Get a new (and fast) Mac for $799

[nuka_t]

but grandma dosent care about RAM timings, the size of the cache and hard drive acces times. she just wants to go online and look at some pics, it dosent take a supercomputer to do that. also, emachines have started using much more brand name parts.

[oik]

and how are you deciding that it's a bad home machine superfula? just because it has that e? ok, so when your 12 year old comes home and has a paper to write for SCHOOL (hey look education!) he's supposed to do it on your athlon64? that's moronic if that's all he's doing.

what's worse is that you sit here comparing apples to, well, apples, and can't even stay in reality. i quote:

"With the amount of money you spend on two eMacs, you can buy a sweet powermac."

2 emac's x $800 = $1600. that won't buy any g5, and will buy last generation powermac's... the windtunnel models, with no monitor. so here's what you get for $1600:

Dual 1.25GHz PowerPC G4

2MB L3 cache/processor

256MB DDR333 SDRAM

80GB Ultra ATA drive

Combo Drive

ATI Radeon 9000 Pro

eww, yea, that's awesome. the only real steps up are the 80gb hd and the second cpu. still no monitors though. but, with 2 emac's, you have 2 monitors, a total of 80gb, and a slightly nicer gpu.

then for $1300:

1.25GHz PowerPC G4

1MB L3 cache

256MB DDR333 SDRAM

80GB Ultra ATA drive

Combo Drive

ATI Radeon 9000 Pro

now you've lost a cpu, and still no monitor.

and let me worry about my stay at neowin. with morons like you running rampant, i'm not so sure i'd want to stay.

[nuka_t]

the radeon 9000 pro outperforms a 9200

[oik]

the radeon 9000 pro outperforms a 9200

i just read an anandtech article that said the only difference was that the 9200 was 8x agp, the 9000 pro was 4x. either way... does grandma need a great gpu? does your kid writing that book report need a geforce 6800? no.

[nuka_t]

no, thats why grandma shouldnt spend that kind of money and go for an emachines.

[oik]

no, thats why grandma shouldnt spend that kind of money and go for an emachines.

what?

where did the difference between a 9200 and a 9000 pro go to "buy emachines"?

[nuka_t]

you said that grandma didnt need a fast GPu like the 9200, so i said that she shouldnt pay for it and get the emachines. mopst grandmas are retired and dont want to spend 800 dollars on someting they dont know how to use. also, no matter how simple a comp is to use grandma would still need help. her kids would have a much easier time teaching her how to use windows which they are familiar with than OSX.

[giga Veteran]

:| Give it a rest guys.

[oik]

:| Give it a rest guys.

yea, that'd be nice, but there are still some people out there who can't understand that an $800 mac, new, with as much as this one has, is a good deal, and better than many pc counterparts.

i give up. if you morons want to run your mouths about something as inane as that, enjoy.

[nuka_t]

:| Give it a rest guys.

agreed, its a good deal compared to other macs (esp the 1000 dollar one with the 8x super drive) but i wont admit that its better than a PC.

[Chad]

and how are you deciding that it's a bad home machine superfula? just because it has that e? ok, so when your 12 year old comes home and has a paper to write for SCHOOL (hey look education!) he's supposed to do it on your athlon64? that's moronic if that's all he's doing.

what's worse is that you sit here comparing apples to, well, apples, and can't even stay in reality. i quote:

"With the amount of money you spend on two eMacs, you can buy a sweet powermac."

2 emac's x $800 = $1600. that won't buy any g5, and will buy last generation powermac's... the windtunnel models, with no monitor. so here's what you get for $1600:

Dual 1.25GHz PowerPC G4

2MB L3 cache/processor

256MB DDR333 SDRAM

80GB Ultra ATA drive

Combo Drive

ATI Radeon 9000 Pro

eww, yea, that's awesome. the only real steps up are the 80gb hd and the second cpu. still no monitors though. but, with 2 emac's, you have 2 monitors, a total of 80gb, and a slightly nicer gpu.

then for $1300:

1.25GHz PowerPC G4

1MB L3 cache

256MB DDR333 SDRAM

80GB Ultra ATA drive

Combo Drive

ATI Radeon 9000 Pro

now you've lost a cpu, and still no monitor.

and let me worry about my stay at neowin. with morons like you running rampant, i'm not so sure i'd want to stay.

