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The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

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Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#81

Post by barrkel »

elblanco wrote: post #57
barrkel wrote: post #27

The Dell monitor pricing he quotes - $1200 for LCD - is pretty gougey too. Dell hardware is generally bad value unless it's on special offer, a bare-bones system (in which case it'll lack extensibility), or part of a corporate purchase.

Dell is usually a good benchmark to compare against. But yeah, you can usually find anything Dell is selling a bit cheaper elsewhere.

A little bit? If you spec out a decent system, I mean not bare-bones, and it's not a corporate purchase, you can easily find yourself paying over 100% extra. As I mentioned in my other comment, I bought my Dell monitor at a 40% discount. I wouldn't be surprised to see a $1200 Dell monitor on sale at random intervals for $799.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#82

Post by potatolicious »

elblanco wrote: post #69
davidmathers wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not following you. $800 for the display $500 for the computer components $100 for the aluminum case $100 for the wireless keyboard and hi-tech mouse $100 for OS X and iLife $100 for beautiful industrial design $1700 sounds like a fine deal to me. I'm tempted to buy one right now, but I'm forcing myself to wait for the first component refresh that will come in 6 or 8 months. Core 2 Duo is about to go obsolete.

Since when is $200 for design figured into the cost equation? And who pays $100 for a wireless keyboard mouse combo? $20 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823164... you are at least $280 off on price.

Did you really just link, as an alternative to Apple's keyboard/mouse, a product whose first review is "Garbage"?

You figure design into the cost equation all the time in your life - why would one wear anything except Wal-Mart t-shirts otherwise? Ease of use, quality of construction, and yes, even styling, is incredibly important in all aspects of life.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#83

Post by potatolicious »

NikkiA wrote: post #40
jbellis wrote: post #38

Great, a new resolution with even _less_ vertical pixels. I still miss 4:3. Much better for programming.

I disagree, I use emacs with vertical splits (ie 1|2|3 layout) and 16:10 and 16:9 is great for that, also it means that spreading over onto the second (16:10) monitor isn't a change in layout policy. I could never go back to 4:3 layout for programming, as I discovered last year when one of my 16:10s died and I had to use an old 4:3 I had laying around.

Apple IMHO has done much better with the widescreen format than Windows has - the UI paradigm does not encourage full screen use.

Look at, say, Visual Studio - the thing is practically unusable without being fullscreened (unless you enjoy 200 pixels actual code editor). I've always felt widescreens to be a bit useless on Windows in that regard - the overfocus on fullscreen apps robs widescreen of its primary strenght: multitasking.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#84

Post by mrkurt »

randallsquared wrote: post #79
elblanco wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are two. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824005... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824176...

No, both of those appear to be 2560 at 30", which is a lower DPI than the one under discussion. Since that's the only way that the 27" screens are better than the pre-existing 30" screens, it must be the metric that was meant.

That's 30" diagonal at a different aspect ratio (16:10), so the DPIs aren't as far off as they sound. The bigger problem is that neither of the linked 30" panels are LED backlit.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#85

Post by davidmathers »

davidmathers wrote: post #28
davidmathers wrote: post #12

there’s an entire high-end computer stuck to the back of it Actually, there's an entire discount-parts ($150 cpu, $70 video card) computer stuck to the back of it. If you configure it with high-end parts the price goes up to $2200 and even then you're getting a previous-generation video card (radeon 4850 rather than the new 5850). It's not really so curious. Apple does the "make exclusive deal with a supplier and bea…

Until we know why the panel is so cheap I love my Apple products, but Apple fanboys..come on. It took me less than 5 minutes to find out why the panel is so cheap. Seriously, why must you always be so...gushing? P.S. Instapaper is brilliant!

No, seriously. Have you seen the followup response at http://jimcloudman.tumblr.com/post/223517306/re-the-curious-... ?? It's so amazingly ridiculous. You have to read the whole thing, but here's an excerpt:

I think another part of it, though, is that the panel manufacturer must be drooling over the fact that this is really the only way to move a lot of high-end panels, and therefore gain access to serious economies of scale, driving the prices down and bringing IPS panels to a more mainstream market. ...This is what I love about Apple. Nothing is driving innovation anymore in the PC market - the average computer today has little more capability than a computer from five years ago. Apple, however, is using the brute force of its market share to drive technology forward...Then, the rest of the industry follows suit in a vain attempt to catch them...

