If it was headless then it probably wouldn't take such a bashing from both PC and Mac users alike. I simply cannot understand why Apple is unwilling to make a cheap headless Mac. Apple could also produce a 17" CRT display again to go beside it. However I bet that a cheap headless Mac would boost sales of the LCD display line.

My $1300 Dell (Box Only), doesn't have a DVD burner on it... Why expect a cheaper Dell to?

He does have a point with the video card. That is my only gripe.

..who had been dissing Apple for about the last six years and who bought an entry-level eMac a few weeks back to replace his PC:

"I now have an eMac up and running at home. It seems excellent quality after a PC and setting up and configuring was a doddle. I even have the airport card running with web access without even breaking sweat."

IMHO, the eMac is the best of the CRT-based all-in-one computers Apple produced. The screen is sharper and brighter and clearer than the older iMacs. The chassis feels far more solid and is a much cleaner and more refined design. The machine is not as loud. The downside is that it only comes in white.

I agree. Price has to drop, and bring us a headless Mac already!

As has been pointed out here, if the author can show us a comparable Dell for under $800 with the same features that he's demanding, then he'd have a gripe. As it stands today, what he's criticizing the eMac for doesn't exist for under $800 from Dell either.

We have an eMac in our office. Only a lowly 1GHz version. We use it for document production, web design. We run X on it to develop and test software that runs on UNIX boxes. So, PC Magazine, what exactly is your problem?

I thought the guy's article was very fair. First of all, it dumped on a lot of PC products way worse than it did on the eMac, and it also provided a link to Apple's better desktop machines.

The comments here about the eMac's equipment level for the price are dead on. The writer complained about the price and completely neglected to mention the eMac's feature set, which would have proved that it was worth the money, even compared to the Dells. It was sloppy at best. He also said it was slow, but I'll bet he only had 256 MB of memory in it. Not enough thought, or research apparently, was put into that piece.

That wasn't a review, it was a short excerpt from PC mag's online advertisement for the PC Mag product guides. Still, bad publicity, no doubt about it. About the only upside is it sets the stage if a new eMac should happen to be introduced just after the Christmas season.

On the other hand, PC Magazine loves the iMac G5:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1648796,00.asp

But yeah: for what you get, the eMac blows.

Dell recently had a small business special for a Dimension 4200 with PCI Express, 3.0GHz Pentium 4HT, 256MB RAM, 60GB drive, 17" flat panel LCD monitor and a free printer for $469 and free shipping. And that's just one of many examples. Next to that in terms of price, the eMac completely sucks.

A headless Mac might be a good idea, but people talking about upping the specs, and then lowering the price might want to catch a wee clue about price.

The CRTs in the eMac are really cheap, thus a headless version of the current $800 eMac would likely not sell for much, if any, less than $700. If you upgrade the specs, then you end up with a machine that still costs $800, but that now requires an external screen, and that gives up the "all in one" nature that helps sell the beasties. It might be worth it, but I doubt there is that much money to save on the CRT.

I suspect you have the choice of cheaper or better, but probably not both.

Scott

You can't offload files??? What files does this moron generate that won't fit on a CD-r? You do not use an eMac to run logic, Motion, Shake or Final Cut Pro, that is not what it is designed for.

On the other hand, my mother has an eMac which she uses for Photoshop Elements, Microsoft Word, Firefox and email. She isn't even close to half way filling the hard drive.

Everything on the eMac worked right out of the box.
Her camera's firewire data transfer worked instantly.
She has had no virus problems.
She does not even know what spyware is.
She isn't pestered by pop ups.

She has a computer that, very ably, does everything she wants it to do and it cost under a grand.

The eMac may not suit the author's needs but that not make it a bad design. I am sure he thinks his automobile is a terrible design because it can't fly across the Atlantic.

Sorry to spoil the joyfull pile-on of PC Mag, but they don't seem to me to be unfair in their quick summary of eMac issues. Note they give the new iMac a rave review, so clearly they are willing to give Apple credit when deserved.