Educational machine....as in something bought by schools. Which is why Apple only offered the eMac to schools when it first came out. Like I said...if you can get a more powerful machine, that will last longer, for the same price, it'd be stupid not to get it.

I could care less about single processor G5s. A Dual processor G4 will beat them hands down anyway, so why bother. And since the powersupply update, they aren't much noiser than the G5s. Monitors are a whole 100 dollars, and the value of a dual processor is quite large considering what OS X can do for it. Then throw in the resale value. And like you said...Grandma doesn't play games, so what does the GPU matter? If grandma wanted to, she could add more ram, add another optical drive, and add another harddrive. The expandability is a large part of it's long life.

You have no case here. The eMac is a bad buy all around, mainly because it's a closed machine. That will cost you more in the long run than you think.

You need to learn that OPINIONS AREN'T WRONG, and they don't make anyone person "a moron", as you enjoy saying. I have never called you a name or said your view was wrong. I have simply stated why I believe what I believe.

[Tim Dorr Veteran]

i never said anything about that. i just said that the fastest card on macs is a radeon 9800pro and for pc its a 6800u, that is why it is faster than the G5, not proc speed.

You said "one and a half times faster than a G5", which didn't indicate where you were getting those numbers. I could only assume you were looking at a 2.0Ghz machine versus a 3.0Ghz machine. In any case, you're comparing two computers soley on the basis of their GPU's, a component that will never get stressed completely? You very clearly have a minimal understand of what makes a computer "fast", which also goes beyond how many Ghz and MBs you have to the software that's running on the computer. Percieved quickness is more important than the actual number of bits that get processes. Preemptive multitasking is an example of such a technique to make your computer faster without replacing hardware.

Also, my grandma doesn't want a machine that will break in 2 years due to faulty components. "Starting to" is a long way from actuality. We're comparing Dell bceause it's got a nearly equal level of quality and support.

Her kids would have a much easier time teaching her how to use windows which they are familiar with than OSX.

Well, my grandmother happens to have one Mac user that will teach her. Plus, I've general found, on average, that those not aquainted to computer usage pick up the Mac operating system faster than the PC operating system. This is mainly due to much better usability and accessability in the OS than other OSes out there. A centralized menu location, Document-centered (versus Application-centered) approach, and better logical design of many of the system components (instead of the "cram things in, don't reorganize" tactics of the Windows world) bring a better overall understandability (sic) to those that are new to computing.

oik: We can deal without your insults. Stick to mature discussion, not name calling. It completely discounts your contributions thus far.

[SeaClearly]

I did by an emac and I did by a pc from ibuypower about 6 months before that. To be honest I didn't have any problems learning the mac os. There have been some things that weren't very clear on both windows and the mac. I think overall I like the mac better because I don't have to worry so much about viruses, spyware and the such. I'm not saying that the mac can't get those things or that they haven't but as of right now and this day that stuff isn't a problem and I don't have to update security patches all the time. This is windows biggest weakness which is clearly because of its share of the market. More users means more bad stuff that isn't all microsofts fault.

One feature I do like is just running the app from the folder and removing the app by just removing the folder. I like to try out different software and very quckly I would see slowdowns within windows and eventually had to reinstall because of the leftovers. This hasen't been a problem with my mac. Also the software that comes with the mac is truely great compared to most computers. But every platform has some great and bad third party software.

I don't do any gaming and what video editing I do I don't see much speed difference between both my pc and mac. My mac is 1Ghz G4 with 512MB of SDRAM PC133. My desktop has Athlon XP 2500+ with 512MB PC2700 DDR RAM. That is a good start for my mac. I would like to have access to an AGP slot if I could but since I don't game I'm not too upset about it. I could build my own computer if I wanted too but I would rather not. I'm an external guy so having firewire and USB 2.0 is good for me. I've bought an external DVD burner that works with both my pc and mac as well as an external 80GB HDD that also works with both my pc and mac. I can put in my own ram and IMO 512MB is plenty for what I use it with. I will say that mac os isn't a hog on performance like windows is when it gets clogged up.

