Advantages: faster than PC's, less space, good home computer
Disadvantages: can't be networked

..., that little G3 in their is a lot quicker than the cheaper PIII's), reliable (only crashes say, once a week. PC's it's a daily occurance). And i would talk about how easy it is to use, but that's straying into software, not about the imac. Peoples main complaint when they see the imac is, 'but where's the disk drive?' how can it be a proper computer if it hasn't got a disk drive? well, the thing is, in the two years since i've used them, i've never needed a disk drive. if you have an imac, chances are you're connected to the net, and what's the special thing you can do with emails? right, you can send attachments with them. PC users largely fail to recognise this. but, the imac's not all rosey. no computer is. the bit where i find the imac falls down is when it is networked to other computers. in our office, we have some 250 computers... Read review

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Advantages: easy of use, cost, good software and hardware, looks great
Disadvantages: it will make your friends jealous

...file sizes who need one. I use email or FTP to move any small files and Zip disks to move anything larger. I have just heard that new iMacs have been announced. These have up to a 600mhz G3 processor, 40gb hard drive, 128mb of RAM. The DVD drives have been replaced by CD-RW (8x4x24x). This means with iTunes you can burn your own music CDs from MP3s with just a few clicks. They now ship with an ATI RAGE 128 Pro graphics accelerator with 8MB of SDRAM or ATI RAGE 128 Ultra graphics accelerator with 16MB of SDRAM and AGP 2X support. These cost from £680 to £1020 plus VAT... Read review

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Advantages: Smooth and sleek with tonnes of features
Disadvantages: Disadvantages with the iMac. I dont think so...

...PC or iMac? I'd go for the iMac anytime. The trendy textures of the iMac cannot be beaten. They add curves where no-one thought possible, saying goodbye to the grey, square shapes of PCs and computers in the past. Apple are very particular about their designs, everything is aero-dynamic and all features combine ease of use with no comprimise of design. The latest range of iMacs come packed full of software and hidden deep inside is the powerful PowerPC G3, faster than most Intel Pentiums used by PCs. Now you can 'burn' your own CDs without needing any extra software whilst making your own movies on the pre-installed iMovie software. Already setup for the Internet, it runs like a dream and hardly ever crashes, no matter how much pressure you apply. It copes brilliantly with memory-heavy programs and the risk of virus infection... Read review

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Advantages: Compact, Modern style (much better looking than PCs)
Disadvantages: Difficult to find software and most software available is expensive

...Aswell as having the traditional PC, I thought it would make a nice change to go for something a little bit different. Yeah ok, so we all know that Windows is everything we've ever wanted; you've got endless capabilities for the internet, media, word processing and gaming but I was just tempted to see what Windows main rival had to offer...so I went out and bought my imac. The first thing that struck me was the design, it contains the monitor, CPU and ports all within one small compact unit, and the stylish colour made a nice change to traditional beige PCs. I mean lets be fair, PCs are hardly desirable to look at; a large ugly white box with a screen the size of a television. You can understand why the mac was revolutionary and the fact that it was available in so many colours (yes everything from indigo to bright pink!) meant... Read review

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Advantages: Neat system, well designed.
Disadvantages: Crashes even though infrequent still happen occasionally.

...' or 'parallel' ports, you can use USB. To be precise, with a new iMac, you get a lovely USB keyboard and mouse, but the keyboard is a USB hub: 2 ports. So, the super-easy way to set up your Mac: mouse - keyboard - Mac. Then turn on. Currently I have a Zip drive and Epson printer plugged in, and I can freely hotplug things in to my Mac! With my Zip drive, I plugged it in and it worked. Brothers PC... plugged it in, tried about 4 times to install software, restarted about 4 times, and eventually got it working. Setup As the 'manual' says: plug in the keyboard, mouse, phone and power. Then turn on. It really is that simple. I had my iMac up, connected to the internet and downloading MP3's (from naughty Napster) within all of 30 minutes. Can you say that about any PC? The OS When you install the OS, it takes about 10 minutes, and most... Read review

