The upgraded PowerBooks were
expected, but I think the eMac
took nearly everyone by surprise. It certainly did me. My first
impression was, "Wow, a 700 MHz G4 with a 17" screen for $999!" It
wasn't so long ago that you would pay that much for a 17" CRT monitor
alone.
Of course, the fine print was that you could only purchase an eMac
through education channels, and it was soon revealed that the $999
price only applied to volume purchasers - and that the base eMac
doesn't have a modem.
The real world price for individual education purchasers of the
eMac with a Combo CD-RW/DVD is actually $1,249, which isn't that much
less than the price of the base flat
panel iMac at $1,399, which comes with a modem, of course, as
well as a beautiful LCD monitor.
Personally, it would be a no-brainer. I don't like CRTs, both
because of their staticky, power-slurping, flickery, ELF-emitting
nature, and their humongous weight and bulk. I have a 17" Trinitron
VGA CRT on my Umax S900, and
I can't believe what a boat anchor it is.
The 17" CRT in the eMac is of the "shallow," flat-screen variety
(8 mm less deep than the original iMac with 
its
15" CRT), but the whole rig still weighs 50 lbs., compared with the
15" CRT iMac's 35 lbs. and the LCD G4 iMac's svelte 21.3 pounds.
However, there's no accounting for taste, and some people actually
like CRTs, so it seems foolish for Apple not to release the eMac to
the general consuming public and let people make their own choice in
the matter. Worried about cannibalizing sales from the iMac? Well, at
$150 less than the basic iMac, a 17" CRT machine should be every bit
as profitable - and possibly even more so now given the current
inflation in LCD OEM costs.
Indeed, one might cynically wonder if keeping the Mac out of
consumer channels might not simply be related to Steve Jobs' ego -
specifically his rash statement last year that "the CRT is dead."
Of course, Apple has never stopped selling CRT
iMacs, and from a business standpoint it would be foolish to do
so. I figure that the CRT, now 104-year-old technology, is going to
die a natural death eventually. I certainly have no interest in them
anymore for day-to-day use. I prefer even the little 12.1", 800 x 600
TFT screen in my WallStreet
PowerBook to the 17" Trinitron multiscan behemoth. But as long as
there's a market, why not sell into it?
The CRT does offer one feature that LCDs don't handle well - good
viewing quality at multiple screen resolutions. The 17" monitor in
the eMac supports five screen resolution: 640 x 480 pixels at 138 Hz,
800 x 600 pixels at 112 Hz,1024 x 768 pixels at 89 Hz,1152 x 864
pixels at 80 Hz, and 1280 x 960 pixels at 72 Hz.
Aside from the monitor issue, the eMac has some cool things going
for it - three USB ports (plus the two on the keyboard) will
eliminate the need for a separate USB hub for many users. There is a
really great sound card with a Tripath TA2024 Class-T 16-watt
amplifier and powerful, built-in stereo speakers (the base G4 iMac
only has a single speaker). And - hooray! - the eMac has a real
analog sound-in port.
While analog sound-in may not seem like a big deal to some users,
I use microphones a lot for dictation, and I much prefer the
performance of my PlainTalk mics. I think USB audio really sucks.
Other good eMac stuff includes an Nvidia GeForce 2 MX 3D AGP 2x
graphics with 32 MB of Double Date Rate VRAM (same spec. as the G4
iMac) and a 40 GB hard drive.
I consider Apple's all-in-one designs to be the quintessential
Macintosh. I prefer laptops as the purest essence of AIO, but the
eMac is a worthy descendent of the original compact Macs, the 500 and
5000 series desktops, the "Molar" G3
education-only AIO, and, of course, the original iMacs.