What compels people to turn their total ignorance of the hardware industry into love letters for Apple? Not only do Apple's economies of scale have nothing to do with the cost of e-IPS, Dell was the first out of the gate with an e-IPS display ( http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/15/dells-2209wa-lcd-monitor-... ) but of course these fanboys didn't notice.

So now, because they don't know there's a difference between s-IPS and e-IPS, it's Apple's business strategy that is changing the world, rather than the scientists and engineers at LG. The ones who actually invented this new low-cost technology.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#86

Post by randallsquared »

mrkurt wrote: post #84
randallsquared wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, both of those appear to be 2560 at 30", which is a lower DPI than the one under discussion. Since that's the only way that the 27" screens are better than the pre-existing 30" screens, it must be the metric that was meant.

That's 30" diagonal at a different aspect ratio (16:10), so the DPIs aren't as far off as they sound. The bigger problem is that neither of the linked 30" panels are LED backlit.

Ah, quite right. I'd forgotten about those details.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#87

Post by potatolicious »

eleitl wrote: post #35

Dell 27" sells for 879 USD. Dell's 30" for about 1200 USD. So, no, the computer at the back is not exactly free.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Monitors/product...

"Panel Type: VA - Vertical alignment"

The Apple screen, on top of being higher resolution, is also a IPS panel, which gives much better viewing angles as well as color reproduction. It is the only type of LCD suitable for photo/video work.

For a bunch of people who complain a lot about getting good value for your dollar (and how Apple doesn't do that), you sure are misinformed about the gear you're buying. I suppose as long as it throws some kind of image up on screen it's good right?

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#88

Post by asciilifeform »

pmjordan wrote: post #42
jbellis wrote: post #38

Great, a new resolution with even _less_ vertical pixels. I still miss 4:3. Much better for programming.

I use a 2-column layout on a 30" Apple Cinema display. Each of the columns has a 4:5 (8:10) aspect ratio, which is actually excellent for programming. If you did this on the new iMac, you'd get 2x 8:9, which is still pretty good. You soon don't want to miss the high number of vertical pixels. What puts me off is the reflective finish. I can live with it on a 13" MacBook, but I'd find it impossible on that sort of siz…

> What puts me off is the reflective finish.

Apple sells stick-on "de-glossing" film. The one I bought works fairly well.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#89

Post by jsz0 »

elblanco wrote: post #69
davidmathers wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not following you. $800 for the display $500 for the computer components $100 for the aluminum case $100 for the wireless keyboard and hi-tech mouse $100 for OS X and iLife $100 for beautiful industrial design $1700 sounds like a fine deal to me. I'm tempted to buy one right now, but I'm forcing myself to wait for the first component refresh that will come in 6 or 8 months. Core 2 Duo is about to go obsolete.

Since when is $200 for design figured into the cost equation? And who pays $100 for a wireless keyboard mouse combo? $20 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823164... you are at least $280 off on price.

Why would you not factor in the design? Goto NewEgg.com and price out some nice Lian-Li cases. They're expensive. Yes, you can get a junky finger slicer case with loud fans and tacky lights for ~$50 but that's not what I want

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#90

Post by elblanco »

potatolicious wrote: post #82
elblanco wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is $200 for design figured into the cost equation? And who pays $100 for a wireless keyboard mouse combo? $20 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823164... you are at least $280 off on price.

Did you really just link, as an alternative to Apple's keyboard/mouse, a product whose first review is "Garbage"? You figure design into the cost equation all the time in your life - why would one wear anything except Wal-Mart t-shirts otherwise? Ease of use, quality of construction, and yes, even styling, is incredibly important in all aspects of life.

Just showing that $100 is outrageous for a wireless mouse and keyboard.

Here's one for just a hair more with solid reviews. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823126...

It's not hard to find reasonable quality at a good price point.

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