[mitchell_pgh]

eMac
$1,099.00 [$999.00 edu] - Apple
1GHz PowerPC G4
256MB SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA drive
SuperDrive

eMac
$799.00 [$749.00 edu] - Apple
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo drive

Dell
$499.00 - Dell*
Dimension 2400
Base Model Includes:
Intel Celeron processor at 2.20GHz
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
128MB shared DDR SDRAM at 266MHz
17" (16.0"vis) Monitor
40GB Value Hard Drive Integrated
Intel Extreme 3D Graphics

* NOTE: I couldn't find a way to get the $499.00 Dell... It kept forcing me into upgrades! but I'm sure there is a way...

[gorickey]

Don't forget...the eMac comes with Panther...enough said!

[Kenneth]

Also the eMac is AIO form factor... good for school.

[willed]

so, err... remind me, what's your point? Are you saying Apple comes out of this well or not? What drive does the Dell have?

[chris v]

"Value" hard drive? Value?

OS X is worth 300 more than Windows, anyway.

CV

[cenutrio]

I wouldn't say that Apple prices are cheap right now, but very reasonable and fair. I think that Apple is in the right track right now. Very happy indeed!

[mitchell_pgh]

My point was that they are extremely reasonable.

Firewire, quality iApps, etc. etc.

[cenutrio]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
My point was that they are extremely reasonable.

Firewire, quality iApps, etc. etc.

We fully agree

[nvaughan3]

uh, it's an all in one. Not even remotely comparable.

[Paco500]

The link to the $499 Dell is here. It's very low-end. CD-ROM only, Intel integrated Graphics, bare-bones software bundle.

I'd call the eMac pretty damn competitive.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by Paco500:
The link to the $499 Dell is here. It's very low-end. CD-ROM only, Intel integrated Graphics, bare-bones software bundle.

I'd call the eMac pretty damn competitive.

I'm amazed that the eMac is so low in price. Combo drive, upgraded monitor, nice clean design, great software, Panther... blows that Dell out of the water.

It's an all in one, which sucks a little.

If they could make the same thing without the monitor for $699 and call it the Xswitch or something "switcher" related... you would have a goldmine (I would buy at least one)

That's what the cube should have been!

[cenutrio]

Originally posted by Paco500:
The link to the $499 Dell is here. It's very low-end. CD-ROM only, Intel integrated Graphics, bare-bones software bundle.

I'd call the eMac pretty damn competitive.

Yes, if you built your Dell system to match the basic eMac (combo drive, antivirus, software to burn CDs, optical USB mouse, office basic, microsoft plus digital media for movies, dell picture studio,and the wireless networking adapter) the price goes to $960!!!

[sleepyrenderer]

Originally posted by cenutrio:
Yes, if you built your Dell system to match the basic eMac (combo drive, antivirus, software to burn CDs, optical USB mouse, office basic, microsoft plus digital media for movies, dell picture studio,and the wireless networking adapter) the price goes to $960!!!

One way feature matching can be pretty misleading...

First, the AiO formfactor is only an advantage to a limited set of consumers. Most prefer the tower formfactor for its upgradability, internally and externally (like the monitor). Apple knows this and prices their tower formfactor computers accordingly.

Second, why did you add a wireless adapter to the Dell? The $799 eMac doesn't ship with an Airport card. It just has the empty slot and an internal antenna.

I don't understand why you added all that software either? Windows has built in shell and media player burning just like OS X. You add MS Office for whatever reason, but then don't tack it onto the price of the eMac. The cheapest productivity pack you can configure for the Dell is easily the equivalent of the AppleWorks, Quicken and Worldbook bundle. If you want to absolutely blow it away, configure the Dell with Works Suite 2004 for an addition 15$. Then you'll have excellent mapping/route planning software, photo editing, etc.

Now you have a problem. To make this fair you need to feature match in the other direction, but unfortunately it's impossible. You can't add a 400MHz FSB to the eMac...
or a bunch of PCI slots...
or DDR memory...
or 6 months of internet...
or support for 5.1 Audio...
or at home service...

Dell's most basic support option also gives you 1 year of 24x7 phone support vs Apple's 90 days.

I'm not arguing which of the two systems is the better deal... just that these feature comparisons where people attempt to make one side match the other are almost always hopelessly flawed in execution.

[cenutrio]

You have several good points. Still:

1. I added Office because the eMac ships with Appleworks.

2. I added the adapter to the dell because the eMac ships with the empty slot and the antenna (adapter do not mistake with card), and the basic dell, does not.

