Ehh

I dont like apple, never will!

1g of ddr3 is just plain dumb for $900 it should have at least 2g of ddr2. The apple tax is insulting you can get any other company's pc with better stats for half the price.

Only the extremely uninformed buyer would ever consider these boxes.

i hate apple so much. fucking hippies and college kids who dont know shit about computer's tout them around as though they are some sort of trophy. then of course the maacbook air now that is a piece of without compare.besides macs dont look that cool anyways, well not enough to justify the double price over a better pc.

Your correct in saying that that $900 dollar computer, but a school doesn't need more then 1 GB of RAM when all they do is web browse and do stuff in word.

Any company that wants to make more profit will increase profits by eliminating parts that the consumer wouldn't really need

@SneakySnake You are a retard, 1 gig of ram? next they'll be replacing the keyboard with the wheel... (google macbook wheel)

Great, now educational institutions will be able to act as wholesalers to retailers that will then sell to consumers or maybe they will cut out the middleman entirely and start selling their "surplus' iMacs to consumers directly.

If an institution really wants OS X for some reason get a Pystar. You can get a faster machine for $500.

OMG!! Apple is really trying hard with this one! LOL!! They finally sell something for less than $1000 and it's got almost no RAM. 1 GB of ram is a joke, I have 4 times that in my computer.

A few months ago I saw Oregon Trail (updated version, not very good) for the PC. I have no reason to ever go back to a Mac, but man, did I love playing that game at school during lunch.

If the school knows how to save money, they should just spend half of that $900 and get a Dell Mini.

Of course, they will have to stick with Micro$oft and hire a good IT to fight with all the potential viruses that were out there.

Just for kicks:

CPU: Well I can't even find an intel C2D 2ghz CPU anywhere, so forced to go with the T8100 at 2.1GHz instead. Not available for resale, but on e-bay under $150. And since we know that ebay is now more expensive then NewEgg, we can assume that this is overpriced. More like $125ish would be right.

GeForce 9400: Assuming this is the 512MB model, not 1GB. Non the less, price is $50 for 512MB, and about $60 for the 1GB.

160GB HD (lol at this btw). Assume a quality company, so lets take Seagate 7200.12. $40. If you prefer another manufacturer, $45 tops.

802.11n card. At best, $25. At worst, $75 for some of the highest end model. Can safely assume highest end is NOT in the iMac. So approximat about $45.

DDR3 1066. LOl at this too. 1GB eh? Couldn't find any 512MBx2 kits, so assume 1 stick, tops at $18.99. 2GB kits top at $38.99 btw, just for comparison's sake.

DVDRW - looking at only the 'slim' models, this still tops out at $70, and goes as low as $39. Apples Superdrive retails for $100 just for comparison.

OS - XP Pro for OEMs - $140

20"LCDs retail for approx $150. Lets be conservative and say a laptop LCD costs the same amount.

Laptop Camera: best options will run about $80-$100. Mainstream is

The schools should be buying lease backs for about $150. This will get you a XP capable machine that is about 3-4 years old. Add in a CRT 17 or 19 for about $20- $30. They would be retarded to buy new machines.

They could buy these units by the pallet from Dell.

Good work Gesha. A very conservative estimate that shows even with relatively high end components, which the product will not have, this machine would only cost ~$700 retail.

A M$ fanboy would have just noted the lowest possible prices and summed them up. Keep in mind that wouldn't be the worst idea however because apple does not buy retail and the lowest retail prices wouldn't be too far off the mark of production costs.

Wow this is amazing! Apple is thinking schools shovel out $900 for computers!? My school paid $350 each for their computers and that was when school budget were decent! My school already breaks the law by requiring $20 and an extra $70 for each sport or club a student may be in. Where does Apple think schools will get the extra cash to buy overpriced computers that do not even meet the basic needs of the school (restricting any from of use of the PC via security software) and its students (it is nice being able to understand the OS when using it)?

Also the PCs at my school are ancient, but have the following parts (I might have broken a few rules looking up there system specs):

Basic:
P4 2.2 Ghz
1GB DDR 333 Mhz
graphics unknown
20GB HDD

For teachers:
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ 1.8 Ghz
1GB DDR 333 Mhz
ATI Xpress 200m
40 GB HDD

Both of which have 1GB OF RAM!!!

And for a fun comparison.

The principle's PC built by your truly:
Q9450 @ 3.6 Ghz w/ swiftech H120 (large heatsinks would not fit)
MSI P45
8GB DDR2 1000 Mhz 4-4-4-15 Mushkin Redline
9600 GT low profile
Silverstone HTPC case.

wow what a deal, they are selling the old discounted models to students and asking them to pay through the nose for them...

