Apple quietly launches new $999 educational iMac

For that little extra $150, you sure get an incredible specs bump. This model seems a little too underpowered for such a faster one within reach...

Hey the emac is back!

So, Apple, school support? Still not getting it, it seems. How about you stop pretending we can play the "consumer electronics game" like individuals.

I wish Apple would make a push for more RAM in their base machines. How much ram is wasted and tossed straight in the landfill from cheap 1GB stix that can't upgrade anything? Unlike other makers, Apple has the buying power to get a deal on the chips and the margin to absorb some cost on these low end machines.

CPU is not really an issue... These are for grade schools after all, these ate still twice as fast as my perfectly useful 2007 MacBook. Same goes for GPU, Apple keeps selling Intel "extreme" graphics so this is miles ahead. Hard disk is really just a placeholder... Any good education setup should be using network profiles and storage... Really 32GB of SSD would be better, but these drives are so cheap.

Lack of RAM is a big deal.. That is the one component Education machines should not skimp on because it affects useful extended life the MOST. These should be loaded up with the full 8GB even if Apple used slower chips tondo it. Schools get ONE chance at machines every 5 years or so and it's REALLY hard to justify the upgrade cost if it's not "built in". Apple could score a lot of deals just on the RAM alone.

Thunderbolt is not a big deal. The one issue is that educators are buying these by the dozen... Apple is cutting off the chance to sell those Hard Drive racks to the one group that would use them... (like they used them in the past) A thunderbolt "loop" would be just like the Appletalk networks of long ago... Combine with OSX server, that's a workgroup in a box capable of serious work beyond just Wikipedia.

Anandtech explains how poor of a "value" this is:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4592/apple-releases-educationonly-imac

"...to save a meager $150, you lose half your processor cores, half your graphics RAM, half your regular RAM, half your hard drive space, and your Thunderbolt port, and the only part upgradeable when purchasing is RAM"

When I login using our educational account the price is actually listed at $899. Don't know if that's just us or if you have a typo...

There is no ThunderBolt because it's the last iMac Model and they have the mid 2009 model as well.

Is this the old iMac w/ an upgraded os?!?!

The almost return of the emac?