Apple eMac 17 in. (M8894LL/B) Mac Desktop
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- Form Factor: All-in-one
- Operating System: Apple MacOS X
- HDD Size: 40 GB
- Installed Memory: 128 MB (SDRAM)
- Display: 17 in.
- Processor: PowerPC G4 700 MHz
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eMac: A is for Apple, E is for Education, L is for Love
Pros
affordable G4 system, flat 17" screen, compact design
Cons
no DVD drive on mine, very weighty
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Much more powerful alternative to the classic iMac and more affordable than the new iMac
The official Apple release at eMac?s introduction at the end of April, told folks (in effect) -- The ?e? in eMac stands for ?education?. We designed this for educational institutions. We?re selling this only for education. If you aren?t in education, keep your mitts off. Nope. You can?t have one. Wouldn?t sell you one if you begged, really.
Never, ever tell Mac people what they can and cannot have. You might be able to find some Wintel folks who are a pushover, but not Mac people. The Mac heads were ready to riot in the streets. By June, Apple relented and released a consumer version of the eMac, to fanfare, adoration, pomp and circumstance, and the like. Thank you, Steve. We love you!
Call me a skeptic. Perhaps Jobs and company were boneheaded enough to miss the significant consumer potential of the eMac..but I prefer to think of Mr. Jobs (or the God Steve, as we refer to him in our home) as so savvy that he planned the entire stunt, just to whip up market for a really fine machine. Whatever, one way or the other....
I have an eMac!
Yee hah, I?m as happy as a pig in shaving cream.
I can?t express how very much I needed a new home computer, having run my poor little classic iMac into the ground with heavy duty use and way too many careless hard reboots. The iMac needed to go to the Mac Doctor and fast, but I refused to put her on the disabled list until another player could be brought in. A single day without a computer would be, um, be a really terrible day. My iMac kept sputtering and sputtering and I knew, one day soon, I?d see a sad face greet me at start.
Now, I wanted one of those brand new iMacs that kept waving at me on TV commercials (about $1400). Who wouldn?t want one of those happy little machines? Problem is, my husband thought I wanted classic iMac model that could be scooped up in the $800 range. Such a Scrooge, what?s $600, I mean really?
A month and a half ago, I started my Mac shopping, hoping to work some kind of wonder deal that closed the price gap between what he wants and she wants. Failing that, I was ready to load up my marital ammo chambers with arguments about why that $600 differential was the difference between life and death, as in, I?d die if I didn?t have one.
I missed the eMac ads
Were there any eMac ads? I?m not a computer guru, by any stretch, so I?m out of the loop on all of the Mac gossip; I missed all the drama surrounding it?s introduction. Even though I?d never heard of the eMac, it took nanoseconds for the features and the affordability of the eMac ($1049) to catch my eye and my heart on my first shopping stop. This was the computer for me!
I ran down the features, pros and cons, shopped at five different stores, got the best deal I could, and presented the entire case to my dear husband. It didn?t take him a minute to realize that the extra $300 we were spending above a classic iMac purchase was well worth it. I zipped through my maczone.com shopping cart (best deal!) and, the new baby was in my hands in just a couple of days.
What you get with an eMac
You get a G4 processor. This is a big deal because this is a fancy, fast processor. (Non-techie me likes to think of it as a V-8 or V-12 engine in a car. If you are driving a V-8 and you want to merge into traffic, you can merge, dang it.) I?ve spent thousands more than the eMac price to get G4 machines into my art department at work. Having a G4 at home is a big deal.
You get a 17? Flat CRT display . What a vast improvement over my dinky classic iMac display! Please note that there is a difference between a flat CRT display and a flat panel. A flat CRT gives you more viewable area than a curved CRT, but it still requires depth that the flat panel doesn?t. (Think the difference between your regular TV and outrageously expensive flat ones than hang on the wall in TV commercials.) The new iMac has a flat panel, and is going to fit in places that the eMac doesn't.
