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Technology (Apple) Businesses Apple Technology

Apple Sticks with CRTs For Now 88

Posted by pudge from the switching-res-on-LCDs-stinks-anyway dept.
A reader writes, "eWEEK talked with Apple about the state of its hardware line at Macworld Expo/New York, six months after Apple said it was going all-flat panel with future Macs. Greg Joswiak, senior director, hardware products, with Apple worldwide product marketing, says that while LCD Macs are still 'the future,' surprise boosts in flat-panel prices mean CRT systems like the eMac and old-school iMac will stick around a while longer."
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Apple Sticks with CRTs For Now More

Apple Sticks with CRTs For Now

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  • Seeing a demand spike in old technology, and the increased cost of Flat screens has caused us to look at our decision a little closer. We are now going to sell the CRTs as a "Value Added" option to the Flat Panels. The price will be added via a yearly CRT subscription fee of $100 dollars.

    To quote our leader "The Days of the Free Display are over."

  • Flat panel vs CRT screens (Score:3, Informative)

    by Blind Linux ( 593315 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @11:37AM (#3930388) Journal
    The average user does not appreciate the difference between flat panel and CRT screens. I believe Apple's strategy to be a prudent one...
    Though many slashbots and computer enthusiasts will praise the flas-screen monitor, many are uncomfortable to fork that extra cash out for a more aesthetically pleasing monitor.
    As you can see in this [yahoo.com] article, both have different pros and cons... but the average user is more likely to stick with the CRT monitor because of the cheaper pricing.
    • Probably true for the most part, but I would think that there are a large number of 'normal' users would be more interested in the space saving features of a flat panel over a CRT, and I think this would be the biggest selling point to your average user, not the difference in quality as you stated.
      • Well, sure, and those users are welcome to buy a flatscreen iMac ... I think Apple is doing the right thing by keeping CRT's in the lineup. Choice is a good thing. Apple has been particularly guilty of forgetting this occasionally over the years; it's good to see that they're remembering it now.

        • Re:Flat panel vs CRT screens (Score:4, Insightful)

          by BitGeek ( 19506 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @01:25PM (#3931336) Homepage


          Why is it people assume that only things apple sells directly work with apple computers?

          You can buy a powermac or even an iMac G4 with a CRT-- Apple's whole line will run with CRTs if you want-- just buy the CRT from someone else (its not like it isn't a commodity) and plug it in.

          That's CHOICE. you have choice. Unless you want a powerbook with a CRT built in, then you don't have "choice"

          CRTs are commodity. There are hundreds of companies selling them. Apple chooses to sell what it can add value to and that is really killer LCDs.

          ITs worth pointing out that Apple's line of LCDs are superior to most of what's out there from a technology point of view-- but since Apple isn't about comparing MHz, etc, they don't hype this as much as they should.

          ITs unfortunate that people fall into the trap of thinking every 15 inch CRT or LCD is like every other one.
          • Except that the iMac (CRT and LCD) and eMac (CRT only) are all-in-one machines. Sure, you could buy an LCD iMac and plug in a CRT, or an eMac and plug in an LCD, but why would you want to? If you want a dual-monitor Mac, it seems to me you're much more likely to get a regular Power Mac and plug in two monitors (your choice of manufacturers, styles, and sizes.) Offering people a wide choice of displays _in all-in-one machines_ is what Apple is doing, and IMO that makes a lot of sense.
      • apple does not *make* new CRTs for their towers. they do sell them, however. through the accessories section of their store, you can buy a Mitsubishi 17" or 22" CRT.
    • The average user does not appreciate the difference between flat panel and CRT screens.

      Sure I do. The cat won't be able to tear holes in the CRT, trying to kill the mouse pointer and succeeding in getting carcinogenic goo all over my desk.

      --saint
      • The average user does not appreciate the difference between flat panel and CRT screens.
        Sure I do. The cat won't be able to tear holes in the CRT, trying to kill the mouse pointer and succeeding in getting carcinogenic goo all over my desk.
        If you post to Slashdot, you are most definitely not an average computer user.
    • As another poster said, the average user would likely be interested in the space-saving properties of a flat-panel LCD screen. However, talking to the designer of some mind-bendingly amazing graphics [ozones.com] has given me the impression that LCD screens don't have adequate colour response for most professionals in the graphic design field. Since Apple prides itself on having a large userbase of graphic designers, it makes sense for them to keep CRTs an option.
    • My mum noticed the difference when she saw one. And was almost going to get one. The only reason she didn't was because she didn't like the package that came with it (an HP system), and got the local-built-beige-box system instead.

