The end of the year inevitably brings with it scores of “Best of” lists from a variety of sources. Such lists from this year frequently have Apple’s iPod at or near the top, but Apple also made another kind of list this year: PC Magazine‘s “Worst Products of the Year” list, where the eMac was named worst Desktop PC.
“For Apple, the entry-level eMac really does represent Think Different,” wrote Jim Louderbeck. “That’s because for a company that prides itself on quality, this computer is different. As in bad.”
Noting that it is stylish, he called it slow, underpowered, and pathetic. He specifically criticized the 40 Gigabyte hard drive the entry-level unit comes with, and said it was impossible to download data from the unit because it does not have a DVD burner. To that end he did not also note that it comes with FireWire, USB, Ethernet, and a CD burner, all of which can be used, and are used by Mac users, to transfer data.
The last technical issue he listed as a problem is the ATI Radeon 9200 graphics card, which he said “won’t even run this fall’s hot Mac games.”
Mr. Louderbeck concludes: “If you’re considering a home Apple, think different. Buy a Dell. Or be prepared to spend a lot more for an acceptable Apple computer.”
Other items to make Mr. Louderbeck’s list include the Concord 5062AF digital camera, HP’s iPAQ PDA, the VoodooPC Envy m:380 Windows gaming notebook, TDK’s Mojo 1 headphone MP3 player, and a few more.
You can find the full article at PC Magazine‘s Web site.
The Mac Observer Spin:
Mr. Louderbeck has some somewhat good points in his criticism. Specifically, the 40GB hard drive Apple includes in the eMac is woefully small in today’s market.
Also, the eMac’s video card is definitely not a good gaming video card, but then the eMac isn’t a gaming machine in the first place, making that complaint moot. Gamers don’t buy cheap $500 Windows machines that Mr. Louderbeck mentions in comparison to run games, either.
The DVD burner comment, however, is just silly. Very few people use DVD burners to “download data,” no matter what platform they are on. In fact, we’d hazard that very few people actually use DVD burners for much of anything yet, but that’s another issue.
All in all, we are happy to acknowledge that the entry-level eMac isn’t the best computer on the market, but we think Mr. Louderbeck could have found a few worse Windows-based PCs if he had cared to look. That said, we think it worth noting that this piece was clearly not bashing the Mac platform as a whole, just one particular Mac model.