3. I do not buy your comment regarding the "excellent mapping/route planning software, photo editing, etc". It is far worse than Apple offer.


We just got a new eMac in my lab (ordered 2 weeks ago, we'll have to ask Apple for returning some money...Nice one package design for very competitive price (we both agree there).

The Dell box uses a Celeron, never fan of them, I do not care much for the FSB, and DDR, although the PCI slots are nice


My point was how misleading PC manufacturers prices are with the "start at $xxx".

[mitchell_pgh]

The simple fact that we are arguing over this is what I'm talking about. Apple doesn't have to deliver the least expensive computer... I'm just happy to see us in the ballpark.

Having a $1000+ system as the low end can be rather restrictive, but offering a nice $800 solution offers realistic alternatives to simply buying the cheapest computer you can.

I know it's only a $200 difference, but that's the difference between MANY families picking up a Dell and picking up a Mac.

P.S. It's not like you could even do movie editing on the Dell system... no Firewire, and it's not an option. I guess you could buy a $30+ firewire card, crack the case, install the drivers...

But then again...

[olePigeon]

If Apple didn't innovate anything they'd have $500 PCs too.

[sleepyrenderer]

Originally posted by cenutrio:
2. I added the adapter to the dell because the eMac ships with the empty slot and the antenna (adapter do not mistake with card), and the basic dell, does not.

Right, and that makes no sense. The empty slot on the Dell would be any of the PCI slots, which can hold any old Wireless NIC w/ antennae (many much cheaper than an Airport card).

3. I do not buy your comment regarding the "excellent mapping/route planning software, photo editing, etc". It is far worse than Apple offer.

OK, let's compare Apple's productivity bundle vs MS Works Suite 2004.

AppleWorks 6 is a so-so office suite as is Works Suite 7. Apple's bundle comes with Quicken and Works Suite comes with MS Money 2004. Apple's bundle comes with WorldBook Encyclopedia and Works Suite with Encarta 2004.

Works Suite comes with MS Streets and Trips 2004 and the only thing similar Apple bundles is maybe Sherlock, though the route-planning and Map quality isn't really in the same league.

Works Suite comes with a nice Photo Editor, MS Picture It! Photo Edition v9.

Obviously, the really nice part of Works Suite is that it comes with the full version of MS Word XP which is the most used Office application. Word v.X would be another $240 for the eMac...

The Dell box uses a Celeron, never fan of them, I do not care much for the FSB, and DDR, although the PCI slots are nice

The Celeron has gone through a lot of revisions since the much maligned original. They started actually being excellent budget processors with the celermine and the current P4-based Celerons of today are decent too. In a strange sort of way they're similar to the G4s in the eMac as they both are basically identical to their more expensive brethren, except for reduced cache (though it hurts the eMac more than the Dell because the eMac doesn't have the FSB/Memory bandwidth to pick up some of the slack for the missing cache).

My point was how misleading PC manufacturers prices are with the "start at $xxx".

Every OEM does this for their base models. For instance you'd have to be nuts to stick with the base 128MB of RAM in eMac when running OS X.

[Beewee]

You are forgetting all of the free programs that come with your Mac, imovie, and ichat -just to name a few. And of course, the OS that doesn't have more patches than a 1950s quilt, OS 10.3! Blasterworm anyone?

[cenutrio]

1. eMac is more wireless friendly, uses high-end airport extreme that is very compatible with most wireless networks, easy to install. I've been using wireless Macs since 2000, they are just better.

Last time I installed a wireless card to my brother XP machine was a waste of time. just setting up software was a huge pain in the ass, and we had to download drivers, and update XP to make it work. Time is valuable!

The Dell performance installing just a PCI wireless card will be very poor, it is better to get the adapter with antenna, etc. Of course, you can do it the cheap way with an old PCI card but again, performance will be not comparable.

2. About software: Having MS word is a very nice (sometimes I forget because as a student it cost me $20), still a home user may do with Appleworks just fine.

iPhoto, iMovie, sherlock, and iChat are just great and better value than PC counterparts.

3. Built-in Firewire (2) is huge if you own an iPod, back up HD, or any DV camera (as I do). Very useful in any classroom for movies video editing.

Also 5 USB (1.1 I think)

The eMac GPU is modest but better than the Dell.

4. Celerons are cheap, but quite fast processors. Still, any altivec application will perform extremely well in the eMac.

