By now most tech websites should have picked up the news. Rumors courtesy of our fab Apple rumor-mongerers suggest that our friends in Cupertino have been designing a slim $500 USD (ok – sorry – $499) iMac. Aimed to be sold without a display, it’s targeted at those users who are considering a second computer but consider the $1299 USD inititation into the cult of Mac a bit too pricy.
My thoughts?
I hope it’s true. If anything, I highly suspect that the internals of this thing will be almost identical to those in the 12″ iBook. To justify this assumption, consider this: the price of the 12″ is $999 USD. It’s a well known fact that the highest cost component in any notebook is the LCD monitor. So now, strip away the monitor, the keyboard, the need for a battery and the need to cram it into a 12″ enclosure. Consider the fact that Apple uses the same generic Taiwanese manufactured electronics as PC makers (albeit with that smooth Apple assembly) and these guys have been hitting the sub-400 dollar mark for ages now. I think my assumption makes sense.
At any rate…my holidays have been sick and expensive. But [evil grin] all better now.