      The avererage user will have just as much chance at appreciating the difference as any geek would. They just don't understand the technical crap, that's all.

  • An excellent decision (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mr_teem ( 126142 )
    Nothing could be worse than Apple sticking to some visionary principle and completely phasing out CRTs. When you build an integrated system, swings in the price of any component will kill you. The G3 iMac and eMac footprints are not all that big and are perfectly reasonable systems. This is a smart business decision.

    [That said, the 17" G4 iMac arrived just in time for my birthday. Woo hoo!]

  • A few reasons for this decision (Score:4, Insightful)

    by amichalo ( 132545 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @11:51AM (#3930543)
    Apple would reverse course on the death of the CRT for a few reasons:

    (1) Foremost, to compete in the low end market where the CRT iMac lead Apple's sales in numbers (not dollars), CRTs are nearly and order of magnitude less expensive which can help apple attract 'value' customers

    (2) In the education market (eMac) flat screens may still be viewed by value minded school boards and parents as frivolous expenses that could be used to put more computers in classrooms

    (3) Until those who purchase a CRT today will have one more reason to anxiously await an upgrade tomorrow. Until Dell, Gateway, etc make LCD standard, the consumers who purchase CRTs will have hardware envy for LCDs. ... Or not

    • Re:A few reasons for this decision (Score:4, Interesting)

      by frankie ( 91710 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @01:35PM (#3931448) Journal
      Foremost, to compete in the low end market where the CRT iMac lead Apple's sales

      You know what would sell even better? A pizza-box based on the eMac motherboard with no monitor included at all. Sure the aesthetics won't be perfect, but the shipping cost savings alone would easily let Apple slash the price.

      (...and/or include a few useful expansion options like an AGP slot, a PCI slot, and an open bay...)
      • I really miss the pizza-box workstation form factor of the old Suns I used to have.

        I would buy 2 or 3 of these right away if they were available as long as they were reasonably quiet and had at least one open PCI slot.

        But I dont think Apple would make a pizza-box form factor anytime soon for a couple reasons 1) they keep the number of their product lines fairly small these days and 2) unless Apple is planning on making a large run at the business desktop it probably wouldn't make much sense for them to do it (render farms maybe?).

        • For render farms they already have a pizza box:

          Xserve [apple.com]

        • 1) they keep the number of their product lines fairly small these days

          apple's product line 1 year ago today:
          1 tower with choice 3 (or 4?) CPUs speeds (one dual)
          2 laptops 1 (iBook) with a single CPU but choice of optical drive, and 1 (TiBook) with a choice of 2 CPU's and choice of optical drive
          1 desktop all in one with choice of (forgotten) cpu's and opticla drive (i think)

          apples product line today:
          1 tower with choice of 3 CPU speeds (one dual)
          3 laptops - 1 (iBook) with choice of speed and optical drive, 1 (TiBook) with choice of speed, and 1 (14" iBook) with no choice at all (i call call the 14" iBook a 3rd laptop because it is a whole different motherboard!)
          4 desktop all in ones! 2 (iMac, iMac G4 with 17" screen) with no choice at all. 1 (eMac) with choice of CPU speed and choice of optical drive, 1 (iMac G4) with choice of CPU speed and optical drive. (i call the iMac G4 17" a diffrent modle because it has a diffrent GPU on it's motherboard)
          1 1u rack server with choice of number of CPUS

          i think apple has outgrown it's 4 product quadrant and i think they can easily release a desktop mac. with ought moving much farther away from it's simple line up of last year. on the other hand, i think apple needs to kill the G3 iMac and then that will make room for your headless eMac :D

          2) unless Apple is planning on making a large run at the business desktop it probably wouldn't make much sense for them to do it

          they have to do it sooner or later, the time has never been riper then to do it now!
        • I like the old LC [lowendmac.com], and the Centris 610-style [ipixmedia.com] cases....