Is the eMac "one of the worst"? Of course not, that's just silly. As others have pointed out, it's quite useable for many people. We get along fine in our house with several older 400 MHz G3 iMacs running 10.2, and our usage includes video editing.

It's fair to point out the advantages of PCs as well. You can indeed purchase better hardware specs for the same $800 from vendors such as Dell. I just configured a Dimension 4700 with 2.8 GHz P4, 128 MB PCI Express video card (ATI Express X300se), 512 MB RAM (double RAM promotion), 80 GB HD, CD-RW/DVD combo drive, 17" CRT and 1 YR coverage for $798 (free shipping).

That's the kind of real-world system that my local personal and business consulting clients purchase all the time, although I try to get them to upgrade to XP Pro and a good flat panel display as well. Which, of course, is the biggest advanage of the PCs - one can pick and choice from a wide range of compoments, both for the inital purchase and for later upgrades. Apple has very poorly positioned their perceived "product lines" that leaves a huge price/flexibility/performance gap in between the all-in-one units and the G5 towers.

Show me a $799 1.6 GHz G5 tower and then we'll have something to compete in this area. Leave the higher speed double CPU systems for the more expensive bracket, although I think Apple will have to continue to lower those prices we well.

The G5 eMac will be with us in January and then it will offer brilliant value. The G5 is such a leap over the G5 the lock rate is somewhat unimportant.


The eMac with a G5 and DVD-R option and a reasonable HDD is actually hard to beat. It's robust, easy to use, all-in-one, so no spaghetti, and lots of free applications.

The bigest weakness to owning a Mac is without a doubt the poor browsing experiance compared to PC's. There are tons of poorley coded site that just do not work with Macs and all the browsers are sluggish compared to the PC experiance.

Sure no viruses, and that did it for me, but for a lot of switchers there are still problems to be addressed if dissapointment is to be avoided.

I LOVE MY eMac!!!!!!!!

suck.

It's underpowered and a bit overpriced for the bottom end config.

JM$0.02

As a sysadmin for 4 years at a major university, I am a huge proponent of the eMac. I find it's price to be perfect and it to be a teriffic machine for education. I put dozens in labs where they were using them for little more than web/document/email machines. They will easily go for 6 years and with Apple's reputation for making successive OSes *faster* than the previous ones, I can only see these machines wanting a bit more RAM after time.

The Radeon 9200 is not a joke of a card for an educational machine designed for simple use. PC Mag gets negative karma, IMO.

funny i just configured two dells a 3000 and a 4700. With equal configurations they came in at $850 and $1050. the dell at half the price IS A MYTH.

By the way that other persons 4700 has no firewire, a mechanical mouse, a PS2 keyboard , no real software and is burdened with XP Home edition.
,,,, add XP Pro, virus sofware, worksuite, money,and a real keyboard and mouse, Firewire card...oops another $300 bucks

I know people in the PC mindset aren't used to thinking this way, but the eMac is designed with the user in mind. The "e" stands for "education," and every aspect of its design, from its features to its rugged, if old-fashioned design, are made for education.

This would be like Sports Car magazine rating the Geo Metro as the worst car of the year.

This article seems really interesting in 2 respects..

1) The eMac beats my iBook G3 in all areas described... However my biggest problem is lack of hard drive space. According to my calculation, however, it should be just as easy to buy an external drive if you need more space for the eMac as it would be for my iBook. Wait, it would be easier as you can leave it connected all the time since it's not a portable...

2) The eMac was designed as an education machine, hence the "e" in eMac... Last time I checked, my iBook G3 is adequate for this purpose, ergo the eMac would be more than adequate....

Does that cheap Dell come with software similar to iLife?

Is the software that and OS easy to use and setup?

Is it all in one or do you have cables dangling everywhere?

Does it come with firewire?

I'm not saying that the eMac is a awesome machine but it is a good starter machine.

Some people just don't get it. If you take the Dell, add and add equivalent software to iLife and XP Pro (Home edition is crippled for networking and security) and a Firewire card, you will end up spending more. You will also have to buy antispyware/virus checkers and firewall software and or a hardware firewall/router. Of course, I recommend a router for everyone with broadband.