You get a 40GB hard drive. Man, I?ll never forget when I upgraded to 1 gig on an old Powerbook and wondered at how wild the world had gotten. Now look how far we?ve come, 40GB standard. Anyway, this is a lot of gig. A lot. If you need more gig than this, you are downloading too many MP3 files and you need to establish a life.
You get 128 MB SDRAM. Woah! Hold the phone. Even I know that ?s not enough RAM. OS X, the new Mac operating system, has that as a minimum requirement. If you don?t have enough RAM, you can?t keep many windows or applications open at the same time, and life just gets miserable. I got a 256 MB RAM upgrade with my eMac for free (through maczone.com), but I would have paid for a RAM upgrade if I had to. More memory!
You get five USB ports. Neato pateto. I love USB ports, and having five of them, on the key board and neatly organized on the right side (facing) of the monitor, makes them easy to switch in and out and around.
You get a 56K internal modem. Yawn. Doesn?t everybody have cable or DSL by now?
You get a CD-RW Yes, you can load CDs. Yes you can burn CDs. No, there is no DVD drive. Sniffle. I really would have liked a DVD drive. You can get a custom built eMac, from some sources like Apple.com, with a DVD drive, for an extra $100.
It?s AirPort ready. If you want to take advantage of AirPort wireless networking, you have to buy an AirPort card for the machine. (About $100, I think.) I didn?t buy an AirPort card, but I?m told that it is easy enough for even me to install one when I?m ready to go wireless. We?ll see.
My computer is loaded with OS X., version 10.1.5 , but I believe they are now shipping with 10.2. I wish I had waited another couple of weeks, because I?ve heard 10.2 is a significant upgrade. I just missed being eligible for a free upgrade. Have to shell out $100 if I want 10.2.
It?s got really nice built in speakers and cutest built in microphone. The microphone is a tiny pin hole at the top left.
It comes with an Apple Pro Mouse, which I couldn?t live without. I bought an optical Apple Pro for my iMac after I ran through two traditional mice.
It comes pre-loaded with software iTunes 2, iMovie 2, iPhoto, QuickTime, AppleWorks 6, Mail, Microsoft Internet Explorer, AOL, Quicken 2002 Deluxe, World Book Mac OS X Edition, Otto Matic, Deimos Rising, Mac OS X Chess, PCalc, Acrobat Reader and FAXstf 10.0 Preview. I?m just starting to explore all of it. The big thing I miss, and have to reload on my eMac shortly, is Microsoft Office. Sorry Appleworks fans, but Appleworks doesn?t hold a candle to Office.
All right, here?s the part where I cease knowing what I?m talking about. I?ll recite the rest of the list and leave it up to you to figure out if the feature is adequate or not:
* 256K L2 cache
* NVIDA GeForce 2 MX graphics card
* 10/100BASE-T Ethernet
* Two Fire Wire ports
My impressions - Heavy, dude.
The most important thing I have to tell you is...this sucker is heavy! Spoken like a True Consumer and not a techie, huh? I can?t go on about the graphics card, but I?d be remiss if I didn?t warn you about a potential hernia.
The eMac must weigh 50 or 60 pounds, and it is all dead weight. My brand new bouncing baby arrived just a couple of days after I ordered it, but it sat in the shipping carton for three weeks until I could set it up. Both hubby and I were going through a series of back problems, and neither one of us were in any shape to lift it out of the carton and up the stairs to our office.
This case was designed to sit in a library or a classroom and never be moved. That?s the ?e? part of eMac. You don?t want anybody walking off with the school computer easily and believe me, nobody is walking anywhere with this thing easily. There?s no handle, there?s almost no way to even get a grip on it. I had to take it up the stairs, resting it on each step as I went up. I should have left it in the shipping carton and kind of rolled it up the stairs, hindsight. If we have a fire, the eMac will burn, because I?m not rushing in to save it.
My impressions - the rest of the stuff
Joy, joy, joy. I am having the time of my life.
The display is beautiful. I?m totally in love with OS X (which was, and still is, a serious learning curve for a seasoned Mac person). I?ve become obsessed with iTunes, loading every CD I can get my hands on...might use up more of that 40 GB drive than I imagined possible.
