For quite a few years now, Apple has offered an educational desktop machine at a lower price point than the rest of its desktop line. That machine was first the eMac, followed by the 17-inch iMac, but now there's a new educational model in town. Apple has quietly announced (PDF) that it has replaced the 17-inch polycarbonate education iMac with a new, low-end 20-inch aluminum model, marking the end of the polycarbonate iMac case.

Previously, Apple was offering educational institutions the 17-inch iMac model for the same $899 price, so the switch is a nice upgrade. The new model includes a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, a SuperDrive, and the NVIDIA 9400M graphics package. All in all, not a bad deal for nine Franklins.

The new educational iMacs are supposed to ship in about four weeks, but even if you want to just order one now, they're pretty hard to get. The low-end 20-incher isn't currently available to individual students or educational buyers, so you may need to make friends with your institutional buyer if you want to get your hands on one (an iMac, that is).