So little time before the holidays; so much stuff left to tell shoppers about.
Let’s start on the Macintosh side of things with a look at Apple’s cheapest laptop, the $999 iBook 700 megahertz.
Then I’ll turn to what I consider the cheapest acceptable Windows desktop, the $499 eMachines T1840.
Let’s hope my insights will help solve the always vexing problem of big-ticket computer shopping by discussing the pluses and minuses of these two breakthrough products aimed directly at the holiday shopping rush.
At least it used to be a rush; more specifically, it used to be a seller’s market with more people buying than there were products available to be bought. Prices went up. Huge fortunes were made. Ask Bill Gates.
This year it’s a buyer’s market with sluggish demand and the danger that the season will end with products still on the shelves. Prices have gone down. Way down. Ask Steve Jobs.
For the first time in history, Apple Computer Inc. is offering a Macintosh laptop for under $1,000. And on the Windows side, eMachines Inc. broke the $500 barrier with a full-featured multimedia desktop computer better than anything that sold for $1,000 and more last year.
The story behind the pricing of these two machines dramatizes the fact that computers have become commodities like automobiles, toasters and lawnmowers. Gone are the high flying days when most computer shoppers were pioneers incorporating a new, exciting–and expensive–technology into their lives. Today just about everybody who was ever going to be buying a computer already has one.
Worse still for the sellers, computers are like automobiles in that just about all of the ones currently on the market go as fast as anybody needs to go. You can buy a Porsche or a Pentium 4 dual-threading 3 gHz, but there aren’t many places to take either car or computer out for a proper spin.
The software that is available for the 2002 models runs just great on last year’s models, too. Our computers actually have very little to do with computing anymore. They have become information appliances like radios, CD players and television sets. And just like these other appliances, they have come down sharply in price after their buyers became replacement shoppers rather than pioneers.
So Apple, which is the Jaguar of the computer field, sells splendid machines that cost more and perform like sports cars when compared to Windows machines. (Apple even named its current Mac OS X 10.2 operating system Jaguar.)
The $999 iBook is elegantly designed, peppy and full of features like an ultra-sharp 12.1-inch TFT color screen and a 20-gigabyte hard drive. It can even display its output on a television set with S-Video or composite NTSC or PAL signals. It boasts the standard Apple kit of superfast Firewire connections, built-in Ethernet, a 56 kilobits-per-second modem and also has antennae that can be connected to a wireless Internet service called Air Port.
Designed with an eye toward the school market, the iBook is sturdy, seriously shock resistant and comes loaded with a wonderful collection of software including Apple Works (word processing, spreadsheet, database, drawing and presentation manager). The Jaguar operating system boasts moviemaking, music ripping, address book, Internet chat and digital photo modules.
The glaring difference between the $999 door buster and the rest of the Apple laptop line is that the cheapest model is the only one that lacks a CD-RW drive and a DVD player, often considered essential by the young customers it aims to serve. It’s like a Jaguar automobile with an AM radio. You need to give Apple $1,299 for the next model up to get CD burning and DVD playing.
By contrast, the eMachines T1840 desktop has CD-RW and a DVD player as well as horsepower to match the Apple. It includes a superb bundle of software including Microsoft Works (word processing, spreadsheet, database, etc.). It is powered by an entirely respectable Intel Celeron 1.80 gigahertz processor. It offers 128 megabytes of RAM, a 40-gigabyte hard drive, 56K modem, a 40x CD-RW drive, 16x DVD drive, a built-in Ethernet port, six USB 2.0 ports, keyboard, wheel mouse and a set of low-endspeakers.
Those USB 2.0 ports let this machine handle video editing and other high-speed input on apar with Apple’s superb Firewire system.
There is no monitor with the eMachines, but that becomes less of an issue as people who already own monitors upgrade. A 17-inch CRT monitor can be added for $219 with a $100 rebate.
Think of it as a Ford Focus fully loaded. It’s no Jaguar, but it will take you everywhere a Jag can for half the cost and, of course, half the prestige.
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Binary beat readers can participate in the column at chicago tribune.com/askjim or e-mail jcoates1@aol.com. Snail mail him in Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago 60611.