I think macs are good for many more people than I thought and I always thought that the mac platform was overpriced and yes it is overpriced but not by a very large amount. I paid just under 200 bucks more for my emac compared to a computer from both dell and ibuypower and that 200 bucks is well worth it. Mine didn't come with a combo drive either. I think this new model would be less than 100 bucks difference and for me the pain of patching, viruses and such is more noticable to me with a mac compared to when I was without. My time is money and if I spend way less time updating, reinstalling because of windows clogging, fixing infected virus outbreak and got to playing or doing work that is worth that extra 200 bucks when you fater that over several years. If I spend an extra 2 hours reinstalling windows, patching it and installing my apps every three months which I do versus doing that once per year on my mac and I take this over 3 years of my warranty and I make 14 bucks per hour at work than I would save just about 250 bucks. I have to work and when I get home I like to watch TV so I would have to tivo them to watch later. I have to go shopping or do many other things and that time I could have spent doing something else or using my computer versus reinstalling everything kept me from doing other things that I would have to do later. That is how I value my mac and yes that could change tommorrow but until that day comes that time is crucial time for me because I don't have much to spare to begin with.

[threetonesun]

Also, my grandma doesn't want a machine that will break in 2 years due to faulty components. "Starting to" is a long way from actuality. We're comparing Dell bceause it's got a nearly equal level of quality and support.

Having dealt with computers for a while now, I still have yet to see one have a simple hardware failure. Even the shoddiest computers will last for more than 2 years. The issue is more parts coming off the line already failing, hard drives which are ready to go, incorrectly machined memory, etc. That's an issue that could happen with any computer, although I would say it's more likely to happen with cheaper parts.

As far as support goes, saying Dell is better isn't saying much. But out of curiousity, what happens when a mac breaks? I can't think of many stores around me that even sell macs, let alone fix them.

[nuka_t]

You said "one and a half times faster than a G5", which didn't indicate where you were getting those numbers. I could only assume you were looking at a 2.0Ghz machine versus a 3.0Ghz machine. In any case, you're comparing two computers soley on the basis of their GPU's, a component that will never get stressed completely? You very clearly have a minimal understand of what makes a computer "fast", which also goes beyond how many Ghz and MBs you have to the software that's running on the computer. Percieved quickness is more important than the actual number of bits that get processes. Preemptive multitasking is an example of such a technique to make your computer faster without replacing hardware.

Also, my grandma doesn't want a machine that will break in 2 years due to faulty components. "Starting to" is a long way from actuality. We're comparing Dell bceause it's got a nearly equal level of quality and support.

Well, my grandmother happens to have one Mac user that will teach her. Plus, I've general found, on average, that those not aquainted to computer usage pick up the Mac operating system faster than the PC operating system. This is mainly due to much better usability and accessability in the OS than other OSes out there. A centralized menu location, Document-centered (versus Application-centered) approach, and better logical design of many of the system components (instead of the "cram things in, don't reorganize" tactics of the Windows world) bring a better overall understandability (sic) to those that are new to computing.

oik: We can deal without your insults. Stick to mature discussion, not name calling. It completely discounts your contributions thus far.

i said that a dell with a 6800u will be about 1.5 times faster than a g5 with a 98pro in gaming if you look at some reviews of the 68u, you will see what i mean. gfx cards get maxed out when playing games. i know that a 3ghz p4 gets its ass handed to it by a 2 ghz G5 but in gaming, where the gfx card is the most important part, PC's have the upper hand because of more availabilty of gfx cards. my cousins have used a gateway p1 133mhz as hteir main pc up until about 5 months ago. they bought it in 96 i believe and its using the exact same parts as hte day they bought it. i also know someone who is still using a compaq with an athlon k6 until this day and it works fine.

but 95 percent of the other grandmas out there dont have anyone to teaach them.

