"Affordable" iMac incoming ?

Alpherah · 8 Aug 2011 at 11:32

9to5mac, gadgetshow and numerous blogging sites say that Apple are about to soft launch on Wednesday an affordable iMac to education customers only initially.

Its a 21.5" model with the same resolution, i3 processor, 2GB Ram and 250GB 5400rpm HDD.

Price should be about £850 before HE discount, so about £700 after.

Thoughts? Isn't that what the Mac Mini's made for?

Deleted member 77746 · 8 Aug 2011 at 11:37

Alpherah said:
9to5mac, gadgetshow and numerous blogging sites say that Apple are about to soft launch on Wednesday an affordable iMac to education customers only initially.

Its a 21.5" model with the same resolution, i3 processor, 2GB Ram and 250GB 5400rpm HDD.

Price should be about £850 before HE discount, so about £700 after.

Thoughts? Isn't that what the Mac Mini's made for?

Macs without a screen but just about the same spec with a monitor.

JonnyGLC · 8 Aug 2011 at 11:39

Mac Minis aren't exactly cheap once you've added the price for a monitor, mouse, keyboard and a set of speakers!

Deleted member 77746 · 8 Aug 2011 at 11:42

A random name said:
Mac Minis aren't exactly cheap once you've added the price for a monitor, mouse, keyboard and a set of speakers!

Would work out around the same price except the mini's will be more powerful.

Disco Boy · 8 Aug 2011 at 11:44

I'll be fairly surprised if they do release one. They are a premium brand so they don't want to dilute that too much and they already have a "budget" (for apple) computer in the mini.

picnic · 8 Aug 2011 at 12:18

Alpherah said:
9to5mac, gadgetshow and numerous blogging sites say that Apple are about to soft launch on Wednesday an affordable iMac to education customers only initially.

Price should be about £850 before HE discount, so about £700 after.

If only for educational customers why would there be a normal (non HE) price? Confused :confused:

Alpherah · 8 Aug 2011 at 12:29

picnic said:
If only for educational customers why would there be a normal (non HE) price? Confused

Only available initially is the word out and about, probably be open to all after the BTCP is over

uniQ · 8 Aug 2011 at 12:34

Its only available for Educational institutions not individuals.

- 3.1GHz Intel Core i3 Dual-Core
- 21.5-inch LCD
- AMD Radeon HD 6750 with 512MB
- 2GB RAM
- 250GB Hard Drive
- SuperDrive
- OS X Lion
Price: $999

Deleted member 77746 · 8 Aug 2011 at 12:41

Harsh price tag for educational institutions.

Rameses · 8 Aug 2011 at 13:31

Not a bad spec / price to be fair, all-in-one hassle free with I guess full support/warranty.

I bet schools will buy thousands of these.

Jimz · 8 Aug 2011 at 14:08

Still too much money and this is for customers in Education? It should be Half that price.

mrochester · 8 Aug 2011 at 14:17

Disco Boy said:
I'll be fairly surprised if they do release one. They are a premium brand so they don't want to dilute that too much and they already have a "budget" (for apple) computer in the mini.

Apple have had iMacs designed specifically for educational institutions for a while now. They are always cheaper and lower spec than the base line consumer iMac.

Skyboat · 8 Aug 2011 at 14:28

Jimz said:
Still too much money and this is for customers in Education? It should be Half that price.

You clearly wouldn't know how much these things would cost to manufacture then. If they were half the speculated prices, Apple would make quite a substantial loss.

kristmace · 8 Aug 2011 at 15:44

Skyboat said:
You clearly wouldn't know how much these things would cost to manufacture then. If they were half the speculated prices, Apple would make quite a substantial loss.

I doubt it. With their purchasing power on components, I think their margins are very high.

Here's the spec of the latest education only imac:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4592/apple-releases-educationonly-imac

Dr House · 8 Aug 2011 at 15:51

This is fantastic marketing by apple.

Think about it, they fill the schools with cheap OSX products, the next generation grow up knowing how to use OSX and feeling comfortable with the OS so when the are old enough and buying computers the first thing they will look at is a Mac.

Apple is going to take over the world. Next stop Apple to buy T-Mobile and start selling home TV's

Skyboat · 8 Aug 2011 at 15:59

kristmace said:
I doubt it. With their purchasing power on components, I think their margins are very high.

Here's the spec of the latest education only imac:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4592/apple-releases-educationonly-imac

It'll still cost more than £350 to build.

Dr House · 8 Aug 2011 at 16:05

Jimz said:
Still too much money and this is for customers in Education? It should be Half that price.

the cost of doing business is much higher then the joe public think.

Its just just the cost of building the thing you have to worry about, there is shipping, packaging, marketing / advertising, import taxes, staff costs, R&D, cost of providing after sales support, massive costs of keeping the store open...........

kristmace · 8 Aug 2011 at 16:08

Dr House said:
packaging, marketing / advertising, import taxes.

Why Apple is expensive in a nutshell!!

Skyboat · 8 Aug 2011 at 16:14

Jimz has posted a grand total of 8 times in the Apple forums, and pretty much every single post has been trolling/anti-Apple so I shouldn't take much notice

theheyes · 8 Aug 2011 at 16:28

I'm sorry, but these are crap. Compared with the base model it has half the cores, half the RAM, half the video memory, half the disk space (and 5400RPM) and no Thunderbolt. Nobody running any application-specific courses that require Macs (Photoshop, Final Cut etc. which are memory and CPU hungry) are going to touch these with a barge pole when they can get a Mac with almost literally twice the guts for a small increase in price.