On Wed, Feb 17, 2010 at 7:15 AM, Neil Laubenthal <[email protected]> wrote: > I've seen suggestions along this line for years . . .since for a lot of > people the Mac Pro is too much expansion/cost . . .and suggesting that Apple > would sell a lot of machines say twice the size of a mini with single slot > and a 3.5 inch drive (or possibly 2 drive bays).
I had a Mac Pro (fully loaded with 1TB drives) in my office last winter -- kept me very warm, but overheated in May (I live in Nova Scotia) so we moved it to an A/C machine room and put an iMac in my office. The MP was also quite loud, and needed a big (and loud) UPS as well (the manual specifies a 12amp circuit). > While there's something to be said for that configuration since it could use > "desktop components instead of laptop components" . . .my guess is that > Apple's focus group and marketing studies indicated that the actual market > for that config isn't big enough to make it worthwhile . . .hence the mini > and iMac are left to fit the bill. > Mid-range systems are getting harder to find from large PC vendors as well -- most are marketed for large organizations (Compaq 6000 or 6005), Dell Precison T1500. I suspect many vendors have encountered unhappy customers who bought systems with 300 wt PS and expected to install 200wt GPU's. It isn't only what people will buy -- you have to understand how people want to use the system. Netbook vendors who used linux had unhappy customers who expected to connect all their USB printers, cameras, etc and even to run Windows apps, resulting in a very high rate of returns. > On Feb 16, 2010, at 9:27 PM, Jonathon Kuo wrote: > >> I was thinking about the design trade-offs involved. The iMac can have >> high-end components (mobo + gpu) because it can accommodate full-size cards >> & drives behind the screen, whereas the Mac mini has to compromise to fit >> into a tiny square box. Fair 'nuf. If they made a Mac midi, where the guts >> were in sort of a small pizza box, and you just hook up your monitor, it >> could fill the power gap between mini and tower. That's one reason we didn't >> go with the mini -- it's just *too* underpowered. The MacPros can be a bit >> overkill (and pricey!) for a lot of things. The only thing (currently) in >> the middle is the iMac. >> Your Mac midi is a laptop with the case closed. Many people do use laptops this way, and consider the extra cost for the built-in UPS and ability to use the machine out-of-office a reasonable tradeoff. There is much less wear and tear on a laptop that spends most of its time sitting on a desk. > > ----------------------------------------------- > There are only three kinds of stress; your basic nuclear stress, cooking > stress, and A$$hole stress. The key to their relationship is Jello. > > neil > > > > _______________________________________________ > MacOSX-talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk > -- George N. White III <[email protected]> Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia _______________________________________________ MacOSX-talk mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
