Apple Revises eMac 223
RadRafe writes "Today Apple revised the eMac. It now sports a 1.25 GHz G4 processor, DDR RAM, and Radeon 9200 graphics. The Combo Drive model has twice as much RAM as before, and the SuperDrive model now costs just a grand. This is the first consumer Mac update in five months."
Re:Worth buying? (Score:5, Informative)
And yes, you'll want to up the RAM to as much as you can afford [OSX likes to use RAM as cache].
Enjoy!
Re:Really how fast is this 1.25GHz machine (Score:2, Informative)
This website has a test that relates to your question: Apple vs. Mac Benchmark (Barefeats.com) [barefeats.com]
Although it doesn't show a direct comparison of the systems you mentioned, you'll notice that the P4 3.0 GHz just barely loses to a G4 1.42 (MP!) system in most of the tests and beats a G5 at 1.8 MHz in about half the tests.
This speaks well of Apple for processor cycle efficiency, but I would wager that a Pentium 3.2 would outperform a G4 1.25 by quite a lot.
Note that cross-system/OS comparisons must always be taken with a large dose of salt!
Re:Really how fast is this 1.25GHz machine (Score:4, Informative)
The 1.25Ghz G4 fares extremely well - It costs a lot less!
While the P4 3.2 costs between $300 and $400 just fo rthe chip, this $800 unit includes the 1.25 G4, Combo drive, 40GB hd, 256K Ram, CRT built in custom housing, video, networking, USB 2, Firewire800, Airport Extreme upgrade path, Bluetooth upgrade path, OS X Jaguar, iLife (Garageband, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iTunes) and the cache of owning an Apple.
You can check out this [aceshardware.com] review of the 1.25 Ghz G4 when it first came out and this [hwextreme.com] review of the P4 3.2Ghz vs. an Athlon
Re:The first ever "bargain" Mac (Score:4, Informative)
Panther, actually.
Correction (Score:2, Informative)
Re:So I'm stupid... (Score:5, Informative)
Apple released the eMac as a more durable, less expensive alternative to the LCD iMac. Schools wanted it.
Re:Answer this instead.. (Score:3, Informative)
If you want to run some special windows only app, buy Virtual PC for OS X
If you want to get work done in an efficient, user friendly, secure, stable, virus-free, low stress manner, buy a Mac
Edu pricing is pretty good (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Answer this instead.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Worth buying? (Score:5, Informative)
Get the stand for the eMac, if you do buy one; I think they're about $60, and it really makes re-positioning the eMac a lot easier. W/o, the eMac is just so much of a 70# boat anchor.
Re:The first ever "bargain" Mac (Score:3, Informative)
Although personal experience doesn't negate your point, this: " I understand Costco has a kick ass return policy" is very true.
I believe it is ONE YEAR (!!!) with NO restock fee! If it was me, I'd want it to break after 9 months (and if the proc is going to fail, it's likely to happen in the first year).
For a cheap computer like this one, I'd be willing to save the $200 dollars by buying at Costco.
*Your milage may vary*
The cache of owning an Apple? (Score:5, Informative)
Nice little system (Score:5, Informative)
For a laugh earlier I configured a system on Dells site with similar features. This was a 2.6GHz Celeron 2400C system. It came out higher priced than the eMac (eMac 549, Dell 580) for as close a match of specification as possible (and I made sure that warranties, etc, were minimal on the Dell, I'm not an Apple owner so I won't cheat like that!). Certainly not a bad deal in my opinion, especially with iLife and Panther included (after a year of using XP, I realise how much I loathe it). The Dell looked like a turd as well, if that matters to you!
Re:Nice little system (Score:3, Informative)
It's a bit more than just a processor speed bump. Yes, the G4 now runs at 1.25GHz instead of 1GHz. It also runs on a 167MHz FSB (instead of 133MHz), and also has 512K of L2 cache (instead of 256KB). The memory subsystem is now DDR333 based instead of PC133 SDR. The graphics chip is now a Radeon 9200 instead of a Radeon 7500. The USB ports are now USB 2 compliant instead of 1.1. The SuperDrive is now 8x instead of 2x. It also ships standard with 256MB of RAM instead of 128MB. And the price has been reduced.