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Advantages: faster than predecessors (Performa 6400 etc)
Disadvantages: not enough improvement and now superceded by iMac & G4

...hard to make any improvements, I seem to spend my time catching up with things which have gone wrong. Don't get me wrong, I love my G3 - "Geoffrey" [get it?!!] as I'm a "Mac Maniac" and wouldn't part with him unless I could afford a MUCH bigger G4 etc, but I'm very frustrated at the ACTUAL lack of improvement it has afforded me from my old machine. Buy this machine IF you are competent & confident doing your own maintenance and repairs OR if you find one going very cheap, but iMacs and "smaller" G4s represent better value for money in my opinion.... Read review

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Advantages: Easy to use, space-saving design, easy setup and flexibility
Disadvantages: (perhaps)price

...The new iMac looks like a computer from another planet. Its space-saving design allows for easy setup and amazing flexibility. With the touch of a finger, you can freely move the superslim active-matrix display to change its height, depth, and angle for the most comfortable and personalised viewing imaginable. Whatís more, the flicker-free display delivers nearly the same viewable area as most 17-inch CRT displays, with twice the brightness, sharpness, and contrast. And unlike most other flat-panel systems, communication with the display is always digital, so you get a distortion-free image that never needs adjustment. All this makes iMac extremely easy to use, creating dynamic presentations, or playing your favourite game. Inside lives a PowerPC G4 processor with Velocity Engine for ripping CDs, making movies, playing games... Read review

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Advantages: Very good screen - fast G4 and Superdrive!
Disadvantages: You might not like the iLamp look

...For those of you who don't know, on January 7 2002, Apple announced by far the greatest development of the iMac : the LCD flat-panel iMac. The design is extremely cool - it looks sort of like an anglepoise lamp, holding all the innards in a 10" diameter hemisphere base, with the 15"LCD screen on tilt and swivel arm, which is extremely easy to adjust. But wait - the innards are really something to shout about. All iMacs now have a G4 processor - an extremely efficient processor that means that the 800Mhz version is easily as fast as much faster AMD and intel offerings. Graphics also have recieved a great boost with a GeForce2MX chipset and 32Mb of DDR ram. It also sports up to 1Gb of RAM, and the top of the line comes with a 60Gb hard drive. Note that while many PCs are bare-boned - this really is fully featured, coming... Read review

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Advantages: Better than a PC. Quick. Not geekish. Applescript.
Disadvantages: None at all.

...I have an iMac with Mac OS 8.5 and it is without a doubt the best computer I have ever owned. It's fast, it's sexy, it comes wil the usual array of free software that makes the Mac so much better than the PC. The best of these has to be Applescript. PC users can't automate their computer to anywhere near the extent that Mac users can. I have a script, for example, that allows the addition of a suffix such as .jpg or .gif to every file in a folder. As for internet use, the iMac is nippy and efficient. It seems that I've barely said anything useful in this review, but I really can't think of nything to say about this wonderful computer! The only problem that could occur is with a conflict with the World Script application. Turn it off and you have the perfect computer!... Read review

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Advantages: Compact all-in-one design, robust and portable, high build quality, attractive styling
Disadvantages: Relative high cost, slow USB connectivity.

...Well my little Bondi Blue babe is almost 18 months old, and here's the review. 233MHz, how does that compare with the current crop of consumer PC's / iMacs? OK 233MHz doesn't sound like much processing power when you see ads for 700MHz PC's, but you've got to remember that the PC MHz rating is not directly related to that of IBM / / Motorola / Apple's PPC chip architecture. It actually equates to around 450 MHz, so it's not to bad. My machine has a 160 MB of RAM and is perfectly happy tossing 200 MB photoshop files around in it's memory. What about the Hardrive, isn't 4GB too small? Yes, but after 18 month's of hard work, evev a 10GB drive would have had to have a couple of spring cleans on it. I chose the easy option and bought an external USB CD-RW (x2) and an external 20GB USB Harddrive. So storage worries are now a thing... Read review

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