          PC cases were SO ugly back then. Macs are just -cool-, from the keyboard mouse, to the case.

          Too bad they don't make them like that any more. Maybe when the 90's are considered 'retro' they'll do it.
          • LC case... ick. It was just too small to get much useful hardware into it. Expandability was a nightmare, though it did open up easily....

            The 610-style case (also used in the PowerMac 6100), though, was cool. They're the last macs that were easily stackable up until the XServe. I have a whole server farm of these things. :-)
      • You know what would sell even better? A pizza-box based on the eMac motherboard with no monitor included at all. Sure the aesthetics won't be perfect, but the shipping cost savings alone would easily let Apple slash the price.

        You're crazy. Such a system would sell like hotcakes to both entry level and advanced users, increasing Apple's marketshare and shareholder profitability. Thus, you can be assured they will never do it.

      • You know what would sell even better? A pizza-box based on the eMac motherboard with no monitor included at all. Sure the aesthetics won't be perfect, but the shipping cost savings alone would easily let Apple slash the price.

        Seems to violate their principle of selling complete systems that help you get your work done, not cause more work.
        -- p
  • ... but most LCD's have lousy picture quality compared to CRTs. Apple's LCDs are pretty good, but I don't really see the point in paying 2x the price (on the screen) to get a smaller footprint. But some will.

    • LCDs give you superior picture quality compared to a CRT. Less eye strain, better image quality.

      Most "GENERIC" PC LCDS may be crap, just like all those generic 13inch "15 inch CRTs" that gateway and Dell and everyone else sold thruout the 90s that are worthless now.

      But you have the choice- buy a powermac and get a CRT if you want, or get an eMac.

      But when Apple drops the CRT all together, you'll still be able to go buy a Sony monitor and plug it into your mac (any mac).
      • true enough, I can use just about any monitor with a tower or cube (thinking of snarfing a cube off ebay..). I still really don't see, making a side-by side comparsion, superior quality; but I've seen LCDs that have quality just as good as any CRT. They're just the minority IMHO (I've seen blurry Sony units and clear sony units (just to name a decent brand)). The Apple screens that I've seen are good, and some Sony.

        But the main benefit of keeping the crt models would be price, if you can get a good enough Mac under 1000, that will help dispel some of the image of the Mac as expensive.

        The point of all this rambling is, methinks they're on the right track keeping some crts in the lineup.


        • Given that Macs have been significantly cheaper than comparable PCs since about 1995, I don't think anything Apple does will "dispel" that image.

          The image is created and maintained by PC owners who want to feel justified in their purchase. That is all.

          Every comparison I've done, since 1995, in online forums and off, and I've done this repeatedly working for PC software companies and having to prove to my coworkers that Macs aren't a ripoff-- has shown that an equivalent Mac is %10 to %50 cheaper than a comparable PC.

          Hell in this very forum people were claiming thant the XServe was too expensive when the closes 1U dell was %50 more and had less drive capacity.

          The eMac makes the case- I know of NO PCs from REPUTABLE manufacturers (and that rules out Gateway and all the no-name companies) that can compete with the eMac on price and performance.

          Unfortuantely, there are two versions of Dell-- the ripoff, never going to last a year , POS models they sell, and then the high quality models at real prices.

