[rezEdit]

I know I am not the only one to have noticed this...

You can buy a G4 Cube for $1799 or a low-end G4 tower for $1599.

The difference? With the cheaper G4 tower you are getting:

Gigabit ethernet
3 PCI slots

So where does the cube have an advantage?

450 MHz G4 over the towers' 400.
Small footprint.
Comes with Speakers bundled.

Is it worth loosing 3 Slots for the above "advantages" and a $200 price difference? I would say no.


I think Apple really messed up with pricing on these.

[Macguy]

How many times have I said this now?

I would buy a low end G4 over an iCube anyday.

If I already had a G4 and had a little extra spending money then I would probably get an iCube, but I don't so it doesn't matter.

I agree with you that the pricing is screwed up. Most people who have $1700 bucks are not going to have an issue with the size of the G4 towers. My PC case is much taller than my G4. I think it's a very cool looking product though.... and if I had the cash again I would consider buying one.

Won't the Cube have a big dust problem? With the DVD slot on top, and all.

Maybe the extra $$$$ is for the extra service the Cube will need

[cardinale]

I just don't get it. I simply don't get it. Why would someone buy a cube? I think they are cool, but I am not gonna drop $1700 for cool. I would drop $700 for cool maybe, I would definitely buy one instead of an imac if it were $1000, but I would much rather buy a real G4. I really want someone to convince me that I am wrong, but I don't think I will see that day.

I think there will be two main customer groups for the cube:

1) Consumers who are just blown away by the style, and are willing to spend for it

2) Professionals who will put the machine in an office or room where the style is actually important (I'm thinking designers and executives, that sort of thing.) The whole setup of a cube with the new LCD monitors is about as cool-looking as any tech I've ever seen. I think they'll be showing up on TV and in movies a lot.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that adding up the two makes for a blockbuster product. I'm pretty stumped by Apple's direction right now, as much as I'm impressed by their engineering. Apple seems to be moving towards being the Bang & Olefson (sp?) of PC's...

[yoyo52]

Short answer: yes, but not till the next revision, by which time I'd expect the single processor G4 tower to be history and the cube prices to have dropped.

[blizaine]

yeah I'd buy one but only because I am really rich and I buy everything apple releases.

j/k ;P

[PCTek]

Okay. The Cube is for iMac users that want a G4. That's my opinion.

AND the Cube has a standard VGA port, so any VGA monitor can work.

[MacNZ]

No, earning the extra cash to pay for it would be a b*tch. I think it's cool and all, good design, just not refined enough and cheap enough to compel one to buy it.

[oscar]

Come on guys, I know some of us have computers much powerfull then you need, and "upgrade" for bragging rights. In that notion, I think bringing a cube to a LAN party would be kinda cool.

------------------
-See Yea!

[Cipher13]

No, because of the PCI slots. I've already used up all three on my Sawtooth 400. Apple really needs the Mystic to have 6 PCI slots.
FYI: PCI slots taken by 2nd Ethernet card, SCSI card, 2nd graphics card.

Cipher13

[Macguy]

Yeah really, iCube isn't able to support multiple monitors!

I gotta have support for at least 2 monitors for my next comp.

I really hope they market the Cube similar to the 20th ann. Mac, or at least as a specialty type product. I assume they are. In that case, God bless Apple, because it's a product that will appeal to specific people, and will enhance Apple's image as a company with visionary design, along with the whole "Think Different" thing, which is great. Look what that strategy has done for the Mac. The important thing, is that they do this while continuing to stress the bread and butter, which is producing the best, most modern and powerful / useful machines there is. The side "showpony" stuff(form)is awsome, as long as this does not take away from the function of the hardware from a user standpoint.

[Evangellydonut]

cipher, if you set up a LAN of sort, then you wouldn't need a 2nd ethernet card, no? at least that was my solution to things ^_^

Also, eventually, you'll be able to replace your 2nd monitor card w/nVidia's MX, freeing up yet another slot.

I have a TV card, a SCSI card, and eventually a sound card for my sawtooth

[Macguy]

hope they market the Cube similar to the 20th ann. Mac

I wouldn't think so, it doesn't seem like the iCube will only be available in limited quantites, there are two of them, and they fit right in the middle of the product grid, suggesting that they are supposed to ]appeal to the mid-range users.