[mrelusive978]

:ninja: I would like to say that I have a roomate that uses a 9200 in his Athlon 2000+ and it runs HALO quite nicely....and I really dont see why this computer wouldnt run it just as well, except maybe needing about 512MB. I have a friend that uses his Sawtooth G4/500 DP to play HALO, and other than needing a better vidcard (he has the original Radeon AGP) to make the game look pretty, it runs just as well as it does with all the pretty on my wife's G5 1.6. :ninja:

[SeaClearly]

This is a good change for apple. This to me wasn't a simple CPU speed bump. The upgraded the graphics to start with. The biggest changes are the cache, FSB speed and DDR Ram and 256MB at that. Granted this computer could very much use 512MB of Ram but just having a CPU that is 250Mhz faster with twice the cache is a big improvement. Also pretty much everything can be upgraded except for the video card but I don't know many hard core games using an eMac so with that said the 9200 is more than enough to run OS X as many others have said. The Ram can be upgraded to I think 1 GB maybe 2GB. Lately the SDRAM was much higher in price than DDR and harder to find than DDR so this is a very good change. You can buy external DVD Burners and Hard drives for not much more than internal from online stores. Those are the only things I can think of that are key that can be upgraded. Also most computer users don't know how or are willing to build their own systems period. We are very rare when compared to all computer users out there.

Now last time I checked you could get an emachines computer for 400 dollars after 50 dollar rebate. Now add another 130 dollars for a quality 17" CRT monitor. So that totals at 530 dollars after any rebates. Now that 270 dollar difference gets you an emac. I say that is a small price to pay because that emachines computer is the bottom of the barrell system with the cheapest parts available. That emac doesn't use cheap parts overall compared to this computer. Don't get me wrong that emachines system is not a piece of crap but in quality its not close to the eMac.

Now to compare the two.

Celeron 2.7Ghz. The celeron chips just aren't that good at all. The Celeron chip has only 128K of cache. The emac G4 has 512K of cache and that alone will make this chip at least just as fast as the Celeron 2.7Ghz.

Both have 256MB of DDR RAM. Now the emac uses PC-2700 (333Mhz) compared to the emachines PC-2100 RAM. This is a little bit here and there things coming into play. They do add up.

Intel intergrated graphics for emachines and ATI Radeon 9200. Now the emachines doesn't have an AGP slot at all so count out video card upgrades just like the emac. Now comes into play the little speed here and there. With Windows XP using the CPU to do all its graphics work for the GUI that makes other tasks even slower because they have to wait. Now this emac uses all of its 1.25Ghz G4 for work while the ATI 9200 card is doing all the work for the GUI which this card is more than able to do.

Both computers have a 40GB hard drive. I'm pretty sure that the emacs Ultra ATA-100 drive is faster than the emachines Ultra-DMA drive which doesn't even list whether their drive is DMA 100.

Both computers have a DVD/CDRW combo drive and the emachines has a slight edge on burning speed.

Also the emachines has 6 USB 2.0 connectors while the emac has 3 USB 2.0 and 2 1.1 connectors. Now the emac has two Firewire 400 ports while the emachines has none. Most digital camcorders have firewire only not USB 2.0 so while you can get the same speed the question still comes down to how many digital camcorders will and do support USB2.0. Having both gives you much better chance of getting a great price because the last times I've been shopping around I've found many cheaper drives that had Firewire only or Firewire and USB 1.1. Having both is always better.

Now you have to look at Mac OS X all by it self because its flat out better than Windows XP. Some may say its because windows has many more users and that is very true but that still doesn't change the fact that OS X is less prone to those problems. If this ever changes than we can all talk again but for right now its a fact of life and excuses even as true as they may be don't change this fact.

I've used some of the new computers my company got which are pretty much like that emachines. A little slower CPU but still a Celeron. Same Ram and such as well. I can tell you flat out that this emac outperforms that computer at work. One small application such as word isn't much difference but when you start to play music, surf the web, check email, open word and such all at the same time it gets to be a pain on the work computer. Now if you open iMovie and use that app for the same exact file and functions and do the same with Windows Movie Maker 2 there is a huge difference in time. I tried encoding video from my camcorder using iMovie and windows MM2 using USB 2.0 for both computers and encoded my one hour and 40 minute video and the emac G4 did this same exact task in half the time. It took the emac just a little over one hour while the work computer took about 10 minutes shy of 2 hours. To be exact it took the emac exactly 48 minutes less rounded off to the nearest minute.

