Apple to introduce cheaper Macs

[MBony]

Link to story

I'd love to wait this out (and just may do that), but I doubt we'll see any fruits of this until late this year, assuming it even happens.

 

[mugs]

Give me a Mac that competes directly with $700 mid-tower PCs. I don't care if it's not competitive on price, I just want a Mac that uses consumer-grade desktop parts, is upgradeable, and doesn't cost a fortune. I don't want a built-in monitor. I'm very happy with my Mac Mini, but it's not what I would have bought if I had more options.

 

[randomlinh]

yeah, I had to leave the apple world. $900 for a 2.4ghz c2q, 8gb ram, and a 24" 2408wfp... yeah. I needed performance, I couldn't get that with Apple, as much as I tried to make a hackintosh work for me.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: mugs
Give me a Mac that competes directly with $700 mid-tower PCs. I don't care if it's not competitive on price, I just want a Mac that uses consumer-grade desktop parts, is upgradeable, and doesn't cost a fortune. I don't want a built-in monitor. I'm very happy with my Mac Mini, but it's not what I would have bought if I had more options.

This really is Apple's only problem. Their products are a good value for the parts you get, but almost every product includes parts that most people would never want. The idea behind the Mac Mini was that people would buy it because it's cheap, which it is, but the problem is that it uses expensive laptop parts. Laptop ram is more expensive than desktop ram. Laptop hard drives are several times as expensive as desktop hard drives. Laptop video cards have crippled performance, so this thing can't be used for gaming. It has no expansion slots, so it can't be used as a file server (or at least a good one).

Apple is more than capable of making a high quality budget computer. All they need to do is stop screwing around.

 

[sourceninja]

I'm really happy with my macbook pro purchases. I think nice midrange desktop offering would be nice, but I've gotten very used to having the portability of a notebook. I really don't see anything apple could do that would make people happy. They always have one thing that makes everyone complain.

 

[Kmax82]

Yea, even if they made MidTower model, you'd have people complain because Apple doesn't support ALL of the myriad hardware choices that are available. It's a never ending battle. Apple will do what they think is best for business and as long as I still enjoy their products and feel they work for me, I will plunk the money down for it.

 

[Injury]

Dear Apple,

You're a month late. It's May first, not April first.

Your's,
-Injury

 

[sindows]

Assuming this is still the Apple we love and know, the cheaper "Macs" are probably just the base editions with a $50 price cut

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: sindows
Assuming this is still the Apple we love and know, the cheaper "Macs" are probably just the base editions with a $50 price cut

Or $700 Netbooks running the Iphone OS

 

[JSt0rm]

I dont think midtower macs will happen. They don't want to cannibalize the mac pro line. Its a nice computer but I wouldn't of bought one if a lower level mac mid was available.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Originally posted by: mugs
Give me a Mac that competes directly with $700 mid-tower PCs. I don't care if it's not competitive on price, I just want a Mac that uses consumer-grade desktop parts, is upgradeable, and doesn't cost a fortune. I don't want a built-in monitor. I'm very happy with my Mac Mini, but it's not what I would have bought if I had more options.

Sounds to me like a PC would be right up your ally

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer

Originally posted by: mugs
Give me a Mac that competes directly with $700 mid-tower PCs. I don't care if it's not competitive on price, I just want a Mac that uses consumer-grade desktop parts, is upgradeable, and doesn't cost a fortune. I don't want a built-in monitor. I'm very happy with my Mac Mini, but it's not what I would have bought if I had more options.

Sounds to me like a PC would be right up your ally

A PC won't run OS X, which is why I want a Mac. I have a new Mac Mini, and I love it - I just know that if I had more options, I probably wouldn't have picked the Mini.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
I dont think midtower macs will happen. They don't want to cannibalize the mac pro line. Its a nice computer but I wouldn't of bought one if a lower level mac mid was available.

Don't worry, it wouldn't cannibalize the Mac Pro. People don't think of buying a $1000 computer, see that it doesn't exist, then settle for one that costs almost $3000. A mid-tower would simply fill the huge gap that Apple has been ignoring for the past 10 years.

 

[DanK414]

All I have to say my new $1200 build pc will blow away there $2500 Mac Pro, but you guys know that already. But couldn't this be a reason why Mac isn't playing along with the PCs? My feeling is most adapters to Mac are the college students/newly graduates... and they tend to purchase lappys for school/first job. And the moderate age group seem to be satisfied with Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Pro for the prosumers. Even though there is a target I wonder how much it would benefit for Apple to create a midline that competes with the $700 PCs.

Lastly, I still wonder who buys these built in display computers.... they might be convenient for space but 2-3yrs they're obsolete and you have to get another display+computer or display computer. Waste in the landfill, waste for the pocket.