          It isn't a comparison to point to a Yugo and claim that a Toyota is thus overpriced... and that's what people do to claim the mac is Overpriced. Point to a computer that won't last 4 months, and doesn't have half the features to begin with.
      • it's totally true... i would think the people that say LCD displays look like crap either looked at one faking a resolution or looked at a cheap one. when they are running right they are incredible. i was at Macworld last week and saw ATI demo their sexy cards on the 22" or 23" LCD panels. wow they looked cool.
        back to Apple LCDs.... the one thing about Apple LCDs is that they are top quality. if you find an unbiased shootout of Apple's vs any other manufactures display of the same quality, they are on par. in some cases actually cheaper. you can't compare the generic 15" LCD from bestbuy to the Apple one. the Apple ones do not even have analog signal processing, they are only intended for vid cards with digital outputs. a lot of the cheaper ones other people are buying purely for space saving, and style. they often stick them on an existing PC that doesnt have a vidoe card with digital out. my housemate bought a 15" sony one and he had to go back to the store to get a digital cable... the darn thing only came with an analog one. go figure. now that he put on a digital cable it looks pretty ok. with the analog it seemed like a waste of money (unless your desk space is very valuable to you).
        then again i guess a LCD display that is about the same quality of an average CRT is positive because it does not produce as much heat and sitting here sweating like i am, i have to respect that. i don't know offhand but i would assume LCD screens draw far less power too. combine that with the reduced need for airconditioning in big office buildings and it makes sense. i would think the initial cost to upgrade would pay off in time maybe? anyone in California listening?
    • You've probably just never seen an LCD run properly. And LCD runs at one and only one resolution, ....X...., it can fake other resolutions by adding and subtracting pixels as it thinks is appropriate, but its looks fugly!
    • but I don't really see the point in paying 2x the price (on the screen) to get a smaller footprint.

      More desk space, much cheaper to run, less eye strain, if the power goes out the UPS lasts a lot longer, easier to relocate, and of course it just makes you look more important.

  • Thankgod. if Apple was smart they would continue to release CRT macs so Apple systems finally get cheap enough for more people to buy them. In a market that still sees ultra cheap wintel boxes Apple should do all it can to make a low end mac.
    • Maybe if you didn't spend all your money on Vox, then you could afford an Apple machine.

      In all fairness, Apple doesn't release cheaper machines because they don't skimp on some options. You can't by a Mac with too little memory or a tiny hard drive. Buying a Mac just means I need to do less tweaking of my machine when I order it.
      • they don't skimp on some options. You can't by a Mac with too little memory

        Huh? The $1400 iMac, the $1200-1500 iBooks, and the $1100 eMac all come with only 128MB, which is certainly too little to run OS X properly.
        • Not at all, its plenty to run OS X. It may not be enough to run OS X + Photoshop 7, but that's not a problem for OS X, but rather for Photoshop 7. If you buy a mac w/ OS X and 128MB, you should be set to run iTunes, iPhoto, etc. w/o a problem. Its the recommended minimum and (contrary to the minimums Microsoft has recommended at times), the system actually works satisfactorily w/ that amount!
          • case in point, i have the cheapest ibook currently available with 600MHz g3 and 128MB of RAM. OS X runs great. the only app that is really noticably slow is internet explorer. I have done some web graphics in photoshop while running bbedit in the background, not to mention having apache and mysql also running at the time. photoshop responded fine.

            Admittedly, programs like photoshop take a little while to start (like 20-30 seconds) They actually perform fine.

            Now if you are going to work with really huge images as print artists do, it is not enough, but for me (and i suspect MANY others, it's enough for now)

            Now i see nothing wrong with getting more RAM (i am waiting for my 512MB module myself to arive in the mail) however the argument was that 128 was not enough to run osx reliably, and i am simply rebutting it.
            • The that I find is: The more things open you have at the same time. The more RAM is sucks. Even if thay are only little things. E.G. BBEdit. If you have 20 windows open, all of them are hogging ram (due to the way the window manager works). So an app that would usaly hog under 4MBs now hogs 20MBs.
              Once you have a couple of browser windows open, a terminal window, couple of finder windows. BBEdit with 20 windows. The RAM runs out fairly quicky. Even though the program data isn't taking up that much at all.
  • The 'surprise' rise in pricing for the LCD's that Apple sells should NOT be a surprise. It should have been expected. The configuration is different from that of the rest of the LCD's their supplier makes (G4 iMac). Apple has a small market share. The designs of the LCD's (especially the free standing ones, aside from the 23") are old in design. The only incentive for the factory to keep making different, or outdated LCD monitors is to charge more money. Apple probably does not purchase a high enough quantity to overcome the different tooling required to make their pieces. Hence, the cost goes on to Apple, and to the end user.

    The problem would most likely have been avoided if Apple had gone along with the 'standard' design.

    • Re:LCD prices (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BitGeek ( 19506 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @01:33PM (#3931430) Homepage


      You're wrong on a couple counts.