Dells are only cheaper until you add stuff to it to make it usable and semi-secure.

The G5 eMac will be with us in January and then it will offer brilliant value. The G5 is such a leap over the G5 the lock rate is somewhat unimportant.

Wow, the G5 is such a leap over the G5? Interesting. But I agree, lock rates are somewhat unimportant. (Although reading the MacIntouch comparison, the G5 and G4 don't differ quite as much as some might lead you to believe).


The eMac with a G5 and DVD-R option and a reasonable HDD is actually hard to beat. It's robust, easy to use, all-in-one, so no spaghetti, and lots of free applications.

Woo-hoo! Free apps! Like the crappy FaxSTF! Or the crappy Quicken 2004 (which is so feature poor compared to its windows sibling)! Or the never updated AppleWorks 6! The only free apps worth mentioning are iLife, and that's only if you're into making movies or music. If not, its basically a bust.

The bigest weakness to owning a Mac is without a doubt the poor browsing experiance compared to PC's. There are tons of poorley coded site that just do not work with Macs and all the browsers are sluggish compared to the PC experiance.

Um, no, the biggest weakness is either (a) the built-in screen, which means your $900 eMac now costs over $1000 because you're just playing with fire to get an all-in-one without the 3 year warranty, (b) the fact that most of the computer is not upgradeable, such that if anything video related goes, there goes your computer (if its the monitor that dies, you could run a second monitor off of it, but then you got to monitors on your desk, but only one works), or (c) no choice in display or computer location (got to put it on your desk).

NOTE: These are a bit dated--done back in April and June respectively; I'm sure that Dell's current offerings have changed since then. Still, they give a fair and detailed comparison of what you get for your money:

Consumer: $800 eMac Combo Drive vs. $800 Dell Dimension 4600

http://www.systemshootouts.org/shootouts/desktop/2004/0413_dt0800.html

Educational: $650 eMac CD-ROM vs. $650 Dell Dimension 4600

http://www.systemshootouts.org/shootouts/special/2004/0616_edu_dt0650.html

NOTE: (I do plan on fully updating both of these after MWSF, regardless of whether the eMac is revamped by then or not).

We have several eMacs in our office basically because we could not afford flat panel iMacs. Those eMacs are OK. Reliable and preforming well. We don't do anything fancy - just regular office work. No cable mess. Nice looking. Seamles networking thanks to OS X. No administration effort except for keeping the OS up to date. If we switched our office to Dells with MS Windows we would have to hire an administrator to troubleshoot all those PCs. With eMacs we don't have any administrator. I am not trying to say it is the best computer in the world but certainly it does not deserve the "worst" mark. Comparing it to Dell isn't just fair becuase with cheap Dell you get a low quality, ugly product with even uglier OS. If you want to try Mac OS X on desktop and you don't have the budget for G5 - try eMac - you won't be disappointed. Alternatively, you can get a refurbished iBook G4 for about $800 - it is agreat deal - or new iBook G4 for $1000. Go to store.apple.com and look special deals to get refurbs.
J-23

funny i just configured two dells a 3000 and a 4700. With equal configurations they came in at $850 and $1050. the dell at half the price IS A MYTH

Except Dell let's a customer CHOOSE what they want to include in their computers (give or take, and certainly a lot more than Apple). So a comparable system might cost more, but, then again, if I don't have any need for firewire, I can leave it off (hey, and get this, add it back in later as a PCI card, can't do that on an eMac!). Don't want a DVD-RW drive, change it to DVD-CD/RW, or just a CD-ROM, or a DVD-ROM or CD-RW. You have, OMG, choices! Don't need a monitor, save yourself $50, or use the extra money to get a better chip, video card, etc. You have choices on your warranties as well (1, 2, 3, or 4 years).