There's a run on for ya

[slboett]

Yes, I would buy one and in fact, we have ordered some already for some of the more visible exec's who's offices are very much based in style.
As for the difference between it and the low-end G4 towers, not many are going to be using gigabit Ethernet anytime soon - just ask your sys admins! Very costly.
The iMac doesn't fit in certain situations and the tower is too imposing on most desktops. The "cube" will do just nicely for those who need power in limited doses and cool in major doses!

Scott

[Don Pickett]

If I had the extra cash, I would buy one just for its looks. . .

I think there will be three markets for the Cube.

1) Home. People who want the style/G4 for home use, but who don't need the expandability. In my experience, most home users will never use a PCI slot. They want a reasonably fast machine to do their business, check the email, pay bills, and play games. Machines are not expanded per se - they are replaced, and the old machine handed down to the kids/friends/moved to the basement, etc. I think the Cube will latch onto a similar market as the iMac, but might target a wealthier/more style-conscious demographic.

2) As has already been mentioned, office situations where style is important, and, at least here in MYC, there are many of those. My girlfriend works in a post production/non-linear editing house, and they have an iMac at the front desk. I'll bet a month's rent that, if the Cube had been around when they bought, they would have picked one up. This is a place stuffed with Avids (which, by the way, are run off of a stack of G4s, not NT boxes), NT boxes, Macs and more RAIDs than you can shake a stick at. $1800 is nothing.

3) Office situations where the people need a computer, won't need to expand it, and where the Cube's small footprint is a very good idea. In my experience, the vast majority of computers in the business world are used similarly to home ones - word processing, Excel, email, light Powerpoint. The machines are not expanded, and not used to their potential, and when they are old, they are replaced and either moved around in the organization or given away/sold/donated. For the areas of work in which real power and expandibility is needed, the companies don't skimp. Walk into a printing plant or a pre-press house or diring house in NYC and you'll see iMacs and older, beige machines doing the light work and rows and rows of G4s, and NT and *NIX boxes doing the real work.

Don

[Don Pickett]

Whoops - diring house should read editing house. Don't ask me how edit became dir. I don't know. . .

(And MYC is NYC. Bad day for typing. . .)

Don

[MacNZ]

Ok, well I was looking at buying a cube but got a 7300 secondhand for $200. Now with a little more cash I'll put a competitive processor in it. Good thing: It has 3 PCI slots unlike the Cube. I can add a Voodoo 5! Have fun!

[naepstn]

OK, some thoughts...

I agree it might be slightly overpriced, but not by much, for many of the reasons already mentioned (style, novelty, small footprint, etc.). As for marketing for this thing, who are the main detractors of the iMac? Those who think that it looks like a child's toy or just don't like the look and the colours, those who think that it's not powerful enough, those who want or need a single monitor larger than 15" and lastly, many GAMERS.

The first group of people should all be quite content with the look of the Cube. It's sleek, quiet and quite beautiful IMHO. It maintains almost all the ease of use and simplicity of the iMac, yet looks more professional (and packs a mighty wollup with the G4 processor). It's not nearly as intimidating for computer Newbies as the tower.

Performance-wise, the cube should beat the pants off the iMac, especially for Antivec enhance products. I think that a lot of people probably opted against the iMac because they wanted a 17" or larger monitor.

Now the big potential market, I think...
The cube offers a far faster processor, can accomodate more RAM and most importantly, has a much better graphics card than the iMac. Now, when you bring into the equation the whole fiasco with ATI, things maybe make even more sense. What if the cube was slated to ship with a Radeon card (and maybe the low end tower wasn't). Then this would have been an awesome gaming system, offering a good deal of expandability in the areas that mattered most (RAM, Graphics card and probably processor, assuming it's a ZIF processor). A gamer could buy a cheap 17" monitor (which might have stopped him/her from buying an iMac, as mentioned before) and scream along playing Q3Arena or whatever, without too much worry about being outdated in the very near future, adn not being able to upgrade.