5. XP home edition against OS X panther...

Add another $100 for the Microsoft� Windows� XP Professional w/ Microsoft� Plus if you want to even with OS X

6. Yes, you buy a base model Mac and you better increase the RAM.

But in the Dell, you have to add RAM, combo drive, antivirus (you better do it!), the wireless adapter, XP pro, optical mouse.

It is far more misleading

When you add everything $832 (but RAM), from an original price of $499

[Ozmodiar]

You couldn't pay me the $300 difference to switch back to Windows...

[olePigeon]

Dell has better prices. No arguing it. But Dell doesn't have the same design costs as Apple.

Apple designs the hardware and software they sell so they have to factor in those costs. Dell prints stickers with their logo on it and slap it on other comapanys' hardware. Dell's only innovation is a new logo every few years. Wouldn't surprise me if even that was designed on a Mac.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
Dell has better prices. No arguing it. But Dell doesn't have the same design costs as Apple.

Apple designs the hardware and software they sell so they have to factor in those costs. Dell prints stickers with their logo on it and slap it on other comapanys' hardware. Dell's only innovation is a new logo every few years. Wouldn't surprise me if even that was designed on a Mac.

No, Dell has a cheaper price...

[icruise]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
No, Dell has a cheaper price...

Good point. I wouldn't say a $600 for a dog turd is a better price than $800 for a diamond ring.

Of course, I've never been too fond of the eMac's design, but it still blows the Dell out of the water.

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
No, Dell has a cheaper price...

Oops. Good point.

[sleepyrenderer]

I'm not going to argue through everything again since I'll just be repeating myself. But just remember when you're doing these one sided feature matches to keep in mind the features that you're not accounting for in the other direction (that you often can't account for).

Originally posted by cenutrio:
1. eMac is more wireless friendly, uses high-end airport extreme that is very compatible with most wireless networks, easy to install. I've been using wireless Macs since 2000, they are just better.

Whatever your feelings about how difficult it is to install a NIC, 802.llg PCI NICs w/ antennas are 38$ and up. An Airport Extreme card is like $99. If you feel it's necessary to add one to the Dell, add one to the price of the eMac too.

[cenutrio]

Originally posted by sleepyrenderer:
"...one sided feature matches..."

I disagree, just by training I try to understand a problem from different perspectives (although I recognize that not always successfully).

Still, it is obvious that the eMac option seems more appealing to me. Of course, you disagree. I'm just curious to know what your non-biassed judgment includes in the low-end Dell and what the final value is.

[malvolio]

That $1100 eMac is looking very tempting to me right now.
Realistically it's gonna be a couple of years before I can afford a G5 dualie. In the meantime, I could have a lot more fun on that 1 GHz G4 than I can on my 500 MHz G3 iMac.
Hmmm, SuperDrive and an 80 GB hard drive. I already have an external Firewire hard drive for backups, so all I would need is another 512 MB of RAM for about $90.
And maybe an iSight...

[drmcnutt]

Originally posted by cenutrio:
I disagree, just by training I try to understand a problem from different perspectives (although I recognize that not always successfully).

Still, it is obvious that the eMac option seems more appealing to me. Of course, you disagree. I'm just curious to know what your non-biassed judgment includes in the low-end Dell and what the final value is.

Regardless of the "value" All-in-ones will ALWAYS limit you. At any price. Expandability is worth the premium.

DRM

[icruise]

Originally posted by drmcnutt:
Regardless of the "value" All-in-ones will ALWAYS limit you. At any price. Expandability is worth the premium.

DRM

Yes and no. If you have everything you could possibly need during the life of the computer already built in (as you could argue that you do with the eMac) then the "lack of expandability" is really a non-issue, especially now that we have so many firewire/usb peripherals.

And many PCs I've seen seem very expandable and flexible until you realize that they are missing key features out of the box and you have to use your PCI slots (or whatever) to fill those needs.

[Xeo]

Originally posted by Icruise:
If you have everything you could possibly need during the life of the computer already built in (as you could argue that you do with the eMac) then the "lack of expandability" is really a non-issue, especially now that we have so many firewire/usb peripherals.

I agree. 90% of the computing population buys a computer and sticks with it until they get a new one without upgrading in between. All-in-ones are great for these kinds of people because they take up less room and are easier to set up and move around. My mom would fit into this category perfectly.

[Sealobo]

For some reason I thought about the Cooper S and the Neon when i saw the comparison.

