Macworld:
The price of buying an iMac just went down. But is a 15 percent lower price worth a 50 percent lower performance rating?
The new $1099 iMac was slower across the board, and 54 percent slower overall, than the $1299 21.5-inch system.
This is definitely the iMac for the (very) casual user but I don’t know about “value for the money”. The specs make it seem awfully anemic.
Embarrassingly bad idea to release this machine. $200 off for 50% the performance.
This is a shame. Apple used to not put out junky stuff. People will buy this thinking they’re getting a premium computer, and it’ll be this instead. If I worked at Apple, I’d advise people to go with a MBA instead.
The choice of CPU is really puzzling.
They went with an expensive mobile Core i5 when they could have easily used a much cheaper and much faster desktop class Core i3.
With Core i3 even a sub $1000 price would have been easy to reach.
Where it is valuable is as a Point Of Sale terminal or in other dedicated use applications.
BTW, the chips that the new machine uses have changed, but the BootCamp drivers have not. Starting with the Broadcom 57788 driver for Ethernet.
Agreed. Too little power for too much money.
Might it not also be intended for the education market?
by comparison, Dell, HP and other competitors are shipping AIO machines in a similar price point with previous gen CPUs and way less RAM.
So I’m not so sure.
How does this iMac compare with the Macbook Pro without retina display?
I don’t see casual users being underserved by this model. It’ll serve them years & years, just like all other Macs have done.
Most casual users won’t even need this level of performance and will do just fine with an iPhone or an iPad.
This has the exact same internals as the most recent MacBook Air. If this computer is junk, then so is the Air. However, the Air seems to be fast enough for a huge amount of customers. You are trading a 12hr battery and an SSD for a 2x bigger screen, a 4x larger (and slower) HDD, and 2x RAM. Is that worth +$100? Maybe, maybe not, but this isn’t junk.
That is my thought too.
It is, absolutely. This has been available to educational customers for years. I assume they just released it because there’s no marginal cost and they might make a few sales out of it
What he said.
As if performance was only measured in one dimension. Ridiculous.
it’s the same as an MBA, but w/ a much larger screen and hard drive, for $100 more. how is that junk?
nobody who buys the lowest-rung option believes theyre getting top of the line hardware.
Don’t be silly. It’s a perfectly suitable computer for a huge part of the market.
Moreover, for about the same amount of money, just about all of the would likely be happier with this model with the SSD or Fusion Drive option ($1,350) than they would be with the extra two cores ($1,299).
Yup, and for $50 more than the quad-core model, they could have this thing plus an SSD or FusionDrive.
I have read a much about how poorly this system is spec’ed. I think this system is not intended for individual purchase.
Look at the calendar, isn’t this the season for purchases from Schools and Colleges who will not be paying the retail price, but will get significant volume discounts?
It is puzzling, but some of the theories point to the possibility of them just being able to get a lot of this specific chip for a good price. It’s already used in one of the MBAs isn’t it? I assume it’s just extremely cheap to buy more of what they have been and/or use already existing supply of those chips Apple already has.
I think it would be tough to use(or justify) as a POS since it doesn’t have a touch screen.
Until you have used one, until you have joined the target audience for this machine and before you pass judgment, please realize that this machine has a job to do that is far more important than satisfying your whims.
Can it surf the net, get email, run connections to social media and play and manage media? Yes.
can it run an office suite? yes.
Can it handle most users’ photo, video and audio requests? yes.
Whenever I see someone suggesting spending “only $100 more” I often remember that it’s easier to spend someone else’s money.
This machine is fine. It performs as promised at the price it is being delivered at.
And certainly, TRHIS MACHINE IS NOT FOR YOU.
This.