Apple Drops Price Of eMac To Start At US$999

by , 9:30 AM EST, February 4th, 2003

Apple has dropped the price of the eMac product line, while keeping the features the same. Apple also introduced faster iMacs today (se TMO's full coverage for more information). The eMac line now starts at US$999, a price drop of US$100, for the 700 MHz Combo Drive model. The high-end SuperDrive 800 MHz model now starts at US$1299, a price drop of US$200.

Education pricing for the eMac line now starts at US$929 for a model without a modem. The same unit that retails for US$999 is being offered to education buyers for US$979. From Apple:

Created for education and consumers, the eMac features a 17-inch flat CRT in a remarkably compact design. Starting at just $999 (US), the eMac is Apple's most affordable PowerPC G4 system, and the $1,299 (US) model is Apple's most affordable SuperDrive-equipped computer.

Pricing & Availability
The 17-inch flat CRT eMac, for a suggested retail price of $999 (US) includes:

• a 700 MHz PowerPC G4 processor;
• a Combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW optical drive;
• an NVIDIA GeForce2 MX graphics processor with 32MB video memory;
• 128MB of system memory;
• internal support for AirPort wireless networking; and
• a 40GB Ultra ATA hard drive.

The 17-inch flat CRT eMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,299 (US) includes:

• an 800 MHz PowerPC G4 processor;
• a SuperDrive DVD-R/CD-RW optical drive;
• an NVIDIA GeForce2 MX graphics processor with 32MB video memory;
• 256MB of system memory;
• internal support for AirPort wireless networking; and
• a 60GB Ultra ATA hard drive.

You can find more information on the eMac at Apple's Web site.

The Mac Observer Spin:

The price drop on the eMac is interesting, coming as it does without a feature boost. Clearly there aren't a lot of options for Apple on processor speeds for the nonce, but we would like to see the eMac ship with 256 MB as standard, considering how much Mac OS X needs RAM.

That said, the eMac will still run OS 9, an OS that gets by fine with 128 MB of RAM if you aren't pushing heavy-RAM applications, and is still largely aimed at schools. Not so coincidentally, schools are one market where OS 9 is in demand.

In any event, having a machine ship at less than US$1000 is a good thing, not counting the still-available Snow iMac G3. That unit is still priced at US$799. The price drop on the high-end eMac is also great.

Apple's eMac