Well I've gone on too far and for the most part will get flamed but this emac is a better, faster and very well priced computer for what it can do. The fact is this emac is better quality, faster, easy to use, never worry and very cheap compared to what you would spend on the windows side for a computer with the same quality parts and speed.

For quite some time macs didn't really compete in the PC world but right now they do. Ghz doesn't mean everything. The G4 is also a RISC processor where Intel and AMD both use CISC technology which makes a big difference. Speed is factored by all the little things around the CPU not just the CPU and we know this by AMDs naming system as well as the fact that Intel is going to a naming system soon. Those Pentium M chips at 1.5Ghz must seem like crap when you compare just the Ghz spec to its Pentium 4 brother at 2.8Ghz. But the real truth is that the Pentium M 1.5 chip just kills its brother the Pentium 4 2.8Ghz.

I think both platforms have their places in this world and right now they are both very close on speed to price ratio when dealing with quality parts. I can assure you that apple could build an emac for 499.99 but you don't want to know what brand and quality that system would have.

[Rahul]

ughhh , this emac thingy sux & im really angry at the way they handle their business in india , out here they sell a 1GHZ ,128mb SDram,40GB, Radeon7500

eMac for RS .58600 which is approx 1250 US$ , what do these punks take us for , its like everybody wants thirdworld countries to advance & then they try to fleece us , cmon man this is ridiculous , a weaker mac , infact i dont even think itll run smoothly that too for a higher price ,i guess its best to stick to a pc

& ignore Apple , :crazy: here is da link if you wanna check it out .

eMac India

[Steve]

My brother's eMac arrived today. My (Our) Room is more full of computers now, its a bit chaotic... But the eMac is cool. At the moment he has only the 256Mb RAM, but even so, it seems very nice, performance wise... Its his first computer of his own, and notably his first Mac. He's really happy with it, and will be more so, when he throws in 768Mb or 512Mb or extra RAM. :) Personally I think these machines ARE GOOD low priced machines... He got the uprated (80Gb / SuperDrive) model for an extra ?150, so paid ?700, but even then, its a cheap machine, capable of running 'the world's most advanced os', as well as burn DVD's, and be user friendly - The list goes on... I really like it, it kinda makes me think twice about my G5 now too. My setup is pretty awesome, but for the price of the eMac, it feels like ... I dunno, the eMac is just a GOOD deal IMO.. I don't regret the G5... ok, well maybe a little?! Nah, i love it! haha...

[SeaClearly]

It really is a good little computer isn't it. Well I didn't think the other countries were getting older models at such higher prices so with that said that is a bad deal for those people. I just assumed that if Europe, Canada and the USA had great pricing than every other country would have at least decent pricing but I guess sadly I'm wrong about that. That does suck a little bit. I feel kinda the same way because I couldn't get AppleCare as a consumer in Florida for my PowerMac G5 so I was forced to buy it from Compusa and buy their extended warranty. I don't normally buy extended warranties but with a first generation 2000+ dollar computer I'm not taking chances with it. Now my eMac I didn't bother buying the extended warranty from Compusa but I did by it from Compusa just so I could bring it home that day for the same price as Apple Store. I just threw in another 512MB stick of RAM and was flying away on this baby. Even owning a PowerMac G5 this little eMac can sure pull its own weight. This baby can run Photoshop CS and many other apps very well. I do notice that the G5 can do it much faster but for what the eMac costs it does it quite fast. The same tasks don't take that much longer than what my Athlon XP 3000+ system with 768MB of RAM took. Most things are quicker. Windows XP appears to run much quicker but it slows up quite a bit because it starts the process quickly from a GUI standpoint but loads everything else in the backround while the eMac loads everything it needs before showing the GUI. So most windows apps that load look like they load quickly but aren't usable for another few seconds at best.