As for the matter of expandibility, I think that the best thing Apple could do to compliment the Cube would be to release their own (matching, of course) external Firewire-connected expansion module, with 4 (or however many) PCI slots, a couple of HD bays, and a bay for a 2nd CD/DVD/CDRW drive. Now that would ROCK!!! The size of the thing would be about the same as the Cube itself, and could maybe even stack (with the Cube on top, of course). I noticed another company (too lazy to look it up again) just announced a similar product to that, and actually using a Firewire connection. It sounds very cool, and a perfect solution for those complaining about the lack of expandibility. This would also help Apple boost the proliferation of 3rd-party Firewire products (which I think is their reasoning behind limiting the number of PCI slots in the G4s, as is).

This machine might make a whole lot of sense for home buyers that, for the most part, only have need for an iMac, but where occasionally they want to have more options (like having a hardcore gamer in the house, who would otherwise be arguing against getting an iMac).

Perhaps I'm way off on this, and I'm sure that a lot of this is just some Pipedreams of mine, but if I were in charge... :-)

Cheers!
Noah

[Cipher13]

cipher, if you set up a LAN of sort, then you wouldn't need a 2nd ethernet card, no? at least that was my solution to things ^_^

Yes, but without the 2nd ethernet card, I need a hub - and the hubs are a couple hundred dollars. I can get the second ethernet card for free, so why not....
The job of the second card will be to take the cable modem.

Cipher13

[suhail]

The Cube has it's Video card in a PCI slot, making it replaceable. Steve said in his Keynote that 'you can get access to the RAM and Video card'

The Cube seems to be made of a few layers of boards joined together by slots. Does this mean we can upgrade the Cube by replacing older boards with newer ones? Or even purchasing after market boards?

[active]

The Cube doesn't have a fan - this will, at least in theory, allow you to 'leave' it to go into sleep mode (rather than turning it off) and come back to it later without having to reboot.

[PCTek]

Oh, please. "Hubs are a couple of hundred dollars."

What crap is that? I can get a 4-port 10Base-T hub for $40, and an 8-port 10/100 switch for less than $100.

[Cipher13]

Freaking hell here we go again.
AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS!
Get your head around the fact that the American dollar isn't the only one!
A decent 4 port hub, over $100. Easy. The cheapest I have found so far is $115 for a 3 port hub. Yeah, right!

Cipher13

Hello, here's something else to keep in mind with the Cube. You HAVE to drop another $500 for the new 17" monitor to hook up to the thing. So now you're looking at $2200!! Thanks, Apple (do Mac users have stupid written on their foreheads?)

[denim]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
Get your head around the fact that the American dollar isn't the only one!

Unless otherwise specified, we in the US tend to be fairly US$-centric. You could always specify AU$ when you say things like that.

[PCTek]

If you were paying attention, you would notice that the Cube has a VGA PORT. You can go anywhere, and get a 15", 17", whatever inch monitor to use with it. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO USE A NEW ADC MONITOR.

Well, ebay has some hubs for cheap. I just saw a 16 port for $USD 10.

Originally posted by Cipher13:
Freaking hell here we go again.
AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS!
Get your head around the fact that the American dollar isn't the only one!
A decent 4 port hub, over $100. Easy. The cheapest I have found so far is $115 for a 3 port hub. Yeah, right!

Cipher13

I'm afraid Cube does (or will) not have a sound-in port. It means mp3'ers are lost.

[Herr Newton]

Originally posted by denim:
Unless otherwise specified, we in the US tend to be fairly US$-centric. You could always specify AU$ when you say things like that.

Heee hee... not the only one I guess, Cipher13 ;-) Seriously, we should all start affixing our currency to make it more obvious. AU$, US$, CA$, NZ$, etc. are all completely valid, though, of those, the US$ is by far the most prominent in the global economy. For fake of fairness, just keep in mind that prefixing as such solves a few headaches for us all.

[Herr Newton]

Originally posted by rezzak:
I'm afraid Cube does (or will) not have a sound-in port. It means mp3'ers are lost.

What? Unless you're going from an external analog source. And you can buy USB video i/o dongles which have sound i/o as well.

[iPaul UK]

I just don't know what the hell is wrong with Apple.. They always have to allow at least one big phuq-up every-now-and-again...

G4 Cube, Great idea! But $1700!? Who's bright idea was that!? Do they intend to sell these things or not? No UK prices have been set yet.. But $1700 translates to around �1200, but I'd bet they will sell it for even more than this. And just 64Mb of Ram? No multimonitor support?

