Listen Up Students! There's a New Deal in Town...
As a college student, I'm currently extremely happy with my base model MacBook acquired about a month ago. Talk about bang for the buck! Well, today, Apple has upped the ante with a new model of iMacs for edu customers selling at... $899. Yeah. That's $150 less than a base MacBook model in the educational store (and $300 less than the previous base iMac model), for what are basically slightly better specs. (17" monitor vs. a 13.3", and 20 gigs more harddrive space.) Oh yeah, and you still get your free iPod nano, adding another $129 in savings. So, taking that into effect, if you sell the iPod on ebay, you're getting a brand new Intel iMac (all-in-one computer with keyboard and mouse) for basically under $800. Sounds pretty amazing to me!
Also, I wanted to add a note for those of you thinking about purchasing this, and possibly hesitating on the Intel GMA950 Integrated Graphics. It's really not that bad. Believe it or not, I was even able to run Half-Life 2 under Boot Camp at playable speeds, and World of Warcraft, etc. should do just fine. Not too shabby for a sub $900 Mac! This is seriously raising the bar for good value here. By the way, out of curiosity, are any of you recent MacBook customers, or planning to get one of these iMacs instead? Let me know by commenting.
Comments
Up until this point, there have been 11 responses to “Listen Up Students! There's a New Deal in Town...”:
dang!i would buy one but i want a 20" cinema display But that deal is too hard to pass >_
Its not going to stop me from getting a MacBook but it does make the decision of what to get first a lot easier. The iMac will be first with this kind of deal.
Phill Ryu
True... it's an even more crazy value when you think that the 17" cinema displays (with edu discount) start at $699 for a base 17" model!
I got my 2.0Ghz MacBook about a month ago. The iMac deal looks mighty tasty. It might be time to add a quick weekend project to offset the cost to get one of those slick looking desktops.
why would you even buy a macmini then...
Who needs a meal program? That iMac is a mighty tempting deal.
Isn't Apple's edu purchase policy still one of each model per school year?
Phill Ryu
This is from the Apple Store policy page:
PURCHASE QUANTITY
Faculty, Staff and Students purchasing from the Apple Store for Education Individuals will be allowed to purchase the following quantities of product per academic school year:
Desktop: One (1) may be purchased per academic year
Mac mini: One (1) may be purchased per academic year
Laptop: One (1) may be purchased per academic year
Display: A maximum of two (2) may be purchased per academic year
Software: A maximum of two (2) per software title may be purchased per academic year
iPod: One (1) per iPod family (iPod, iPod nano, iPod Shuffle 1GB) may be purchased per academic year (Note: there is no quantity limitation on iPod Shuffle 512MB)
iSight: One (1) may be purchased per academic year
In other words, feel free to get an iMac and MacBook if you want. 
In response to your question at the end of this post, I am a recent MacBook owner. I purchased it for when I start college this September, but I received it three days before Apple offered the computer + free Nano deal. D'oh!
I think this new $900 iMac is really cool, but nothing beats the portability of a MacBook or MacBook Pro. This factor alone, I think, makes the MacBook worth the extra money. If I were buying a computer right now, I would still get the MacBook for this reason.
I'm starting school in August and I already had my eyes set on the other 17 inch model $1,199 (edu discount). But now i'm at alittle of a dilemma because I have $1000 saved already so I could order the new model now, but it feels like it's a little too watered down for what I plan to do with it. None the less it's a great deal, I don't think you can find a core duo for less than that. It's made my friend, who's also starting school in August, to reconsider getting a macbook.
I think that this a great idea on apple's part, and I have wanted a mac for so long, in fact, the first time i had the chance, it was at getting a 1.0ghz ibook, I got the gaming laptop. The next time I had the oppratunity it was at a power book, but instead, I built my own gaming machine. Now I have a chance to get a macbook (getting it for portabilty over previously said 15.4 8lb gaming craptop) and I don't have to pay for it this time 
I am in a bet with my mom. But if an Imac with basically the same specs can play HL-2 then the macbook can too. Nothing like playing cs:s in the airport whilst others fall alsleep:-)
Paul Stamatiou
July 05th, 2006 at 2:49pmI took advantage of the MacBook "back to school" deal and got a free 2GB nano, a $179 value. Apple's really got the advantage when it comes to computers for students.. unbeatable value.