new education mac

apple insider reports that apple is working on new mac for education, that will replace eMac and have iMac style design.

they do not offer any specs but I think it's not hard to figure out.
I'd expect

iMac case and motherboard (will save apple the design costs)

1.5 core solo or 1.66 core duo (iMac CPU is socketed so it will make it even easier for apple to use existed MB)

combo or super drive (BTO)

80-160 HDD

integrated graphics

512 RAm

no wireless or blue tooth.

799$ - 999$

i would be surprised if it didn't include wireless. My school when we had macs all ran wirelessly because it was neater.

I too would think it would have an Airport Card. That way they can sell Base Stations too.

No wireless in a school environment would be downright stupid. Think of all the cables the school would have to purchase. Our school has a wireless network at about 80% of campus, and anyone can access it with their account and password.
The network is basically setup by a huge array of airport stations and iBooks, all data is stored on a 10TB Xserve RAID in the basement. We have a 6kbps connection to the internet.

All wireless. All with iBooks and eMacs. (the teachers get to use iMacs, but only 17" muahaha)

yogi said:

No wireless in a school environment would be downright stupid.

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QFE!

This sounds like a good idea as a replacement for the eMac - Very feasable.

Was the eMac really an educational mac? I always thought it was more of a budget mac, until the Mini was released.

My school doesn't have wireless. In fact, the whole county runs on ONE 10 MB/S connection. It is slowwwwwwww. I have teachers I know that bring their own laptops and hook up their dial up because its faster. They've been trying to get wireless, but the system is very poor. So when I bring the iBook, I have to steal an ethernet cable from one of the busted computers, because theres always at least one that doesnt work in each room.

- My school has macs everywhere, all networked, everything. We have emacs in the computer lab. iMac g3s in classrooms for the teachers. If the teachers need to give presentations they would bring in a projector and an iBook or if the students need to use laptops they bring in a cart full of iBooks. I believe we have 3 carts full of 20 laptops. Wireless is great. I can even bring in my laptop and surf the web.

-why would the emac look like an imac? i thought the point of having the emac as it was was so that the students don't tip it and such. And woulden't consumers buy it and think they are getting the iMac and then COMPLAIN that its not great?

Was the eMac really an educational mac? I always thought it was more of a budget mac, until the Mini was released.

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No, the "e" stood for "earl".

I think a good design for the new eMac will be similar to the current iMac, but have a kind of deeper curved back and a flat base (no metal stand), which would make it stable (but not as deep as the eMac).

And a 1.66GHz Core Duo, 512mb ram, 80GB hdd, 17" widescreen and airport extreme will be a nice base config.

The college I go to runs a couple of hunderd Dell desktops on wired 100mbps ethernet, and about 20 Rock laptops on wirless in the physics department. I'm not too sure about any other departments.

My secondary school ran Dells on a Celeron server, and as expected, it crashed and went slow all the time. Luckily they had a wireless network and I used to take my ThinkPad to use (I wasn't a Mac convert then).

I have seen it..........

well not really, but www.engadget.com ha a funny fake photo

and this is my "widescreen" version

I like it!

The widescreen version looks quite good with the triangular kinda shape.

this is really cool, will it be available for the public or just schools.

poohfighter said:

this is really cool, will it be available for the public or just schools.

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Both I would imagine?
Same as the eMac has always been, or at least to my knowledge.

MJGUK said:

Both I would imagine?
Same as the eMac has always been, or at least to my knowledge.

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actuelly at first emac was exclusivly for educational market. apple releaced it to general public bit later.

MJGUK said:

Both I would imagine?
Same as the eMac has always been, or at least to my knowledge.

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The eMac was originaly only marketed toward education, but was released for the public a month after it came out because of demand.

Ah righty, got ya.

But then presumably they would just follow the trend of previous times and release this one to the public right at the start?

MJGUK said:

Ah righty, got ya.

But then presumably they would just follow the trend of previous times and release this one to the public right at the start?

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I don't see why not.

I think Apple has a major void in their product line without a Mac at the $900-$1000 range. You have so many people just stuck who can't decide wether or not to buy a Mini Core Duo or an iMac.

to_tough_to_die said:

I don't see why not.

I think Apple has a major void in their product line without a Mac at the $900-$1000 range. You have so many people just stuck who can't decide wether or not to buy a Mini Core Duo or an iMac.

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Indeed and of course with the Mini you don't have the screen/sounds etc - So I'm sure they'd push quite a lot of units if they released a refreshed/new eMac

MJGUK said:

Indeed and of course with the Mini you don't have the screen/sounds etc - So I'm sure they'd push quite a lot of units if they released a refreshed/new eMac

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The main issue I had with the eMac was it's cost comparitive to the Mini. $300 over the Mini of the same specs for a CRT and a keyboard and mouse set? Not exactly worth it.