People with more money than sense will buy one.

Does anyone know if there is any mic sound input? How is the built-in PlainTalk software or Via Voice will be used withoug buying a 3rd party product? Looks like they were a little short sighted, they just killed any voice recognition software on Macs with the cube.

[PCTek]

Blah. As i have stated before...

If you want expansion. Get a G4 Tower.

The 450MHz Cube is $1700. The 450MHz G4 Tower is $2499.

It *is* cheaper. And you can upgrade the HD, RAM, and video card in the Cube.

It was made for people who want a G4, but dont want to pay for the "priviledge" of expansion. (Like me)

[rezEdit]

For the record, the Cube has no sound in or out. This means no mic's no headphones, etc.

Any such peripherals will have to be USB, like the speakers that come bundled with it, like the mic that ships with ViaVoice.

Looks to me that by eliminating these traditional sound i/o connections that Apple maybe should have stuck a couple of extra USB ports on the thing, evn if they had to do four ports sharing two channels.

[Evangellydonut]

I can buy an 8 port 10bt hub for US$20 (less than an-hour-and-half salary of a summer-internship for a college sophomore...), or an 8 port 10/100bt hub for US$50...

something just occurred to me...since it has a regular monitor support, and a special jack for the new Apple monitors, what if you plugged one into each? do you have dual monitor support?

time and time again, USB sound solution is far from satisfactory! with only 2 controllers, and tons of perpherials using it, it won't cut it. Right now, I have a scanner, printer, keyboard, mouse, gravis pad, and soon Digi-cam on 2 bus...for some, monitor to color-sync, and for some, superdisk/zip, and/or CDRWs. Until USB2.0, the bandwidth bottleneck of USB will be problematic.

Now, back to the original question. Heck no, no G4 Cube! for $200 more than the 500Mhz model, I can get a dual G4 450 w/gigabit ethernet while expandable! On another note, I certainly hope the new G4 towers still have standard sound I/Os...

[Herr Newton]

Originally posted by Evangellydonut:
[B
something just occurred to me...since it has a regular monitor support, and a special jack for the new Apple monitors, what if you plugged one into each? do you have dual monitor support?[/B]

No... somewhere (can't remember where---info overload from too many forums on too many sites) mentioned that you'd effectively get 1/2 brightness for some reason. It might also do some nasty things with the hardware... I'm guessing Apple has some sort of autosensing circuitry on the ADC to disable the VGA port when the ADC is in use.

Originally posted by rezEdit:

For the record, the Cube has no sound in or out. This means no mic's no headphones, etc.

...

Actually, the Cube does has a headphone jack. A minor relief.


http://www.apple.com/powermaccube/specs.html

[Chezedog]

No, I would not buy a Cube.
Not for myself, anyway.
Looks cool, but it's the innards that count.
And bang for the buck.

I'd not buy myself an iMac, either, but have purchased them as gifts.

So maybe I might buy one, but if I did, I'd give it away!

------------------

[Cipher13]

Well, if you're feeling overly generous, don't hesitate to send one down to me . Just ask for the address

Cipher13

[wlonh]

"The Cube is Selling...
In response to our editorial, Is the Cube too Weird, we have received responses from a number of Apple authorized resellers, claiming that they are getting orders for the Cube already. On Friday, one of the retailers told us they already had 20 orders for the machine. This is a limited barometer from Apple resellers giving us an early peek into how successful the Cube might be.
Since they know their regular clients, these resellers are telling us the same crowd that bought the 20th anniversary edition, and other affluent Mac buyers, are the ones rushing to buy the machine. In the resellers� judgement, they think it will be a successful seller and a good move for Apple.
As far as the critics go, they have been from the Windows oriented press. They weren�t too kind to Apple about the iMac either. We know the cube isn�t an iMac, but it is a provocative design. "

SOURCE

[pcurtner]

I work for an advertising agency-- almost all of my designers and the chief of the creative department have all stopped by asking when they'll get theirs..

The style factor here is huge, and damn the price.

Me? I won't buy one for personal use, but there is definitely room for a few Cubes around the office.. especially if I can get them to buy some fancy monitors as well..