So apart from the CPU speed, CPU cache, front side bus speed, memory subsystem, graphics subsystem, I/O ports, optical drive, standard memory and the price, yes...you are right. Not much else has changed.
Actually, it's $59 US. (Score:3, Informative)
Note to readers: that's 95 Canadian dollars, or 59 US dollars. US$95 would indeed be a lot, but US$59 seems reasonable for a well designed accessory that does its job well and adds certain convenience. Feel free to skip it and buy an aftermarket stand, or make your own, or use an old text book.
Re:Worth buying? (Score:5, Informative)
It is, however, wider, higher, heavier, and a pain to move around. Good machines though, and the CRT is flat which makes it pleasant to work at.
Oliver.
Re:Worth buying? (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite. (Score:5, Informative)
Besides, what source doesn't Apple share already, that a GNU license would force them to? Darwin is totally open. You can download the source here [apple.com].
Re:Depends on your philosophy, doesn't it (Score:4, Informative)
Uh. I run PostgreSQL and Apache on my eMac, as well as an IMAP server. Same thing I would do if this was a Linux box. I keep a terminal in my dock. GIMP is there too.
There's tons of choice in OS X. Install Fink and pretend it's a Linux box.
There is a difference though, I can do (almost) all of my Linux stuff PLUS have iTunes and GarageBand -- Ardour+LADSPA+Jack-rack+Hydrogen are amusing but horrible hacks in comparison.
Oh yeah and I can't run Wine. Is that a bad thing?
Will this eMac support monitor spanning? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.rutemoeller.com/mp/ibook/ibook_e.html [rutemoeller.com]
It tells about how you can use an nvramrc to change graphic-options on your mac to enable monitor spanning (as apposed to monitor mirroring). It works on Radeon 7500 eMacs [rutemoeller.com] but it is unclear yet whether this trick will work on these new eMacs. Let's hope so....
Re:The first ever "bargain" Mac (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Depends on your philosophy, doesn't it (Score:3, Informative)
Giving back Darwin is fine. I'm sure it's helped half a dozen people who've made the choice to run that as their system. I don't know why anyone would want to, since it's technically inferior to the Linux kernel, and has a lot less people working on it, but I'll assume it's benefitted somebody. So that's good. Apple's testing the waters. I like it. I hope they continue down the road towards openness, rather than closed-ness. It's better for the consumer, and that's *me*. Knowing Apple extremely well, I highly doubt they will continue towards freedom, however. Darwin really *is* a token gesture, designed to get them PR and increased conversions from the FOSS camps. Remember "Come on in, it's open!" on their OS X website? Hell, *I* thought they were putting out a BSD-licensed OS until I read the fine print.
So basically, what irritates me is the salesman-type spin people here put on Darwin, like it's the greatest gift to the FOSS community that ever existed. I've tried it, and it *sucks*. I don't have any problem at all with Apple themselves, but their overzealous little followers on here are making it out like Apple is an open-source company, like they're a charitable organization. They're not, but the amount of noise made by shills claiming that they *are* an uber-ethical corporation is overwhelming. I am the anti-shill. People I can only assume are paid shills (they're often so far from reality they have to *know* they're lying) try to convert Linux users to Mac OSX by pointing out the technical similarities and the fact that Apple has left Darwin open instead of opting to close their version, causing a fork. They conveniently make it sound like moving from Linux to Apple results in no vendor lockin and no loss of freedoms. This is incorrect, and should be clarified. There are a lot of good things about OS X, but its "openness" isn't one of them.
except, now it's 'everyone'... (Score:3, Informative)
Think of it as the VW bug of the Mac line... the sad thing is it's now 30% or so faster than the original iMac that I spent a cool grand more on a couple of years back... that's tech for ya.
Re:EMac / IMac WO Monitor (Score:3, Informative)
They do have cards that can upgrade a cube to an 800Mhz G4, but you're still going to be hampered by the rest of the hardware. It runs OS X just fine though.
Apple probably won't make something like it for a long long time.
Re:Worth buying? (Score:3, Informative)
Attached monitors are silly. If apple made the eMac just a box, I assure you more people would buy it.