The Mac mini has been one of the most affordable desktop Macs ever made since the original G4 model was introduced in January 2005 at US$499 and $599. The entry-level price has varied over the years, jumping $100 with the first Intel Mac minis in 2006. The 2014 model started at $499 with a 1.4 […]
Category Archives: The Value Equation
What happens when an iPad Air and iPad Air 2 have a baby? You get the new iPad. The new 9.7” iPad that Apple recently released is a product that I am happy Apple has released. Even though I don’t agree with many of Apple’s recent decisions (including the discontinuation of the 32 GB iPad mini), […]
Until yesterday, Apple had never designed a low-end iPhone. Every single iPhone model had been designed as the top-end iPhone and only became low-end as newer models arrived. The iPhone SE changes that.
The Mac mini has always been the runt of the Mac litter, and not just in size. When Apple upgraded the G4 model, it never announced it. The Mini ran a Core Duo CPU long after everything else had migrated to Core 2 Duo. And now it’s been almost two years since the Mini was last […]
Let’s get the gripes out of the way first: The iMac has always involved some compromises and forced some changes on Mac users. Back in 1998, it meant giving up ADB mice and keyboards and SCSI peripherals for something new called USB, and it meant no built-in floppy drive. But until now, every iMac has […]
2012 – When Apple introduced the 13.3″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display last week, we learned that the 13.3″ MacBook Pro (MBP) is Apple’s best selling Mac. That’s quite an accomplishment for an $1,199 laptop, especially since it isn’t Apple least expensive notebook computer. (That honor goes to the $999 11.6″ MacBook Air (MBA), and […]
The littlest Mac has become a powerhouse. Apple updated the Mac mini last week, and while the entry-level 2.5 GHz dual-core i5 model is only about 5% faster than last year’s “better” Mac mini, the $200 more expensive model has made the leap from a 2.5 GHz dual-core i5 to a 2.3 GHz quad-core i7.
Surprise! Apple didn’t introduce a $249 or $299 iPad mini last week. Instead, the 7.9″ Mini starts at $329, a bit higher than anyone predicted.
2012 – Yesterday Apple overhauled its entire notebook line, and perhaps the biggest surprise was the 15″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display (quite the name!).
Yesterday Apple overhauled its entire notebook line, moving everything to Ivy Bridge CPUs with Intel HD Graphics 4000 and USB 3. Ivy Bridge means a bit more processing power and improved energy consumption. HD 4000 graphics has one-third more cores than 3000 (16 vs. 12), and Apple is claiming up to 60% improvement there.
Yesterday Apple overhauled its entire notebook line, moving everything to Ivy Bridge CPUs with Intel HD Graphics 4000 and USB 3. Ivy Bridge means a bit more processing power and improved energy consumption. HD 4000 graphics has one-third more cores than 3000 (16 vs. 12), and Apple is claiming up to 60% improvement there.
On Monday, Apple updated the MacBook Pro (MBP) line with faster processors (CPUs) across the board, along with higher capacity hard drives and better graphics processors (GPUs) on some models with no change in pricing.
It’s been a week since Apple announced its best fiscal quarter ever – $20 billion income (up 66% over last year); $4.3 billion profit (up 70%); sales of 3.89 million Macs (up 27%), 14.1 million iPhones (up a whopping 91%), 9 million iPods (down 11%), and 4.2 million iPads – previewed OS X 10.7 Lion, and […]
To quote the Beatles, “It’s getting better all the time.” While much of the focus will be on the new high-end 12-core Mac Pro, the iMac has seen its share of significant improvements as well. All iMacs now use Intel’s Core “i” technology and support HyperThreading, which means they can function as though they have […]
The amount of processing power in the top-end 2.93 GHz 12-core Mac Pro boggles the imagination – as does the price. There are two audiences for the Mac Pro, those who need the most power possible in a Macintosh computer and those who need more expansion options than the iMac and Mac mini offer.
For the first time since Apple introduced the original G4 Mac mini in January 2005, the company has completely redesigned the smallest, least expensive Mac.
2010 – I had some interesting discussions last week with a new Mac user. He raised some interesting issues regarding value that got me to rethink things.
One of my interesting jobs at Low End Mac is compiling our price trackers, which have evolved quite a bit over the years. We do price trackers for all Macs that are supported by some version of Mac OS X, from Beige G3 Power Macs and WallStreet PowerBooks through today’s Intel-based Macs. We also track the […]
Kudos to Apple for some real changes in the iPod line. It’s been a year since Apple overhauled the entire iPod range with the 3G iPod nano, the iPod touch, and the new name for the “classic” iPod – the iPod classic. Yesterday saw the introduction of a new form factor for the iPod nano, […]
If you only took a quick glance at CPU speed, you might wonder why Apple even bothered to introduced new MacBook Pro models yesterday. Going from 2.16 GHz to 2.2 GHz is a 2% speed gain, and jumping from 2.33 GHz to 2.4 GHz isn’t much better – a gain of 3%. A New […]
Apple did it again. Like clockwork, they upgraded the MacBook six months after its last update. The Mid 2007 models are a bit faster, have larger hard drives, include 802.11n wireless, and the top models use a faster SuperDrive. Prices remain the same.
We’ve been predicting it for weeks, and Apple updated both the iMac and the Mac mini today. Because the iMac has a bigger change in features, size, and performance, we’re looking at it today. Come back tomorrow for a look at the updated Mac mini.
We’ve been predicting it for weeks, and Apple updated both the iMac and the Mac mini today. Because the iMac has a bigger change in features, size, and performance, we’re looking at it today. Come back tomorrow when we’ll look at the updated Mac mini.
Apple has done something really different with the Mac Pro, and it’s taken a few days to put it all in perspective.
The first Intel-based iMac changes the value equation for the entire realm of desktop Macs.
Apple will begin migrating to Intel CPUs next summer, but the PowerPC isn’t dead yet. Nowhere is this more evident than with the new Power Mac G5 models, all of which use IBM’s new dual-core CPUs.
Already this month Apple updated the iMac and introduced the video iPod. And yesterday they introduced the first Macs ever with dual-core CPUs and improved PowerBooks. We’ll look at the new PowerBooks today and save the Power Macs for tomorrow.
It was just five months ago that Apple speed bumped the iMac G5 by 200 MHz, and yesterday it upped the ante again. The Late 2005 iMac G5 is thinner, lighter, faster, and more feature-laden than its predecessor.
Apple updated the iBook line yesterday. The 2005 models have scrolling trackpads, sudden motion sensors, 512 MB of RAM, ATI Radeon 9550 graphics, and Bluetooth 2.0 as a standard feature.
Last Tuesday, Apple speed bumped the Power Mac G5. Last Friday, they officially released Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. And today, Apple introduced improved versions of the eMac and iMac G5. Both new models ship with Tiger.