Ok, most of you folks have been talking from the american (or australian) perspective. The european market looks different, though. Although i do agree with the majority, that the cube looks sharp, and that i want one right away...it's just to darn' expensive. Here in good ole' Germany the small cube is going for about (sit tight) 4,800 DM. That's about 900 DM more than the small G4. And no, the G4/450 has TWO processors, not one. So the G4/450 is _much_ cheaper than a cube.
The problem in Germany is, that people only look at the price. Yeah, i know, sucks. But that's the way it is. The cube is going to be a might dust gatherer in the shops. Only the yuppies can (and will) afford them. And sorry, i'm not one of those. So, no cube for me. (sob)

Greetings, Andreas.

[Xyphoid Process]

I think that one reason for the cube's existence is to sell the other models. The iBorg creates a "signature" machine that will get wide media exposure and bring people into the stores, not to buy but for a look. From there they can be sold on an iMac or G4. The Dodge Viper (even PT Cruiser?) is a similar case - not many people will will walk out with a Viper but it get's them into the showroom...

[Richard Clark]

Originally posted by rezEdit:

Looks to me that by eliminating these traditional sound i/o connections that Apple maybe should have stuck a couple of extra USB ports on the thing, evn if they had to do four ports sharing two channels.

The one thing to keep in mind is that there are two extra USB ports on the new extended pro keyboard. So there will be two on the Cube, one of those will be used by the keyboard, four total on the keyboard, one will be for the mouse leaving three. So there will be a total of four USB ports. One will probably be used for the monitor so that would bring it down to three. That's acceptable.

Cube - 2 USB
Keyboard - 4 USB
Minimum that will be used (2-3) depending

Another note regarding the cube and keyboard Apple announced last week. There is not a pronounce power key. It is there though as the eject buttonl. The philosophy and direction Apple is going is letting people know that OSX will be meant to run 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Unix does not get turned on and off normally. BUT Apple should let people know that the power key is still around. It appears that the CUBE is the first push or effort to get everyone ready for the changes OS X will bring.




[This message has been edited by Richard Clark (edited 07-25-2000).]

hi thar!
i certainly will buy a cube:here's my bizzarro reasons:

*it's small enough to hide from baddies when i go on holiday
*it's small enough to make holding on to my ppc tower practical in a small work room
*it's the cheapest way to get a 450mz (i declare the multi processors a passing, spotty-ly supported fad!)
*what it ain't got can be plugged in

i like the idea of an external card box tho..that's wacky

[iPaul UK]

Give it a DVD Ram drive and double the Ram to 128Mb, And then it might be worth the currant asking price. But right now it has too many limitations to justify it's cost.

If your dumb enough to buy a computer just because it looks good, no matter the cost, then go right ahead and buy a Cube. But rather you than me to be ripped off by Apple.

U$1500 / UK�1000 would be much more realistic.. Just think how many more people would buy one at this price! Makes lots of sense to me...

I still have a Power Computing 166 at home so I'll need to upgrade soon. But I'll hold out for a Rev. B G4/MP (hopefully with more PCI slots in the future!)
But to whom is the Cube marketed? Don Pickett hit it on the nose I think. But I'll throw in my 2� since its free.
First of all I'll ditto everyone's amazement at the price! What?!
It fills a gap in the product line vacated by the DT profile. When the B/W G3's and iMacs came out the DT was eliminated in favor of MT and AIO. I know of 2 people who, when shopping for their first computer in the last year, considered buying an iMac. The monitor was too small, so they went to Wal-Mart and bought whatever was on sale with a 17" monitor. (Poor souls!) So this type of consumer is one target.
As others have said, Execs that want style or businesses that need office CPU's with a small footprint are the other targets. (Oh yeah - its a novelty for some as well.)
But I don't get the pricing. Large companies don't look as much at the pricing as the OS. My company's standards include mention of Pentium III 233 MHz and Windows 95. Those of us in publishing divisions are on our own (thank God!) But $1799 is WAY too much for the aforementioned consumer. Why pay $2500 (with monitor and printer) when you can get what appears to be the same or better from Gateway for half the price?
So that's it: Great product design that fills a gap in the market... for more than its tarket market is willing to pay. This only reinforces the idea that Macs are more expensive.
So close...