Set up was a total breeze. Okay, freak me out. The computer recognizes your printer (or other external device like Zip drive), when you plug it into the USB port! I didn?t have to load any drivers or choose anything. I plugged in my Epson, pushed print, and the dang thing printed. Same thing with the Zip. Plugged in and * poof * there the device was on my desktop.
Is eMac for you?
There?s no question that eMac was the right machine at the right time for me. How about you?
I wouldn?t recommend spending a dime on a classic iMac, frankly, with the new OS and iTunes and iPhoto and iMovie software that Mac is loading. The joy of having a Mac is being able to do a bit more than our Wintel brethren can do, more easily. Could a classic iMac handle all of the new opportunities easily? I?m no techie, but I?ll put my money on a G4 machine to get me through.
How about the new iMac? It looks awesome. If you are in the market for a new Mac now, I suggest shopping the eMac against the new iMac (comparing apples to apples!), and deciding what?s right for you and your budget. And your
back.
Should you Switch?
Please. We don?t discuss Wintel/Mac switching in polite company, any more than we discuss religion. If you?d like, I?ll slip you a little pamphlet about eternal fires and brimstone on your way out the door. The eMac is affordable enough for you to become one of us, should you choose to see The Light. Just don't show up on one of those annoying Switch TV commercials, okay?
Update 8.12.02: after reading DrSteph's excellent review of the new iMac, it occurs to me that the eMac might be a better choice for families than the new iMac. DrSteph is a bit nervous about having her kids use her new iMac. Meanwhile, I'm happy to let my kids use my eMac because nobody could knock this boulder-of-a-computer over if they tried. DrSteph's review is highly recommended reading if you are trying to compare Apples to Apples.
http://www.epinions.com/content_57310744196
"New Flat Panel 800MHz G4 iMac: Sweeter Than Your Sweetest Dreams"
My review of the store from which I purchased my eMac may be read here:
http://www.epinions.com/content_72820821636
"Mac Zone: The eMac _ ulate Reception"
This is the first half of my entry for the Fill in the Blanks Write-off, co-hosted by Opalman, Opinionated3, and supposedly pluckyduck. The boys did all of the heavy lifting, trust me.
Please take a moment to read the other entries in this write-off.
Opalman, BopsMom, Lisa_J, Kurt_G, NC10, Jro26, Quasar, opinionated3
Links and List Available Here:
http://www.epinions.com/user-opalman
Never, ever tell Mac people what they can and cannot have. You might be able to find some Wintel folks who are a pushover, but not Mac people. The Mac heads were ready to riot in the streets. By June, Apple relented and released a consumer version of the eMac, to fanfare, adoration, pomp and circumstance, and the like. Thank you, Steve. We love you!
Call me a skeptic. Perhaps Jobs and company were boneheaded enough to miss the significant consumer potential of the eMac..but I prefer to think of Mr. Jobs (or the God Steve, as we refer to him in our home) as so savvy that he planned the entire stunt, just to whip up market for a really fine machine. Whatever, one way or the other....
I have an eMac!
Yee hah, I?m as happy as a pig in shaving cream.
I can?t express how very much I needed a new home computer, having run my poor little classic iMac into the ground with heavy duty use and way too many careless hard reboots. The iMac needed to go to the Mac Doctor and fast, but I refused to put her on the disabled list until another player could be brought in. A single day without a computer would be, um, be a really terrible day. My iMac kept sputtering and sputtering and I knew, one day soon, I?d see a sad face greet me at start.
Now, I wanted one of those brand new iMacs that kept waving at me on TV commercials (about $1400). Who wouldn?t want one of those happy little machines? Problem is, my husband thought I wanted classic iMac model that could be scooped up in the $800 range. Such a Scrooge, what?s $600, I mean really?
A month and a half ago, I started my Mac shopping, hoping to work some kind of wonder deal that closed the price gap between what he wants and she wants. Failing that, I was ready to load up my marital ammo chambers with arguments about why that $600 differential was the difference between life and death, as in, I?d die if I didn?t have one.
