Outdated eMac Swindle?

Sparrowhawk · #1 September 16th, 2005, 11:57 PM

Greetings All,
I purchased my first Mac, an eMac, this past April, literally about a week before Tiger was released. (I got the Tiger upgrade shortly after for a reduced price since my purchase was on the heels of the upgrade.) However, the eMac performed sluggishly, and after I looked at a recent Macworld article, discovered that my "new" eMac had last year's chip, running at 1.25 GHz (it's supposed to be 1.45) and 256 MB: it's supposed to be twice that. So what gives? When did the newer, faster eMac make its appearance? And can my slower eMac get the new, faster chip it was supposed to have in the first place, as well as the increased memory? Btw, this is a SuperDrive equipped eMac. Did the Apple Store vendor try to pull a fast one? Comments anyone?

Viro · #2 September 17th, 2005, 02:44 AM

The faster chip will make barely any difference at all. What will help the most is to upgrade the RAM. 256 MB is far too little to run OS X comfortably. 512 MB will make most things bearable, but I find that I need 1GB at least to run all my apps smoothly. Note I am a developer, and have loads of memory hungry apps open at one time (curse you Java....).

The current revision was introduced on the 3rd of May 2005. This was after Tiger was released. Thus I don't think you were swindled, or short changed.

ElDiabloConCaca · #3 September 17th, 2005, 10:46 AM

Whom did you purchase the eMac from? If it wasn't directly from Apple, then you got what you paid for.

New computers come out all the time, and old models are constantly being updated. If what you paid for was a 1.25GHz eMac with 256MB of RAM, then you got what you ordered. If you ordered a 1.42GHz eMac with 512MB of RAM, then you got swindled and a simple phone call can remedy the situation.

When you purchased the eMac, did the specifications say 1.25GHz or 1.42GHz? Likewise with 256MB of RAM or 512MB of RAM?

Sparrowhawk · #4 September 17th, 2005, 10:21 PM

The purchase was made from an Apple Store inside a CompUSA. I'm not sure what is meant by "directly from Apple" since an Apple Store seems rather direct to me, anyway.
My problem is one of sales ethics: the Apple representative could have advised me that an update was due within a couple of weeks. He has since offered to add extra RAM, but I don't know if it will be possible to update the chip, or if the eMac can take a full 1G.

DeltaMac · #5 September 17th, 2005, 10:49 PM

A salesman is not going to know when new products will be released prior to their release (other than rumors), Apple has a reputation for being very close with new product information, and certainly would not allow sales people to provide that information, even if they were sure of their facts. Apple employees have been terminated in the past for releasing new-product information.

Those who choose to delay a purchase 'because a new model will be released tomorrow' - or 'next week' - are often disappointed.
'Direct from Apple' means just that - Ordered from Apple's on-line store.

All eMacs can be upgraded to 1 GB
The newest eMac (which you don't have) can be upgraded to 2 GB total.

Sparrowhawk · #6 September 18th, 2005, 01:35 AM

I appreciate the info. At least I should be able to get a little more speed out of the current (read outdated) eMac. But it is still unfortunate that an eMac purchased so recently is underpowered. Perhaps Tiger slows it down?

Viro · #7 September 18th, 2005, 01:14 PM

I believe that the inclusion of Spotlight and Dashboard into Tiger does slow things down a bit. The indexing service that runs in the background is bound to suck some processing power. That said, 256 MB is far too little RAM to run OS X in. You'd be happier with 512, and if possible 1 GB. Tiger seems to be happier with loads of RAM.

**fryke** · #8 September 18th, 2005, 04:39 PM

Don't stop at 512. Get 1024 MB directly. Simply: Max it out.

About them selling you 'old' hardware: Although it's certainly not much help now, you should've informed yourself prior to making the purchase. The salesperson has one thing in mind: A sale. However a Mac-forum like this one would've helped you make a good decision, because we want happy Mac users.

About Tiger maybe slowing down your computer: You could install Panther, set things up and see for yourself whether you like that system's performance better. Of course, by doing so, you give up some niceties about Tiger that I, personally, wouldn't want to give up anymore, having used Tiger for a long time now.