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: DanK414
All I have to say my new $1200 build pc will blow away there $2500 Mac Pro, but you guys know that already. But couldn't this be a reason why Mac isn't playing along with the PCs? My feeling is most adapters to Mac are the college students/newly graduates... and they tend to purchase lappys for school/first job. And the moderate age group seem to be satisfied with Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Pro for the prosumers. Even though there is a target I wonder how much it would benefit for Apple to create a midline that competes with the $700 PCs.

Lastly, I still wonder who buys these built in display computers.... they might be convenient for space but 2-3yrs they're obsolete and you have to get another display+computer or display computer. Waste in the landfill, waste for the pocket.

Apple wouldn't ever build a MidTower for $700. If anything it'd be around the $1200 mark. The problem that PC owners don't understand is that Apple works on at least a 30% profit margin on their products. They won't compete in the PC $700 market, because they'd make next to nothing on the computer.

Also, people who tend to buy Macs don't throw them away after 2-3 years. They're donated to other people, downgraded to media computers, etc... But not thrown away.

 

[sjwaste]

I don't really care what Apple does, but there are two things that I want in a mid-range offering. First, go headless. I don't need a new monitor every time I get a new computer. Second, let me upgrade the video card. Find a way to jam a single PCI-Express slot in there so I can buy a consumer graphics card from whatever vendor has decided that they will produce Apple drivers.

Honestly, where hardware is now, upgrading video, RAM, and HD can keep a computer going for years. They can solder down the CPU for all I care, as long as I can upgrade the above items.

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: sjwaste
Honestly, where hardware is now, upgrading video, RAM, and HD can keep a computer going for years. They can solder down the CPU for all I care, as long as I can upgrade the above items.

That is quite true. I've been using a 2.4 Ghz C2D, and I don't feel the performance of the newer mobile chips is a big enough advantage to upgrade yet. Core i7 will sway me, but the C2D stuff has pretty much just been minor upgrades. However, the RAM upgrades and HDD upgrades that I've done have dramatically helped my computer's performance. So I agree, a computer that simply had an interchangeable GPU, RAM and HDD would be great.. even if it was just slightly bigger than the Mini.

 

[DanK414]

@Kmax82 did you even read the article that was linked on the first post? They're coming out with $899 iMac this fall for students....... please read first.

And lastly, still a waste in the pockets and don't speak for everyone by saying they'll donate.>< You are not the representative of everyone.

 

[TheStu]

Well DanK what are you doing with your MacBook when it comes time to upgrade? I know that I will be donating mine, just as I did my G4 PowerBook and the G4 iBook before that (though I came by both of those very cheap). My desktop is a hackintosh since I needed to upgrade my gaming rig anyway, I figured I would try to Hack it. It runs great (as for how it compares to a Mac Pro, I have no idea, in one very important regard the Mac Pro will always outperform my and most anyone's Hack.... it is a real Mac and therefore you have almost nothing to worry about with updates, and you can get it serviced by Apple if it really hits the fan).

But really, what are you doing with your MacBook?

Also, Kmax said that they will never sell a MIDTOWER for $900. Meaning a Mac Pro Mini or whatever they will call it (maybe just Mac?). The iMac is not a MidTower, it is an All-in-One with laptop components

 

[JSt0rm]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
I dont think midtower macs will happen. They don't want to cannibalize the mac pro line. Its a nice computer but I wouldn't of bought one if a lower level mac mid was available.

Don't worry, it wouldn't cannibalize the Mac Pro. People don't think of buying a $1000 computer, see that it doesn't exist, then settle for one that costs almost $3000. A mid-tower would simply fill the huge gap that Apple has been ignoring for the past 10 years.

It's the other way around. Somebody in the market for a 3k computer says hey look this $1500 computer has pci-e slots too. I'll get that. For creative pro's we need dsp cards or 4 monitors or blackmagic video cards or protools hd or video editing stuff. We just need more then a imac and we can't risk a hackintosh.

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: DanK414
@Kmax82 did you even read the article that was linked on the first post? They're coming out with $899 iMac this fall for students....... please read first.

And lastly, still a waste in the pockets and don't speak for everyone by saying they'll donate.>< You are not the representative of everyone.

No, I didn't read the whole article, but the "institutional" iMac for $899 is for schools, it's not available to students. And these articles aren't fact, so I don't see the need to argue something that isn't substantiated yet.

Anyway, no, not everyone donates their old computers, but I do, because I can afford to, and I prefer to give mine away because I use them for such a long time. I've had my Macbook Pro for 2 years now, and plan to keep it for at least another year before I get rid of it. Then it will get donated to my wife, and hers will go to my parents. Then when they don't have a need for it, it'll go to my brother, or another person they know. I know it will eventually die and go to a landfill, but not as quickly as you might think.