I missed the eMac ads
Were there any eMac ads? I?m not a computer guru, by any stretch, so I?m out of the loop on all of the Mac gossip; I missed all the drama surrounding it?s introduction. Even though I?d never heard of the eMac, it took nanoseconds for the features and the affordability of the eMac ($1049) to catch my eye and my heart on my first shopping stop. This was the computer for me!
I ran down the features, pros and cons, shopped at five different stores, got the best deal I could, and presented the entire case to my dear husband. It didn?t take him a minute to realize that the extra $300 we were spending above a classic iMac purchase was well worth it. I zipped through my maczone.com shopping cart (best deal!) and, the new baby was in my hands in just a couple of days.
What you get with an eMac
You get a G4 processor. This is a big deal because this is a fancy, fast processor. (Non-techie me likes to think of it as a V-8 or V-12 engine in a car. If you are driving a V-8 and you want to merge into traffic, you can merge, dang it.) I?ve spent thousands more than the eMac price to get G4 machines into my art department at work. Having a G4 at home is a big deal.
You get a 17? Flat CRT display . What a vast improvement over my dinky classic iMac display! Please note that there is a difference between a flat CRT display and a flat panel. A flat CRT gives you more viewable area than a curved CRT, but it still requires depth that the flat panel doesn?t. (Think the difference between your regular TV and outrageously expensive flat ones than hang on the wall in TV commercials.) The new iMac has a flat panel, and is going to fit in places that the eMac doesn't.
You get a 40GB hard drive. Man, I?ll never forget when I upgraded to 1 gig on an old Powerbook and wondered at how wild the world had gotten. Now look how far we?ve come, 40GB standard. Anyway, this is a lot of gig. A lot. If you need more gig than this, you are downloading too many MP3 files and you need to establish a life.
You get 128 MB SDRAM. Woah! Hold the phone. Even I know that ?s not enough RAM. OS X, the new Mac operating system, has that as a minimum requirement. If you don?t have enough RAM, you can?t keep many windows or applications open at the same time, and life just gets miserable. I got a 256 MB RAM upgrade with my eMac for free (through maczone.com), but I would have paid for a RAM upgrade if I had to. More memory!
You get five USB ports. Neato pateto. I love USB ports, and having five of them, on the key board and neatly organized on the right side (facing) of the monitor, makes them easy to switch in and out and around.
You get a 56K internal modem. Yawn. Doesn?t everybody have cable or DSL by now?
You get a CD-RW Yes, you can load CDs. Yes you can burn CDs. No, there is no DVD drive. Sniffle. I really would have liked a DVD drive. You can get a custom built eMac, from some sources like Apple.com, with a DVD drive, for an extra $100.
It?s AirPort ready. If you want to take advantage of AirPort wireless networking, you have to buy an AirPort card for the machine. (About $100, I think.) I didn?t buy an AirPort card, but I?m told that it is easy enough for even me to install one when I?m ready to go wireless. We?ll see.
My computer is loaded with OS X., version 10.1.5 , but I believe they are now shipping with 10.2. I wish I had waited another couple of weeks, because I?ve heard 10.2 is a significant upgrade. I just missed being eligible for a free upgrade. Have to shell out $100 if I want 10.2.
It?s got really nice built in speakers and cutest built in microphone. The microphone is a tiny pin hole at the top left.
It comes with an Apple Pro Mouse, which I couldn?t live without. I bought an optical Apple Pro for my iMac after I ran through two traditional mice.
It comes pre-loaded with software iTunes 2, iMovie 2, iPhoto, QuickTime, AppleWorks 6, Mail, Microsoft Internet Explorer, AOL, Quicken 2002 Deluxe, World Book Mac OS X Edition, Otto Matic, Deimos Rising, Mac OS X Chess, PCalc, Acrobat Reader and FAXstf 10.0 Preview. I?m just starting to explore all of it. The big thing I miss, and have to reload on my eMac shortly, is Microsoft Office. Sorry Appleworks fans, but Appleworks doesn?t hold a candle to Office.
