Apple ditches old-fashioned CRTs

Apple launched a replacement for the eMac specifically aimed at the educational market on Wednesday, and also announced that it had ceased production of bulky cathode ray tube (CRT) displays and switched over to flat screens.

Most other computer systems suppliers, including IBM, Dell and HP, continue to ship CRT displays.

The new configuration of a 17-inch iMac for educational customers features a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo processor and costs £639. It also features a built-in iSight video camera and the newest version of Apple's iLife 06 digital lifestyle suite.

The 17-inch iMac for education replaces the eMac, which was Apple's last CRT-based computer, the company said.

The iMac takes advantage of the space saving gained through losing the CRT display and the entire computer is built into a 50mm-thin display.

With a 17-inch widescreen LCD display, the iMac includes a Combo drive for burning CDs and reading DVDs, 512MB of 667MHz DDR2 SD-Ram memory (expandable up to 2GB) and a 160GB disc drive. It also has a built-in iSight video camera for videoconferencing.

Also included is built-in 10/100/1000 Base-T Gigabit Ethernet, built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11g Wi-Fi, five USB ports (three USB 2.0) and two FireWire 400 ports.