Over the past several weeks we witnessed Cube
inventories dwindle leading us to speculate that the Cube
might be dropped in the near future. Last week Apple finally
decided to pull
the plug on the Cube.
“Cube owners love their Cubes, but most customers decided
to buy our powerful Power Mac G4 minitowers instead,”
said Philip Schiller, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide
Product Marketing.
Apple didn't rule out reviving the Cube line
in the future, but given the Cube's lackluster sales I doubt
the Cube would be re released without some major design changes.
Although our pragmatic nature prevented us from actually buying
a Cube, we will miss its presence in the Apple lineup. Submit
your epitaphs for the Cube and I'll publish the better
ones below!
A Haiku Epitaph
Smooth lucite sleek square
Apple design blossomed true
new branch bore no fruit
– Tristram Perry
As of this writing, MacZone still has the CD-RW Cube available.
This was the only store listing the Cube in stock. Most stores
have already pulled their Cube listings altogether. It is
unclear whether MacZone is offering 128MB or 256MB free RAM
with the Cube. The product information page lists 128MB but
has a separate ad that prompts you to use "Item #135814"
to get 256MB free RAM. Either way, MacZone's supply of Cubes
is bound to dry up soon as well.
As the Cube has finally reached the end of its life, we will
discontinue updating this page. Below we have outlined a few
alternative sources for picking up a used Cube. eBay is your
best bet with 13 Cubes up for auction as of this writing.
Amazon and Yahoo didn't have any Cubes and very few Macs for
that matter, but are worth checking as bids might not run
as high as eBay. If you know of other sources for Cubes, new
or used, drop me a line.
Note: We receive a small commission
on computers purchased using the links below. Though this
adds no cost to your purchase price it does help us defray
the cost of running MacReviewZone and MacSpeedZone. Your
support is appreciated!
The
Cube is currently available in three configurations, the original
G4/450 with 64MB RAM, a DVD Drive and a 20GB hard drive, the
newly introduced G4/450 with 128MB RAM, a CD-RW drive and
a 20GB hard drive or a high end G4/500 with 128MB RAM and
a 60GB drive. The G4/500 is only available through the Apple
store. The G4/500 now sports nVIDIA's GeForce2
MX. ATI's RADEON remains as a BTO option. Both G4/450's
use ATI's RAGE 128 Pro card. Other than these differences,
the cubes share a common feature set. Apple's design team
managed to pull of the same wizardry that allowed the iMacs
to be convection cooled, eliminating the need for a noisy
fan in the cube. The Cubes' silent operation will help you
appreciate the bundled Harman/Kardon external speakers. The
round 20 watt speakers (10 per channel) have a range of 80Hz
to 20KHz and connect via USB.
Both cubes sport every form of connectivity
you could ask for, a 56k V.90 modem, 10/100BaseT Ethernet
port and an AirPort slot for wireless connectivity. If you
are a true speed freak, and have a network that supports it,
1000BaseT (gigabit) Ethernet is a build to order option at
the Apple store. [Update: Apple has removed the gigabit BTO
option from their online store] The cubes also have Apple's
new ADC connection which provides power, video and USB signals
to the display all via one cable. Nice! If you want to hook
up your older VGA monitor to the cube, fear not, there is
also a 15-pin mini D-Sub VGA connector present. For a complete
list of specs refer to our table
below.
Perhaps the best news was that Apple had finally
ditched their small keyboard and confusingly round mouse.
In their place, a full sized "pro" keyboard and
optical mouse. The 108 key keyboard uses the extended layout
and includes keys for volume adjustment and ejecting disks.
The oval mouse lacks a button but pivots instead to activate
the click. The sensitivity can be adjusted to suit most users'
style.
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The
Cube is currently available in three configurations, the original
G4/450 with 64MB RAM, a DVD Drive and a 20GB hard drive, the
newly introduced G4/450 with 128MB RAM, a CD-RW drive and
a 20GB hard drive or a high end G4/500 with 128MB RAM and
a 60GB drive. The G4/500 is only available through the Apple
store. The G4/500 now sports nVIDIA's 