This comment is for tacoslave. In colleges people need to get work done and no time for pc related issues that is why they own Apples. Dealing with a load of pc hardware and driver issues and knowing how to resolve them does not constitute "knowing shit" about computers. What you claim to know is exactly that... useless shit. I doubt you do anything past putting crappy pcs together and game on it. I would be shocked if your computer skills are past that. Apple is purchased by people who want headache free computing experience. For the rest of you there is the cheap pc alternative. Enjoy.

What did you do today son

iLearn

Apple OSX: too dumb, too numb, too chilish!
MS Windows: Friendly, not with everyone that put finger in it's ass!
Linux: Angry, Not kind with anyone exept Hardcore users

and about this hardware apple selling, like always, they are charging FAR more than the normal price!

I work in a school that has both new Dell's and 5 year-old eMac's with 1Gb of RAM. The eMac's are far superior to the Dell's, and by the time you get all of the MS software then you are far beyond the price of the Mac. The life cycle of the PCs is about 3-4 years, whereas the Mac 5-6.

I still have not found a PC laptop with the EXACT same specs as my new 17" MBP that is cheaper. BTW, I build my own PCs and have two Win boxes and two Mac's at home.

You people spewing all of this dogma and hatred against Apple, are exactly what is wrong with this country...too much emotion and not enough rational thought. Time to go to school kiddos.

Boy, you guys sure do get angry over the type of computer people choose to use.

Oh, to upgrade to 2-4 Gb of RAM would only cost a school $35-$60. The majority of schools do not use more than a Gig of RAM. I am running CS3 with 1 Gb on 5 year-old eMac's and all is fine, but I need more RAM to do any rendering, video, or audio work.

I should add that I cannot run CS3 on any 5 year-old Dell with 1Gb.

Bottom line, PC's are cheaper and have better hardware for the price compared to Apples. If you load XP or Vista on a decent PC and don't websurf all over creation and open every junk mail and spam or install every concievable software your stumble upon, you will be fine and your PC will run fast and smooth for years and years. It comes down to the user. If they are foolish they will trash their machine and it doesn't matter if its a PC or Mac, it will happen. Don't blame the platform, most people shouldn't even own a computer.

"Also the PCs at my school are ancient, but have the following parts (I might have broken a few rules looking up there system specs):

Basic:
P4 2.2 Ghz
1GB DDR 333 Mhz
graphics unknown
20GB HDD

For teachers:
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ 1.8 Ghz
1GB DDR 333 Mhz

Both of which have 1GB OF RAM!!!"

So, what kind of tech ed goes on over there? It is a tragedy that students have to use crap like that. In our Mac labs we run Final Cut for video editing, and Logic Pro, Cubase, and Pro Tools in the digital recording class. We also have a Game Design class that is run on the Dell's, but we need better specs to run Torque and Maya. We also run CS3 on all of the machines.

It is a shame when kids only use computers for word processing and running archaic educational software.

@warzme: find me a 17" laptop with 1920 resolution, DDR3 1066, FSB 1066, 2.8 or greater CPU, 320 7200 rpm HD, blue tooth capabilities, audio editing and video editing software, a decent OS (think Vista Ultimate) for a significantly cheaper price than the Apple. You won't. With the education discount most PCs were about $100 more than the Mac, and the Alien Ware and Puget Computers were a few hundred more. You need to work with exact specifications. The Sony came in about the same.

I have a clean box at home an Vista is always stalling or throwing the BSOD at me. At least three times a week. Fortunately, I just use it for Web development...everything else is now done on the Mac to increase productivity. My set-up is a 17" MacBook Pro with 24" monitor, and a dual monitor 24" and 19" 64-bit Vista Ultimate. The Vista box boots in about 5-10 minutes while the Mac is under 1 min. The Vista crashes on a regular basis and there is no easy way to determine or fix it. The only time my Mac failed was the result of some software I installed. I looked at the report, saw where the crash occured and uninstalled the culprit...if only Windows was so easy.

Just how do the Mac Faithful spin this promotion? They still think Macs are competative with PCs?

I am a tech for certain florida based school system. I can honestly say that macs are such a freakin pain to set up especially since we are all set up like an enterprise active directory with distributed offices(schools). Also mac needs to realize the real selling point of having decent hardware under $1k. The way inventory works is that anything over $1k is put on property control which means you have to do alot of hoop jumping for accountability purposes. so most schools tend to buy under that price line. Dell gives us excellent deals on their optiplex line and if a screen breaks i dont loose a computer. service is also a huge issue in this area. I tend to shy away from hp just for the fact that the service company in this area can be abit flakey and down right atrocious. (their tech had to ask me how to take apart one of their laptops to replace the keyboard) Apple's service is even worse. they hire some of the most pretentious assholes I have ever seen. They come in the school and walk through the hundreds of PC's wht their nose up in the air to work on 1 laptop and then just bitch about how better apple is than all the rest and why cant the schools see that. Just annoying to no end.

