales) with an attractive, space saving design and simple interface at a good price is good business practice.

I think it's really funny that their ad says "From the makers of iPod..."

Mockery · #8

They should just stop making computers and work on the iPods, cuz those things are pretty damned cool from what I've seen.

theapportioner · #9

Yeah ipods rule. What they should really do is package their computers with an ipod, and sell at a discounted rate. I think they could make a pretty tidy profit that way.