[drmcnutt]

Originally posted by Icruise:
Yes and no. If you have everything you could possibly need during the life of the computer already built in (as you could argue that you do with the eMac) then the "lack of expandability" is really a non-issue, especially now that we have so many firewire/usb peripherals.

And many PCs I've seen seem very expandable and flexible until you realize that they are missing key features out of the box and you have to use your PCI slots (or whatever) to fill those needs.

You're still limited if something goes wrong with say your monitor you'd be hard pressed to use your AIO computer while it's sent away to repair. I guess your right if the emac is all you'll ever want to use, but I prefer options especially for the money. 17-inch monitors are small these days and probably too small in another couple of years or so, but you live with your limitations in an AIO and that was my point.

What missing key features are you talking about? PCI=expandability and upgradability.

DRM

[cenutrio]

Originally posted by drmcnutt:
Regardless of the "value" All-in-ones will ALWAYS limit you. At any price. Expandability is worth the premium.

DRM

I may be wrong, but I like compact designs like the iMac or eMac. They are expandable enough for me:

-RAM
-Wireless
-FW
-and USB
-VGA

I still keep my bondi iMac which is used by my younger cousins. Not speed demon but great fro surfing the web, email, networking, etc.

[benb]

Originally posted by sleepyrenderer:
One way feature matching can be pretty misleading...

First, the AiO formfactor is only an advantage to a limited set of consumers. Most prefer the tower formfactor for its upgradability, internally and externally (like the monitor). Apple knows this and prices their tower formfactor computers accordingly.

Consumers care about upgradablilty? HA!

No one who buys that $499 Dell will ever crack open the case. No one. Why would they?

What will you upgrade the integrated graphics to? Nothin, because that Dell does not have an AGP slot. Are they gonna need a better sound card? No. SATA or SCSI? No. More RAM? They'll have the factory do it. Bigger hard drive? No. Slap in a newer Celeron? No. A USB PCI card. No chance.

You see, expandiblity is not a factor on entry level computers. So what the eMac does not have in expandibility does not matter. The kind of person that buys a $499 PC will just buy a new one in 4 years when it is too slow.

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by benb:
You see, expandiblity is not a factor on entry level computers. So what the eMac does not have in expandibility does not matter. The kind of person that buys a $499 PC will just buy a new one in 4 years when it is too slow.

You're thinking too much like a Mac user. A $500 PC is not going to last you 4 years and will be replaced within a year and half. That's why it's $500.

[thunderous_funker]

It should also be noted that an often essential part of achieving the sub $500 price is using chipsets that are short-run parts supplied at a drasticly low price for use in a very narrowly defined application.

Those nice little "designed for WinME/XP" logo stickers often mean that not only are the chances of finding hardware drivers for future OS upgrades not likely, but the PC reseller probably won't support any other OS being installed on that machine either.

HP, Dell, Compaq all do this on their low end models. That can shorten the shelf-life of the hardware considerably.

Now some end-users might never feel the urge to install a different version of Windows than what the machine shipped with, but it might matter to others.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Intel Extreme 3D Graphics

Argh, that alone makes the Dell machine not worth considering.

[mitchell_pgh]

I think expandability was ONCE very important, but to be honest, it's starting to become much less important especially on consumer computers.

We once needed one slot for an ethernet card, one for a modem, another for a scanner, another for an external hard drive, zip disk, etc. etc.

With USB and FireWire... they have become rather moot.

Other then extra hard drive, you can do almost anything you can do with a tower.

[nobitacu]

The cheaper Apple can make their computer, the better. Maybe my friend will finally be able to afford to buy his little sister a iBook.

Ming

[Apple Pro Underwear]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
I think expandability was ONCE very important, but to be honest, it's starting to become much less important especially on consumer computers.

We once needed one slot for an ethernet card, one for a modem, another for a scanner, another for an external hard drive, zip disk, etc. etc.

With USB and FireWire... they have become rather moot.

my feelings exactly.

for a few years now, Apple has been making computers with the built in necessities like cd-rw/dvd...after that, i think most people do not really need that much shite on their comp. now it is becoming extremely moot since external stuff make even better investments.

HD: computers come loaded with 20-40gb HDs already...an external 120gb HD makes a great stay at-home backup at a great price

Optical: with the PC having a standard writer...you can make a direct copy of a cd to another cd. and when you get a new computer you can do the same because the speed is there. with great prices on 40x writers...

the only drawback to me is room for the external devices. and that is arguably balanced by the portability. you can bring you 120gb hard drive around.