| Written by Thingfish,
on 11-08-2006 00:00
|
 |
Phwoooooaaaaarrrr! Apple's new Mac Pro is a silver dream machine
|
I’ve seen some of the world’s most spectacular sights in my time: From the Great Wall and the Cistine Chapel to Jessica Alba cracking her whip in Sin City. But of all the wonders in this world, few can hold a candle to the silver dream machine that’s just rolled out of Apple’s garage.
Just look at this thing. The ‘old’ PowerMac G5, released just two years ago, was a thing of beauty, but the Mac Pro is a joy; a Da Vinci in a world of grey desktops.
Somehow, many of the Mac faithful were disappointed on Monday, when Steve Jobs unveiled the new machines. They thought the speech was boring, Jobs was uninspiring and the case design they once whooped over was old hat. Mac users can be petulant gits; their Great Leader gives them the most powerful computer they've ever had, at a lower price, and they moan that it doesn't look different enough. But then Mac acolytes always have been more impressed by form than function.
Or maybe, just as Apple has recharted its destiny from doomed elitist snob into creative, consumer powerhouse, the cult of the Mac is moving to the mainstream. And the followers are unhappy to share their pews with the unwashed masses.
At first glance, you can see why they'd be frustrated with the design. The Mac Pro looks much like the G5. But open the side and you see the difference – just look at that row of drives. Not a cable in sight, and space for four hard drives – two terabytes of storage. On top of that, you may not notice the pair of dual-core, 3GHz Xeon processors and the 16GB of ram - I still remember the days when desktops would get by on 16 megs.
Being Apple, there's all manner of expansion options: Wireless, Bluetooth, dual Ethernet, dual optical drives and all manner of high-speed ports.
All in all, this is the first Mac ever that I'd happily sell my soul for.
There are not many cool computers in this world, but the Mac Pro surely qualifies. This is a machine with few rivals. My only problem with the thing is the price: Whatever the polonecked messiah may tell you, the fact is the full-on, totally stoked Mac Pro costs a lot more than a Dell. And there's a reason for this: Dell make uninspiring, commoditized boxes for people who don't like computers. Apple make icons.
 |
|
 |
The MacPro. Just look at those drives
|
Sun's Ultra40 has that wired thing going on
|
The Dell Precision 620: Even I could build that box
|
If you're going to compare value for money, you're better off comparing like with like. And at the Mac Pro's level, the closest comparison is Sun Microsystems. The entry level Mac Pro is US$2,499. the entry level Sun Ultra 40, with dual core AMD Opterons, is US$6,995. Whack up the two to the the max, and the price difference is even bigger. The Ultra passes US$18,000 - the Mac's US$13,000. You can even upgrade the Mac Pro with wireless, Bluetooth, another optical drive and a pair of 30" Studio Displays, and it's still cheaper than the Sun.
While the price has me convinced that my next computer will be an iMac, there's one last thing I can't quite understand about the MacPro, and that's those optical drives. Innovative Apple is offering two optical drives, which is one more than most people have a use for. But they're both the same.
In the high-end optical storage wars, the general consensus is that Apple will go with Blue Ray. Sony has already released a Blue Ray laptop, so why can't Apple? If buyers are willing to fork out US$16,000 for a desktop, chances are they'll shell out a few dollars more for a decent optical drive. They don't even need to choose between Blue Ray and HD DVD - with two slots, Apple could have given them both.
 Quote this article on your site
Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.3
AkoComment © Copyright 2004 by Arthur Konze - www.mamboportal.com
All right reserved
Last update : 25-08-2006 00:01
|