      First off, Apple owns %30 of the company that makes the LCDs. Apple owns the factory, in effect because they used apple's investment to build a new factory.

      Secondly, Apple has very large marketshare-- and probably sells more LCD screens than any other single company.

      Finally, these designs are not "outdated". They are top of the line, and possibly exclusive to apple. Apple is definitely getting a competitive price here, and as usual, passing it on to its customers. For, AS USUAL, the iMac is far cheaper than a comparable PCs. (course nobody bothers to compare it to comparable PCs. the XBOX doesn't count- no display, slower processor, etc.)

      (Why is it people constantly compare apples share of the market to the SUM OF ALL OTHER COMPANIES COMBINED and then say apple's a small company? Its one of the largest computer companies in the world and for a long time was the largest.)

      Your assumptions are false, and you conclusion therefore is pointless.

      • Re:LCD prices (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by BigBir3d ( 454486 )
        (Why is it people constantly compare apples share of the market to the SUM OF ALL OTHER COMPANIES COMBINED and then say apple's a small company? Its one of the largest computer companies in the world and for a long time was the largest.)


        A little thing called reality.

        To summarize, this is a nice screen but the display panel is one generation out of date. A much faster response time would have been infinitely preferable. Mac users who want to play with their screens really ought to opt for a different LCD monitor... if the video output socket on their monitors lets them do so, of course.


        That was from a review [tomshardware.com] in March!

        possibly exclusive to apple


        Exclusive means no-one else sells it. Last I checked, Dell, Gateway, HP-Compaq all were of a larger market share than Apple. Not to mention all of the LCD's that ae sold seperate by the manufacturers.

        Apple owns %30 of the company that makes the LCDs


        So? 30% is a minority, not a majority. The factory has other investosr/s of higher importance, who get what they want first because they own more, and contribute more to the profitability of the factory.

        As for Apple itself, Wallstreet [businessweek.com] is not impressed:

        Analyst Andrew Neff cites the disappointing rollout of the new flat-panel iMac


        As for better pricing? A Dell, for $1827 has double the memory, 20GB bigger HDD, surround sound with subwoofer, 3 year warranty, and MS Word. Everything else is comparable, except GeForce 4 MX in the Dell versus 2 MX in the iMac. Both have the "superdrive," 15" LCD, music, photo, and video editing software (apple's is nicer though). For $20 you can get a USB 2 card for the Dell. Plus, were are talking a P4 2.0 GHz, with PC 800 RD RAM, not PC133.

        OSX does kick ass, but it is sooo slow. My friend has a G3 Powerbook, and it is nearly unusable, and that is with 1 GB of RAM!

        • Re:LCD prices (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Jobe_br ( 27348 )
          Can't speak for your friend, of course, but I have a G3 iMac (400MHz) with less than a gig of RAM (768MB, I think) and OS X 10.1.5 runs just fine. I use Imageready 7, Dreamweaver MX, XFree86 4.2, BBEdit 6.5.2, Mozilla 1.1alpha (nightly) and a variety of other software, mostly running at the same time. Notice, no video editing software - that should be used with a pro-level machine, me thinks, or resort to using the versions of software that were out when the G3 debuted as "pro-level" ...
          • Yeah, I bet you have a better video card. Only the lastest generation of Powerbooks have anything worthwhile.
          • The problem here is defining "runs just fine". If you're coming from MacOS Classic or even OS X before 10.1 then OS X 10.1.5 probably does run "just fine".
            However, if you're coming from something like Windows that has a very responsive GUI then OS X is dog slow.
            I have a last-generation TiBook 667 with 768MB of RAM (which is not a slow piece of hardware by any stretch) and OS X on it is much, much less responsive than Win2k on my *Celeron 450* with 512MB.
            OS X is very, very slow, although hopefully Jaguar will improve that situation markedly.
            • Well, runs just fine in my book is simply that I can interact with it w/o getting annoyed. I've used Win 3.0/3.1,Win95, Win98, Win2K and WinXP as well as GNOME (since the early days) and KDE since about v. 2.0, all on PC hardware (and MacOS since about 6.5 on Apple hardware) ... while a variety of these systems might pop up a menu faster than OS X on my iMac, that's not how I measure "runs just fine" - if I can get my work done w/o the interface slowing me down and if the applications run acceptably then all is good.