By the way that other persons 4700 has no firewire, a mechanical mouse, a PS2 keyboard , no real software and is burdened with XP Home edition.
,,,, add XP Pro, virus sofware, worksuite, money,and a real keyboard and mouse, Firewire card...oops another $300 bucks

Who says he needs firewire? An optical mouse is $10 more (and, hey, its got two buttons AND a scroll wheel!). WTF does it matter if the keyboard is PS/2 or USB? Well, I guess to Mac elitists looking to find anything wrong with a PC, I guess, but since most people plug their keyboards into their comptuer and never think about it again... Comes with loads of software, including a works suite like Appleworks, you get a trial copy of some virus software. For $39 you can get added software, like Money, but, hey, if you don't need/use it, you don't pay for it (wow, more choices!).

It also comes with built-in software to treat CD-RWs like floppies. Apple still delivers nothing like that on the Mac.

BTW, since you apparently missed it, the original poster stated that he recommended it to both personal and work customers. Personal customers don't need XP Pro. I would think most companies have site-licenses for XP Pro, so wouldn't need to add the charge. But then again, you have a choice (want to buy a Mac, if you take the option of getting Server software, you don't save $129 by not getting the client software. Why is that?).

Oh, and one more thing:
Does that cheap Dell come with software similar to iLife?

No. But, then again, if you're like MOST people and have absolutely no interest or no talent with the whole movie/music making business, iLife is pretty much worthless.

Eh, I've had an eMac for over 2 years. It even came with a Superdrive which I've burned mucho cd's and dvd's. The graphics card isn't an issue for me as I'm not a gamer. Browsing isn't a problem for me either. Some sites work, some don't. Oh well. I find what I need one way or another.

Apple knows its customers want a low cost, mac os x minitower, but refuses to meet the demand.

Shame on you Apple... these all-in-one mac's invariable have an underpowered video card, thats not upgradeable...so frustrating.

Everyone missed the most obvious.

This article was written by Jim Louderback. He is the same guy that talked c*** about Apple/Macs through the entire MacWorld broadcast on TechTV a while back.

He is an PC biggot, plain and simplet.

Testudio would pipe in with his usual Apple-bashing.

Let's see here - that $499 Dell probably has a way underpowered power supply that will fry in a year or 2 or if you upgrade the video card.

Oh, yeah, that cool software that treats CD-RWs as floppies. Too bad they pretty much are incompatible with most other systems out there. Been there, done that and tell people to uninstall it. Besides, the built in burning in XP and X works better than that garbage.

You get the choice with Apple of warranties, too. 1 year base + 2 year Applecare is available. Not sure I'd want a 4 year warranty on a Dell. They are typically junk in year 2, so there is no point.

Most people (consumers) never upgrade their computer besides RAM and maybe hard drive. They don't open up the computer at all. When something goes wrong they get it fixed or buy a new box. So the un-upgradeability thing is pretty much moot.

That being said, I'm not the biggest proponent of the eMac. Never really liked it, but it filled the niche.

The eMac isn't a powerhouse, and it's not a perfect computer, but it's not all that bad of a value if you want an all in one. I agree that a cheap headless Mac would be nice, but for what it is the eMac is just fine.

And it's easy to go poke around at the Dell side and see what stuff will cost you in comparison; I shop there on occasion for a business (for which I've always ended up spending way more than $500 on computers, even very basic ones).

Try the small business section: The bottom of the line Dell Dimension will end up costing you $527 (after mail-in rebate) for a 2.4GHz Celeron, similar specs in terms of RAM, HD, warranty, speakers, and optical drive, and a 17" CRT.

That Dell certainly is cheaper, and has the advantages of customization that Dell is so good at, though you have Intel Integrated graphics, no firewire, and no iApps (well, there are iTunes and iPhoto stand-ins). You also get an optical mouse and higher-quality keyboard with the eMac.

Yeah, it's cheaper, but it's also cheaper. Try to configure one of the more compact Dimension 4700C models similarly, and you'll end up spending upwards of $1000. Heck, put a flat panel on it, and you're spending as much as a G5 iMac, and it's still bigger.

PC magazine rates PCs by how well they play Solitaire, Macs by how well they compare to a Cray YMP.

