AFTER READING your review of the Power Mac 7200/90 (December '95, page 55), I was scratching my head in amazement as to why anybody would buy this machine if they were after speed and power.
To bring it up to speed, your testers added 8 MB of RAM, a cache, Connectix's Speed Doubler, and 1 MB of VRAM, worth a reported total of about $750, which brings the price up to about $2,650. For about $300 more, a consumer could purchase a Power Macintosh 7500/100 and get a faster processor, 500 MB more hard-disk space, and AV and videoconferencing features!
It seems to me that those in the market for the 7200-series machine will sacrifice speed and power for a low bottom line. There are plenty of Mac users who fit this description. However, to buy one with the idea of immediately upgrading it as your testers did is just plain foolish.
Anthony Lafrenz
catchword@aol.com
/ The beauty of the 7200/90 is that it gives people who can't afford to spend a lot up-front a range of lower-cost choices at various points along the price/performance spectrum. You can buy in at a low price and then scale your system up from there at any time, as your requirements and your resources increase. Sure, if you get them all, you'll end up spending almost as much as if you'd bought a 7500 in the first place, but you'll have a system that's comparable in performance. No surprise there -- it just shows there's some logic to Apple's pricing structure! / HN
YOUR REVIEW of the new PCI Power Macs was seriously flawed. After warning potential buyers about the Power Mac 7200's disappointing lack of speed and video capabilities, you gave the system four mice, with the caveat that the addition of $750 worth of hardware would give significant speed gains. But $750 of extra hardware cost will buy you a Power Mac 7500! So where was the 7500 in your review?
Christopher Legan
legan@iastate.edu
/ Many readers wondered why we didn't review the 7500. Unfortunately, we can't review every machine that comes along the pike from Apple and the clone vendors. We do try to select a representative sampling and felt that the 8500 was a standout at the high end of the field, especially for digital videophiles, whereas the 7200 was a good low-cost option for buyers on a budget. /SJ
