The new iMac features a 21.5-inch display, 3.1GHz Core i3 processor, 250GB hard disk, 256MB HD 6750M graphics, and just 2GB of RAM. It lacks Thunderbolt connectivity and is only available to authorised education buyers. It’s $999 in the US, so $1179 isn’t too bad locally, right? Not when you see what spending just $170 more would get a school.
The previous baseline 21.5-inch iMac costs educational institutions $1349 ($1399 standard). That gets a school double the RAM, double the hard disk space, double the graphics memory, and twice as many CPU cores: a 2.5GHz quad-core Core i5. Oh, and a Thunderbolt port, which is up to 20 times faster than USB 2.0 and 12 times faster than Firewire 800.
So yeah, if you’re a school and you absolutely need a Mac, this is one of those cases where a little extra gets you a lot more juice. Meanwhile, I’m sure you could also build a great PC for that price. What say you Gizmodians? [Apple]
Halbeb
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 4:55 PMso what is the point of the thunderbolt port?
can i plug my USB key in there and have it zoom along at 20x the speed? didnt think so.
huu
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 5:06 PMohh gawd,.. here goes another PC vs MAC flame war. Anyway, let have a clean fight.. *ding* *ding* *ding*
Mike
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 5:22 PMTechnically that should be “Mac” not “MAC” :D
Steve
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 9:03 PMHe’s referring to Membrane Attack Complex of course!
Joel
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 5:23 PMIf you’re buying in volume and your school is pretty behind in terms of its use of learning technologies and you want to go down the Apple hardware path, then I can see the sense in the lower-spec model – that’s an extra machine for roughly every 7 that you buy.
If your school is a bit more advanced and starting to leverage some student-owned equipment, particularly the schools doing 1:1 iPad environments, you’d be mad not to go for slightly smaller numbers of the ballsier machines. Even young kids can create on the iPad & do post-production on the iMac, then upload it from there. Thunderbolt would be useful for older kids using more advanced media tools, being able to carry their own sessions with them on a high-speed external drive.
Andrew
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 5:44 PMiPads = teaching kids how to be consumers.
Steve
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 9:02 PMThere’s nothing remotely ‘educational’ about an iPad. Most of the schools that made the rounds on the tech blogs due to picking up iPads, did it to drum up exposure for their new ‘progressive’ image… which is then used to justify higher enrolment fees.
Joel
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 9:43 PMThat’s right, because the machines would be left to do the teaching, and all the trouble in London today is because of the Blackberry handsets. There’s nothing educational about any piece of hardware, it’s how it’s implemented that makes the difference.
Besides, I thought this was an article about iMacs…
Guess who
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at 7:47 AMYeah. Technology is evil. We should go back and live in the caves.
jonny
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 5:26 PMThat’s a boatload of cash for a school computer. I guess Steve has sold the world’s gullible on poor value machines with a hint of design-i-ness. From that POV it makes perfect sense to get the little blighters used to being exploited just as soon as we can eh.
Palstran
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 6:47 PMUniversities count as educational institutions too, and I’m pretty sure they buy a heck of a lot more computers than most schools. In my building alone we have at least 250 iMacs/Macbooks. Plus if you work at a uni you can get the education price when you buy for yourself.
At uni the upgraded model would be the sensible choice I think.
Steve
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 9:06 PMAll-in-one PCs are more popular in institutions. The problem is that you can probably get a higher-specced PC at half the cost of this model.
2GB RAM? 250GB HDD? Pathetic. I know at USYD, we run the 2010 iMacs, but they’re dual-booting Windows (which is pretty standard at any college)
Geoff
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 10:49 PMThis is just a listing price. The idea for this computer is for it to purchased in bulk for schools, not for single users. If this is the case, apple will generate special pricing on these computers for multiple purchases. Its very rare that this model will be purchased singularly, therefore, rarely at this price
matt
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 11:29 PMan education in being taken for a ride!
Mario
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at 1:16 AM$999 in the US doesn’t include sales tax (as it varies from state to state, which can get up to 10%
The australian price includes GST, as it’s always 10% no matter where in AUS you are.