@Yoder,

Windows is that easy. The errors show up on the BSOD.
You need to write down your BSOD errors and google for fixes.

You will need to uncheck automatically restart for system failures.

To do this
Control panel, system, advanced system settings, startup and recovery..click settings, uncheck automatically restart.

You will now have a BSOD that will stay on your screen.

I have 1000's of hours on OSx before you call me a MS fanboi.

Sounds like you are looking to a career in some sort of IT or computer industry.

Your last paragraph indicates that this line of work may not be for you.

No offense but you should sell your PC's and stick to your Mac and try to forget what's on the inside.

A computer guy that can't get Vista running properly is like a hair dresser not being able to figure out how scissors work.

BTW
My laptop with Vista boots in 49 seconds.

My gaming machine boots in 66 seconds.

My HTPC boots in about 55 seconds.

All 3 machines have Vista business or Vista home premium 64 bit.

The biggest tragedy here is that you will be leaving school with a tech degree of some sort and you can't get vista running. I taught my 11 year old niece how to fix BSOD's and viruses as her 3 brothers kept infecting their machine. She is now quite proficient at it. Every now and then she will call me when she is stumped. She now fixes her neighbour's and friend's computers all the time. She laughs and tells me that most of the problems she sees are simply user error.

Google can teach you faster than school.

You might be offended now, but if you get over yourself and learn how to fix your problem instead of blaming Vista, you will thank me later.

I am the IT dept at a medium size company that has Macs and PC's in case you are wondering.

Regarding the under $1K price for property control... that is a school board issue. Also, in smaller districts you have to send out to get work done. We do everything in house...repairs, upgrades, etc. The biggest determinant in the total cost of getting a computer is software. We license through MS and pay outrageous prices for Office, XP Pro, etc. Why the schools do not go with open source and Linux is beyond me.

Also, in determining the total cost of the computer you must look at: 1. initial capital outlay, 2. life of computer, 3. software costs, and 4. energy costs. Using antiquated computers is foolish since they consume so much energy. Sell off the crap, and in energy savings alone a school district could replace them with high-end PCs or Mac's and give kids the type of technological education they need.

"Windows is that easy. The errors show up on the BSOD.
You need to write down your BSOD errors and google for fixes.
You will need to uncheck automatically restart for system failures.
To do this Control panel, system, advanced system settings, startup and recovery..click settings, uncheck automatically restart.You will now have a BSOD that will stay on your screen."

Yes, I know. The fact that I have to research the cause of the error is not user friendly as per the Mac OS that tells me where and what created the error right there on the screen. No searching the Internet trying to find a cure.

"I have 1000's of hours on OSx before you call me a MS fanboi."
Nobody called you a "fanboi." Well, I didn't anyway. Paranoia?

"Sounds like you are looking to a career in some sort of IT or computer industry."
I started programming in Fortran in 1978, worked with Unix at Cal, and then moved to DOS. Then GUI came along. I have worked in industry as a system analyst, network engineer, db programmer, and software engineer. Been there, done that.

"A computer guy that can't get Vista running properly is like a hair dresser not being able to figure out how scissors work."
Actually, there comes a time to where you no longer want to play with fixing things and working on them all of the time. You just want to create software...At least some of us. I know my Win OS, but I am bored with going into registries, and what-not. At first it was fun, but now I would rather design and build audio equipment. My weapon of choice is a soldering iron.

"The biggest tragedy here is that you will be leaving school with a tech degree of some sort and you can't get vista running."
No, I have a BS in Neurobiology, and a MS in Applied Mathematics. I have Vista running, but like many others out there I am not happy with it.

"You might be offended now, but if you get over yourself and learn how to fix your problem instead of blaming Vista, you will thank me later."
You are so pretentious. No need to get personal. You make it sound that I am the only user who does not like Vista...hmm, is that why MS offers a downgrade? Is that why it is being scrapped for Win7. You say "get over yourself," and then you say I will be thanking you? Who needs to get over what now?

"I am the IT dept at a medium size company that has Macs and PC's in case you are wondering."
I was the IT department for Gallium Arsenide chip manufacturer, and I was the CIO for a medium sized school district. Now I work for a district that has over 10,000 computers...Mac's and PCs...just in case you were wondering.