I’ve mentioned before that I’m somewhat ambivalent about the all-in-one PCs, mostly because they use laptop parts to get to that svelte size, but Apple has announced the specs of their education iMac, which sits at $999. That’s $200 less than the cheapest consumer model. You won’t get Thunderbolt or a Core i5, but you’ll get a decent computer for that price.
So what does a grand buy you? A 3.1GHz Intel Core i3 Dual-Core processor, 21.5-inch LCD screen, AMD Radeon HD 6750 with 256MB, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, a Superdrive and OS X Lion. The next cheapest iMac that’s available for the mass market costs $1,199.
Instead of the Thunderbolt port, this iMac has a simple mini Display Port. For $200 more, you can get a 2.5GHz Quad-Core i5, 4GB of RAM, and 500GB of storage. While some people might perish the thought of getting this sub-$1,000, a lot of students will purchase this because of the price-point.
