This offspring of Apple's underappreciated Cube and the original iMac, the new consumer model isn't a perfect machine, but it may well be the perfect machine for schools, small offices, and most homes. It's elegant and powerful.When Apple unveiled the totally revamped consumer systems in January, it surpassed everyone's expectations. The flat panel display was no surprise, but few predicted consumer systems running the high-end G4 processor or, on certain models, a SuperDrive for playing and burning CDs and DVDs.

The new iMac features a 700 MHz or 800 MHz PowerPC G4 processor and includes three models, starting at $1,299. I've had the pleasure of using the $1,799 model, which may well offer the best value of any computing system on any platform.

This model comes standard with an 800 MHz G4 processor; SuperDrive; 256 MB of RAM; NVIDIA GeForce2 MX graphics with 32MB of DDR memory, which triples the 3D performance over previous models; and Apple Pro Speakers. Unlike its predecessors, the new iMac runs Mac OS X fluidly, which is good, since Mac OS X is now the default operating system on all new Apple hardware. The iMac also comes with a fantastic bundle of software, including Apple's "digital hub" software (iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes, iDVD), AppleWorks, and more.

The 15-inch LCD flat screen has a resolution of 1,024 by 768 an...

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