I've been fairly impressed by my eMac (1.25 GHz, SuperDrive). Its nothing compared to the G5 DP on my desk at work, but it runs fast enough for most Photoshop work, and while doing file sharing, DNS, email, and HTTP service besides. Its even fine with playing DVDs as my desktop wallpaper, as long as I'm not thrashing the CPU with much else. The 80 GB drive was full pretty quickly, but that's why I have another 60 and 250 GB on FireWire.

I would rather buy an eMac or iMac and keep it for 4-5 years and replace. Why? Because I am getting a good deal and the product line will not be outdated 3 months from the relase. eMac 1.25ghz release: April 2004
Dell has a great laptop line but their Desktop line is poor. How many revisions have they had again? It is quite a lot this year.

MacNN - please remove the Cockroach banners because they are unfit as advertisements.

I think what's silly about this "worst of" list is that whatever the faults of the eMac are, it's hardly the worst desktop system of 2004. It seems ridiculous to claim it is. I really think they had to go out of their way to give the "award" to the eMac rather than any number of junkariffic PC's that came out this year.

It is clear that the author knows nothing of what he speaks about. Best of lists and worst of lists are simply for magazines who are trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. simply put, any moron can create a bulldodo list. It however takes a some thought to write an article.

When you look at any real world study on the things that everyone does on a computer, the emac performs quite well. When you add in its price, it is truly a stellar computer. Take a look at the recent Macintouch article and you will see that the eMac holds its own against even the power mac. Having PC's around and power macs at work, I choose to have an eMac at home and It performs wonderfully.

Truth be told, let's get serious here and all. The worst computer has got to be something that's way overpriced for its capabilities/power/etc. And that's got to be any computer based on the overpriced P4 Extreme Edition (a chip only designed to try to beat AMD in the benchmark game - has anyone actually spent the $800 to upgrade to one of these things?).

I recently recommended an eMac for my sister and her family because they could not afford the higher priced iMac and because they need a computer for basics like internet, email, quicken, word, excel, and iphoto and itunes. The eMac is perfect for them. It is one of the best bargains around and far outstrips anything from Dell - when you factor in the additional software purchases, firewire, iphoto integration, and the Mac OS.

You can argue about the pros and cons of the eMac, you can say you like it or not. But, I've had one for over a year now, and it has served me well, given me a fantastic user experience, few problems, and continues to serve my needs and wants. AppleWorks, Mail, Safari, Photoshop, GoLive, iMovie and iTunes all run great on this machine so far.

As far as games, well to have bought an eMac for to play the latest CPU/GPU consuming games on would have been stupid. But those aren't priorities or even wants for me. To say that the eMac's the "worse product of the year" is stupid and untrue. I'd more quickly nominate a Dell for the place, but I think they just wanted to say something negative about the Mac, that's all.

As others have mentioned, this is another, very attractive "feature" of the eMac. Yet you still get great Mac quality-- hardware and software alike!

It truly warms my heart that enough people took the time to write in, filling up at least five pages here, to state what I intuitively knew about to be true about the article in question, which could be summed up by saying "What a load of c***!"

The Mac is still here. I haven't opened a PC Mag in years.

Much as it kills me to admit it (since I despise Michael Dell and the most hellish online shopping experience I've had in my life was on the Dell site (so sue me.... i had stackable coupons and i wanted a digital camera)) But if you shop your A#$ off and send in the rebate - you can get a so so Dell Desktop machine with a 17" LCD for right around 500.00 - you can use 10.00 of the difference to get a firewire card and the other 290.00 on a killer video card (if you are so inclined) Apple is not the price performance leader but we knew this. The price for using such a great OS is the mediocre on the low end - OUCH that was my pocket on the highend hardware.

I saw it on DealMac (DealNews)

Dell Dimension 3000 P4/2.8 for $349 after rebate, w/15" LCD for $449, w/17" for $498 (updated)

Updated 12:23 pm ET, Dec 20, 2004; expires 11:59 pm ET, Dec 21, 2004

Once again, Dell Small Business offers the Dell Dimension 3000 Pentium 4/2.8GHz desktop PC with Dell E153FP 15-inch LCD, 512MB RAM, 80GB hard drive, 48x CD-RW drive, two-year warranty, and Windows XP Home for $599 before a $150 mail-in rebate, $449 after. With free shipping, it's still the lowest total price we've seen for a 3000-series desktop with these specifications. Upgrade to the Dell E173FP 17-inch LCD for $49 more, or $498 total

While some have pointed out the sub-$500 rebated Dells, MOST consumers will surf Dell.com and click "home use" NOT "small business" ... they are not, therefore, would not know to go there. Thus, they are spending more. If you want to compare, make sure you're comparing within each company's market divisions (IE Education to Education, Home to Home, Pro to Pro).

