Macintosh Centris

Macintosh Centris is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. in 1992 and 1993. They were introduced as a replacement for the six-year-old Macintosh II family of computers; the name was chosen to indicate that the consumer was selecting a Macintosh in the center of Apple's product line. Centris machines were the first to offer Motorola 68040 CPUs at a price point around US$2,500, making them significantly less expensive (albeit slower and less expansion options) than Quadra computers, but also offering much higher performance than the Macintosh LC computers of the time powered by the Motorola 68030.

Apple released three computers bearing the Centris name: the Centris 610 (replacing the Macintosh IIsi) and Centris 650 (replacing the Macintosh IIci in form and the Quadra 700 in function), both of which were introduced in March 1993,^[1] and the multimedia-focused Centris 660AV which followed in July. Apple also planned for the Macintosh IIvx (although powered by the Motorola 68030) to be part of the Centris line, being released in October 1992, although Apple's lawyers were unable to complete the trademark check on the "Centris" name in time for the IIvx's release.^[1]

The retirement of the Centris name was announced in September 1993,^[2] with the 610, 650 and 660AV all being rebranded the following month as Macintosh Quadra machines as part of Apple's effort to reposition their product families to correlate with customer markets instead of price ranges and features. The IIvx was also discontinued in favor of the newly announced Quadra 605.