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What the heck is Apple thinking?

UK perspective:

Mac Mini
Missed a beat by not putting in HDMI out considering so many use it as a cheap compact HTPC. What's an extra 2 usb ports?
New prices of £499/649 too much. You either have to give a sufficient price cut or offer enough power to justify no/minimal price cut. A processor/GPU refresh and bump in ram I am not feeling. You have to remember you need a separate monitor and keyboard+mouse costs to factor in

On uni store base mini starts at £449. Again I do not see that as attractive

iMac
£949 base :p Nvidia 9400M is barely an upgrade over the old base 2400XT and is weaker than the old HD2600 so a misstep here. I am also looking at £834 base uni store price which is better but that you have to think it over speaks for itself

I would like to congratulate myself once again for buying a mint condition second hand 20" alu iMac 2.4ghz for the bargain-tastic £550 last weekend
 
QCassidy352 said:
The dollar is very very strong right now. That's how it's fair.
Click to expand...

Surely you are being sarcastic, as the dollar is durn near worthless. The exchange rate is awful. Heck, even Canadians had started to see their costs reach or even come in lower than the U.S. price (of course the taxes up north kill the savings).

Cheers,
 
While I can see the integrated video card as debateable in the 1199 and 1499 models, the 1799 model definitely got upgraded in my opinion. I just bought one Sunday, so I had to return it last night. For the same price, I went from 2.8 to 2.93 GHz, 2 gig DDR2 to 4 gig DDR3, ability to go to 8 gig instead of just 4 gig (though cost prohibitive today, may be affordable in 6 months or a year, who knows...), from a 320 gig drive to a 640 gig drive. The only thing I can't figure out is the change from the 2600 Pro to the GT120. The store was out of that model with wireless mouse and keyboard, so I hard to order online. I ended up getting the number pad keyboard like I wanted in the first place, wireless mouse, and bumped the graphics to GT130 since I can't do it later.

So not all models are as bad as this "update" is being painted. If I had the 1499 model, the tradeoff from dedicated to integrated graphics while going from a 20" to a 24" would be a tough call. With the other changes though, I'd still say it's a better machine for the money.

It does seem that those outside the US got hosed on pricing though.
 
panzer06 said:
Surely you are being sarcastic, as the dollar is durn near worthless. The exchange rate is awful. Heck, even Canadians had started to see their costs reach or even come in lower than the U.S. price (of course the taxes up north kill the savings).

Cheers,
Click to expand...

The Dollar is strong when compared to the Pound.

Hence the new UK prices seem a bit steep.
 
OllyW said:
The Dollar is strong when compared to the Pound.

Hence the new UK prices seem a bit steep.
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That's awful. I haven't been to England since the early 90s when it cost about $2 to get a pound. I was glad when the UK rejected the Euro (can't imagine the world w/o the pound) but I never thought I'd see the day where the Euro and the pound are near parity!

Cheers,
 
They're thinking that some people are going to b#*ch and whine like little girls, and eventually end up drinking the kool-aid anyway.

As for having the same components in nearly all of their machines, it's just the apple control freak way, not only do they want us all drinking kool-aid, they want us drinking the same kool-aid.
 
clyde2801 said:
They're thinking that some people are going to b#*ch and whine like little girls, and eventually end up drinking the kool-aid anyway.

As for having the same components in nearly all of their machines, it's just the apple control freak way, not only do they want us all drinking kool-aid, they want us drinking the same kool-aid.
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While this allows them to make things cheaper (and maximize profit apparently) it also should make things more reliable. The fewer components they need to work with, the better they can make it all work together.
 
lewchenko said:
Nope I dont see it. I do not agree with you.

In the top model its a an Nvidia 130 not a 4850.. unless you stump up even more money. (on top of the overpriced hike that has already been added on).. Oh and the 130 is about the same performance as the old 8800 GS model. Hmmmm. pathetic update for your extra £449 !
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Gotta agree with this. The top spec model with the GT130 (which as has been pointed out is just nvidia's new branding for the 8800GS found in the previous iMac) is almost identical spec to the old 3.06 model. You're extra £449 gets you 2GB of RAM and and a 1TB drive - thats a disgusting price jump for a tiny change in spec.

It'll be curious to see if the graphic performance drops or not - technically the previous iMac's 8800GS wasn't actually a GS, it was an 8800GT with a 10% underclock. I wouldn't at all be surprised if for some games people get marginally better FPS with the previous gen model.

This really wasn't an upgrade at all.
 
Cave Man said:
While AMD will be incorporating OpenCL support in new video card designs, I don't think the 2600 supports it. Nor do Intel's offerings (and thus the recent spat between Intel and nVidia).
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ATi is developing a OpenCL compiler and runtime and from what I read it will be available in March 2009. OpenCL code should work on all ATi video cards supporting CTM (all the ones released after x1900, including the 2600).
 
In Denmark we only got a VERY slight price increase. The british and swedish amongst others have gotten HUGE price increases. "Why?" you ask, "It's unfair" you say. It is not unfair. The American economy has been crap a big part of last year, consequently the dollar has been low meaning cheap apple for us in Europe. Now the dollar is increasing in value again meaning a bit more expensive Apple. On the contrary, some european countries are experiencing their currencies falling in value adding that to the dollar increase meaning much more expensive Apple. Seen from other countries, until yesterday you guys were having much lower prices than most other countries due to your bad valuta yet the same prices. But yesterday with the new update, Apple converted the prices so that they match the American price (excluding taxes which does make a difference some places. E.G. Denmark(20% tax)). CONCLUSION: You guys are now paying what people pay in other countries are paying now and have been paying for a long time. If you don't believe this go to your country's apple online store, take the price of any product, DEDUCT TAX and then convert to USD using any official valuta converter. You will realize how you are paying only slightly more than Americans.

WORKED EXAMPLE FOR THE STUPID:

Low-end Macbook Pro in Denmark = 14000 DKK

//Deduct tax (20%)
14000 * 0.8 = 11200

//Divide by current exchange rate (1 : 5.92 at the time of this writing) to get USD amount
11200 / 5.92 = 1892 (rounded to nearest whole number)

So in Denmark the low-end Macbook Pro is actually cheaper($1892) than the price in the US($1999). The only reason we pay more is because of the high tax which is not Apple's fault.
 
I think the price increase has been a double whammy of currency rates and apple increasing it's prices, my iMac was low mid range when I bought it (2 years ago), and it was £800... The cheapest iMac is now £949...
 
shinchan72 said:
1499 for the low end new Imac that comes with a huge harddrive and 4 GB ram , a nice 24" screen and OS X is a nice deal. The 9400m runs WoW fine and thats the main game thats going to be ran on the thing.

Like it or not , most people are going to look at it as a decent deal, and plenty for their needs.
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I got this setup for 1399 with the student discount plus 90 bucks for the 1TB hard drive. I think I got a great deal! Especially when I would have paid 1599 (w/ discount) or so for similar specs on only a 20" model before the refresh.
 
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