I use an eMac and about a dozen other flavors of Apple computers using everything from OS8.5 - 10.3.7 and iMovie to FCP to Photoshop to Filemaker to Word and they all perform pretty much flawlessly. No viri, no crashes, no sweat. Some of these machines have been running continuously for a couple of YEARS with zero issues.

My friends across the hall however are Windows users and I constantly lend a shoulder for them to cry upon and see bits of hair flying off their heads as they struggle with their latest OS/IT/printer/virus/popup/spyware/constant security update fiascos.

I'm wondering if, in it's infinate quest to remain "unbiased", that PC Magazine felt compelled to find SOMETHING nasty to say about ANY Apple product lest they suffer the slings and arrows of their advertisors...

The eMac has a poor quality display, a very space consumming design, it's no expansible and it's design is a little bit outdated.

Apple should consider to create a "g5 mini", a minitower g5, cheap but with a practical, small and nice design, with the option of hooking a 17 inch apple consumer display, or third party displays.

Hey, most of the people having 800 dolars (800 euros in europe), don't necessary think in buying a Dell : They think in buying a clon PC, or a marked PC less expensive (like a Packard Bell, an HP, etc.) The point with the eMac is that it is an "all-in-one" : and most of the people with low budgets like to buy "part by part". It would be nice a "headless" eMac, for the entry level consumers, the small business and for eDucation. Dell and HP are champions in schools and offices, here in Europe, because of the modularity of their products.

I agree with you entirely, but Apple can't make a headless box - at least not one in the price/performance category everyone wants. Apple suffers from an extremely stratified user base from which the bulk of their sales come (like it or not) Since back in the days of the LC having only 8bit color, the IIsi (my first mac - 2999.00 new) having 8 bit sound, Apple's been paranoid about eating into their own userbase so they purposely "cripple" some feature on a lowerend machine in hopes that people will upsell to a higherpriced (higer profit) machine. Yes maybe 3 out of 7 Chi-Chi design firms want a 2500.00 aluminium fashion statement sitting on their desks, but the other 4 would probably be just as happy with an iCheap and the old monitior they were using. And that is Apple's biggest fear - that the bread and butter design/typography/printing clients who willingly pay top dollar for whatever "world-class" machine comes out because they have millions invested in software and a work flow, will have reason to downgrade to a cheap box that sits under a desk and doesn't give Jonathan Ive something to blather on about in the infomercials. (I swear if i hear someone who made a laptop with flimsy WHITE keys and aimed it at a children's educational market drone on one more time about the "purity" of design - i'm going to have to hunt him down and spank him.) For those of us in the sub 1000.00 computer market (and that is most individual home users who aren't subsidized by work) Apple's low end is a poor choice bang/buck. XP is ugly and virus prone and all the other valid arguments everyone makes - but you have to ask yourself something. If all these computers come off of essentially 3-4 different subcontractors assembly lines (compal, etc) and MS is taking a HUGE chunk of the PC price as a license fee for WinBlows - how much of the cost of an Apple box is a justified premium for using an amazingly good OS - and how much is just highway robbery? The parts are almost all the same - the engineering/construction is subcontracted to a great degree - the PowerPC was supposed to be so much cheaper than the Pentium to make.... where's the money going?

the emac is not a great machine. I own one and it filled a gap before I get some more money. The only reason I got it is because I could get some series discouts from people in the trade. THe graphics card is far 2 underpowered and the CPU spends most of its time maxed out. It made sence for me as i could get it cheap but otherwise go elsewhere not necesarily to dell but old G4 machines which I have seen run much quicker in practice if not on paper.