              I imagine Jaguar will improve OS X's responsiveness even more (especially if your hardware supports Quartz Extreme).
              • Well, runs just fine in my book is simply that I can interact with it w/o getting annoyed.

                Unfortunately OS X fails that test for me. It's responsiveness is just dismal. Switching between tabs in Mozilla takes over a second. Right clicking to pop up a folder in the Dock takes 1 -2 seconds and then cascading down into a subfolder takes another 1 - 2 seconds (depending on size). Window resizing is atrociously slow (to the point that what should be an essentially automatic action requires careful attention to achieve an acceptable result). The spinning CD grinds my whole system to a halt for 10-20 seconds several times an hour. Typing often (like now) results in the characters appearing being several words behind the words I'm actually typing. My CPU usage very rarely drops under 30% (load average is constantly above 1.5). Switching between programs - or even windows in the same program - often takes several seconds
                This is all on a TiBook 667 with 768MB of RAM - not a slow machine by any standard. It's nothing special about my machine, either - I see similar behaviour on machines ranging from a G3/233 to a dual 933 G4.
                Basically, as much as I like using OS X, if I don't see at least a 30% improvement in responsiveness with Jaguar I'll be (with some regrets) going back to my PCs and writing it all off to an expensive lesson in experience.

                • From what you're saying, I think my experience is pretty much the same (from the times you're providing) - my looks at Jag have shown that basic interface responsiveness is MUCH improved, so you should be pretty happy about that, especially if your TiBook can handle Quartz Extreme (AGP 2x + 16MB).

                  I must say, running Win2K or XP on a PIII 1GHz isn't too much nicer, especially once I have a few different apps open. Using Dreamweaver, cygwin, PuTTY, SciTE, LeechFTP, Outlook, IE, Mozilla, and Excel results in pretty slow switch times between apps.

                  The one thing I don't notice is that typing in any application really slows down, which is quite annoying in OS X. I'm not entirely sure, but it seems to be a problem with the Carbon event timers or something ... either that they're being used or that they're *not* being used (or not being used properly). The (few) cocoa apps I've used don't seem to *ever* show any lag, whereas apps such as Dreamweaver MX and Mozilla lag often ... it'd be nice if this were cleaned up.

                  I should be able to run compiles in the background and still have the frontmost app be responsive to something as basic as typing. Last time I did this, Mozilla was at least a sentence or two behind and after a little bit, was losing characters altogether.
        • That is a review of the 15" Apple studio display. The bottom of their line not only in size but in quality. The last I checked (admittedly this was some time ago) the Cinema displays and the PowerBook displays were of significantly higher quality, and widely reviewed as being of better quality than what was typically bundled with windoze machines.

          Last I checked, Dell, Gateway, HP-Compaq all were of a larger market share than Apple.

          True, but aside from Dell, not THAT much smaller. Besides which, overall PC marketshare is not the issue when negotiating with LCD manufacturers. How many LCD's you are buying and selling IS. Since Apple has (mostly) standardised on LCD technology while their larger competitors haven't I would imagine that their LCD "marketshare" is disproportionally larger than their overall marketshare and puts them in a better negotiating position.

          So? 30% is a minority, not a majority. The factory has other investosr/s of higher importance, who get what they want first because they own more, and contribute more to the profitability of the factory.

          Umm. 30% is an awfully large chunk of a publicly traded company. If that number is correct (I couldn't verify it) I think it's safe to say Apple is probably one of their largest if not THE largest single investor. The other large investors are probably institutional investors (pension funds and the like) who aren't going to be throwing their weight around competing with Apple for production facilities. In any event the investment was made explicitly to ensure that Apple got the kind of special treatment that the original poster referred to, and did go towards new production facilities built specifically to meet Apple's needs. I'm sure it was accompanied by contractual obligations to that effect.

          My friend has a G3 Powerbook, and it is nearly unusable, and that is with 1 GB of RAM!