All right, here?s the part where I cease knowing what I?m talking about. I?ll recite the rest of the list and leave it up to you to figure out if the feature is adequate or not:
* 256K L2 cache
* NVIDA GeForce 2 MX graphics card
* 10/100BASE-T Ethernet
* Two Fire Wire ports
My impressions - Heavy, dude.
The most important thing I have to tell you is...this sucker is heavy! Spoken like a True Consumer and not a techie, huh? I can?t go on about the graphics card, but I?d be remiss if I didn?t warn you about a potential hernia.
The eMac must weigh 50 or 60 pounds, and it is all dead weight. My brand new bouncing baby arrived just a couple of days after I ordered it, but it sat in the shipping carton for three weeks until I could set it up. Both hubby and I were going through a series of back problems, and neither one of us were in any shape to lift it out of the carton and up the stairs to our office.
This case was designed to sit in a library or a classroom and never be moved. That?s the ?e? part of eMac. You don?t want anybody walking off with the school computer easily and believe me, nobody is walking anywhere with this thing easily. There?s no handle, there?s almost no way to even get a grip on it. I had to take it up the stairs, resting it on each step as I went up. I should have left it in the shipping carton and kind of rolled it up the stairs, hindsight. If we have a fire, the eMac will burn, because I?m not rushing in to save it.
My impressions - the rest of the stuff
Joy, joy, joy. I am having the time of my life.
The display is beautiful. I?m totally in love with OS X (which was, and still is, a serious learning curve for a seasoned Mac person). I?ve become obsessed with iTunes, loading every CD I can get my hands on...might use up more of that 40 GB drive than I imagined possible.
Set up was a total breeze. Okay, freak me out. The computer recognizes your printer (or other external device like Zip drive), when you plug it into the USB port! I didn?t have to load any drivers or choose anything. I plugged in my Epson, pushed print, and the dang thing printed. Same thing with the Zip. Plugged in and * poof * there the device was on my desktop.
Is eMac for you?
There?s no question that eMac was the right machine at the right time for me. How about you?
I wouldn?t recommend spending a dime on a classic iMac, frankly, with the new OS and iTunes and iPhoto and iMovie software that Mac is loading. The joy of having a Mac is being able to do a bit more than our Wintel brethren can do, more easily. Could a classic iMac handle all of the new opportunities easily? I?m no techie, but I?ll put my money on a G4 machine to get me through.
How about the new iMac? It looks awesome. If you are in the market for a new Mac now, I suggest shopping the eMac against the new iMac (comparing apples to apples!), and deciding what?s right for you and your budget. And your
back.
Should you Switch?
Please. We don?t discuss Wintel/Mac switching in polite company, any more than we discuss religion. If you?d like, I?ll slip you a little pamphlet about eternal fires and brimstone on your way out the door. The eMac is affordable enough for you to become one of us, should you choose to see The Light. Just don't show up on one of those annoying Switch TV commercials, okay?
Update 8.12.02: after reading DrSteph's excellent review of the new iMac, it occurs to me that the eMac might be a better choice for families than the new iMac. DrSteph is a bit nervous about having her kids use her new iMac. Meanwhile, I'm happy to let my kids use my eMac because nobody could knock this boulder-of-a-computer over if they tried. DrSteph's review is highly recommended reading if you are trying to compare Apples to Apples.
http://www.epinions.com/content_57310744196
"New Flat Panel 800MHz G4 iMac: Sweeter Than Your Sweetest Dreams"
My review of the store from which I purchased my eMac may be read here:
http://www.epinions.com/content_72820821636
"Mac Zone: The eMac _ ulate Reception"
This is the first half of my entry for the Fill in the Blanks Write-off, co-hosted by Opalman, Opinionated3, and supposedly pluckyduck. The boys did all of the heavy lifting, trust me.
Please take a moment to read the other entries in this write-off.
Opalman, BopsMom, Lisa_J, Kurt_G, NC10, Jro26, Quasar, opinionated3
Links and List Available Here:
http://www.epinions.com/user-opalman
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