Ars Technica has posted and article (with images ) detailing Apple’s apparent educational iMac listed at $899. The white 17” iMac comes with:

1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
1GB RAM
160GB hard drive
24x Combo drive
Intel GMA 950 graphics

As Chris Foresman of Ars Technica puts it:

“Though the pricing is attractive, I'm not sure it represents a great value in the current market. The combination of a 1.83GHz processor, max 2GB DDR2 RAM, combo optical drive (DVD-ROM + CD-R/W), and Intel integrated graphics is pretty underwhelming. Given many schools' 3-year or longer equipment cycles, those buying this cheaper iMac would end up with what is essentially 5-year old equipment by the time its reached the upgrade cycle. And without the NVIDIA 9400M graphics, this model would see little benefit from a Snow Leopard upgrade.

Likewise, with the old design and underwhelming hardware, I also wouldn't expect Apple to ever offer this to the general public.”

It makes sense for Apple to offer something for the educational market but we agree that the configuration is “underwhelming”. Check out the full article here.

Tags:imac, education