          Your friend should have someone look at his computer. Either he hasn't upgraded to 10.1 or there is something wrong. I can see slow but "nearly unusable?" I have a beige G3 233 that was running 10.0 with less memory than the "minimum requirement" (I installed it on a lark). THAT was "nearly unusable" ;)

          As for price, I don't know what the original poster was thinking. Macs are definitley sold at a premium. BUT as I think your comparision points out the premium is NOT as large as is generally thought. You configured an equivalent Dell for the same price. I'll grant you the 80GB vs. 60GB drives, the memory is the same though, any place other than the Apple store will throw in the extra RAM for "free" (since Apple discourages resellers from competing on price they all compete on free bundles, usually memory, printers & the like). So the main difference between the Dell and the Apple is the Apple machine is a lot more nicely integrated & engineered but the PC has a faster CPU and bus. Damn that Mhz gap!

          For their target market the Mac is probably still the better deal. Most home users are not taxing their systems very hard and probably wouldn't even notice if their CPU was twice as fast (it's just a matter of how many more processor cycles get wasted waiting for the next keystroke) For those things that consumers do that DO tax the processor (Audio & video encoding & such) Altivec makes the PowerPC much more competetive than it's raw processer speed would suggest.
        • A little thing called reality

          Ok, you're an idiot and have been correctly identified as flaming.

          But its worth pointing out that if you were really doing a comparison to some Dell, you'd have quoted the model number of the Dell you're comparing too. Otherwise we must conclude you're just making that up. I do comparisons against dell regularly, and regularly MAcs are a great deal cheaper for comparable hardware.

          BTW- OSX is NOT slow. I have it running on a 9500-- an ancient mac that is way beyond the "supported" list and even on that guy its only a bit sluggish. I used it on my PBG3 and it runs with perfectly fine performance-- I don't notice the difference day to day between a 400MHz G3 and the 800MHz G4 I use.

          You have the first modern operating system released by ANY COMPANY-- Microsoft promised cairo in 1993 and it still hasn't shipped-- linux is mostly modern except for the UI layer-- and of course since you can't bash it on its merits, you claim its slow because its graphically rich. but the thing is, every computer apple ships has a 3d accelerator and transparency is rather easy for them to do.

          What you should be complaining about is that your current OS doesn't make use of the 3D hardware thats there.
        • You said that:

          My friend has a G3 Powerbook, and it is nearly unusable, and that is with 1 GB of RAM!

          I beg to differ: no G3 PowerBook can take 1G of RAM. Source: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g3 /index.html

          Sorry. Thanks for playing, Mr. Troll.

      • Re:LCD prices (Score:3, Insightful)

        by g4dget ( 579145 )
        Why is it people constantly compare apples share of the market to the SUM OF ALL OTHER COMPANIES COMBINED

        Because for many purposes, that's what matters. I can use Dell hardware or software with a Compaq, but not natively with a Mac.

        Its one of the largest computer companies in the world and for a long time was the largest.

        Apple never was the largest computer company by any measure. That title has mostly been held by IBM.

        • Apple never was the largest computer company by any measure. That title has mostly been held by IBM.

          This is flat out, factually wrong. FRom approximately 1989 to 1994 Apple was the largest Personal Computer maker in the world-- both in volume of units and dollar volume.

          At one point in that time I think Apple was doing 12B a year in annual revenue while Microsoft was doing only $4. And people then were talking about how much bigger Microsoft was than Apple.

          Everyone's perceptions of what happened in the past are totally based on the current situation-- Microsoft is bigger, so they think it always has been.

          When you own %25 of the new machines being built, and there are a dozen people competing for the other 75% its easy to be the largest pc maufacturer in the world.
        • Perhaps in the server market, but not many people buy IBMs now. Apple used to be selling more computers than any other company (a few months after the iMac intro), but I have the feeling they may have slipped by now.
  • Is it just me, or does anyone remember the report from a couple months back (it was on TechTV's The Screen Savers), that said that the new iMac's surfed the Internet a couples seconds slower because of the lousy refresh rate on LCDs.

    I think Apple's move is partly money and, maybe, partly to stave off these kind of complaints. If Apple is going to move into the gaming world, they had better have the right hardware before they get too excited about the software.

    Does anyone know if LCDs have improved their refresh rates sufficiantly?

    • Re:LCD Slowdown (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ZerothAngel ( 219206 )
      I don't think it had anything to do with LCD screens. If that were the case, then DVD/video playback would suck... which it doesn't.

      No, I think it was more of a general OS/network issue. From my own experience, Mozilla seemed a lot 'snappier' on a Windows box than it did on my TiBook... but I still prefer my TiBook for general use. ;)

      For $129, Jaguar better be faster.

      • Re:LCD Slowdown (Score:3, Interesting)

        by batobin ( 10158 )
        Screen refresh rates are in Hz, which is a frequency. I don't remember much from my physics days, but a screen refresh of 75 Hz means it refreshes 75 times per second.

        Even if Apple used slow monitors, it would only be slow by 1 or 2 seventy-fifths of a second. In short, impossible to notice.

        Where you do notice this is with shadows or cursors and things. Nobody wants movement shadows (they look horrible on DVDs and games).

        As far as I know, however, Apple flatscreens have EXCELLENT refresh rates. Since that's up for debate, I'll simply retain my original point. Web browsing using a Mac is not a monitor issue.
    • Is it just me, or does anyone remember the report from a couple months back (it was on TechTV's The Screen Savers), that said that the new iMac's surfed the Internet a couples seconds slower because of the lousy refresh rate on LCDs.

      The problem with OS X surfing slowly has nothing to do with LCD refresh rates. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fact that the OS X GUI is fucking slow.

      Now, I don't know if the problem is slow hardware or slow software, but the end result is that Macs are slow for web browsing, as well as other general tasks.

      Before you flame me, that does NOT make them bad computers. But the slow GUI is VERY frustrating, especially if you are coming over from a Wintel background where the GUI is very responsive. For me, it was enough of a problem that my iBook purchase (a computer I really liked) ended with me selling it a month later. I just couldn't stand clicking on widgets and then waiting for OS X to respond.

  • really important reason why to not drop CRT (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheGratefulNet ( 143330 ) on Monday July 22, 2002 @05:55PM (#3933410)
    well, other than the fact that it shatters. but that's not what I mean here.

    lcd's are not known for their accurate color rendition. motion, while better than years ago, still sucks on an lcd vs. a good crt. and even still photography is very hard to do right on an lcd.

    I own almost nothing BUT lcd's. I have 4 sgi flat panel 1600's (on linux), 1 vga flat panel and 1 dvi flat panel. I do software devel 95% of the time and so for xterms and mozilla, flat panels are perfect. but for the few times that I need to color correct a skin tone (from some scanned slides or negs), I look all over for a good crt and do the work on that box.

    macs are known for their video and still photo ability. colormatching is easiest on them than win* or unix (except for maybe sgi. maybe.) apple just can't drop crt support on high end boxes. gfx people wouldn't stand for it.

  • I have a new iMac with a TFT LCD, looks great on the desk, saves space and allows family to enjoy a slideshow at a great viewing angle.
    I have to admit this is a good LCD, not like some portables I used and owned.
    The refresh rate is not measurable to that of a CRT, in a LCD the pixels are on or off, but they do keep their state, in a CRT you "can see" a beam moving across. Refresh rate of an LCD is measured in transitions and not in frames, I do believe.
    Other question poses as of color balance and calibration, each medium as its one color cube or space, keeping a match between them is hard to any kind of technology, CRT or LCD, I don't actually know the implications of the change.

    In conclusion I think the best would be to be able to use both, or adequate to users needs. Not until Apple decided to make a LCD iMac I didn't consider buying that model, rather than a tower and then the LCD... but with this new All-in-one deal I made the switch from PC.

  • since when is apple actually concerned about price points? the company has always (except for that whole early/mid 90s thing...) offered excellent devices and machines at super premium prices (anyone else remember when ram was $100.00 per meg (MEG!) good for them for trying to compete but please, uncle steve - don't start making crappy machines just to fit in. give the pc people their ipod and let them go and wish... can you tell i'm typing this on a mac - doh! i've been had! gub
  • Apple never said they weren't going to sell any CRT based computers, just that they no longer sell CRT monitors.

    They never stopped selling the CRT based iMac.

  • This Apple exec is called Joswiak? Is that a quantum superposition of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak? Will Apple be releasing a Quantum G5?

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