Labs

When the iMac line switched from G4 to G5, it laid claim to that occasionally awkward 'high-end consumer/low-end professional' position. It packs a lot into its body, yet it's slim enough that it still gets mistaken for being just a flat-panel screen. It costs more and delivers more than the eMac, but it comes in cheaper than the Power Mac line, certainly when the cost of adding a display is included.

The iMac's built-in 17in and 20in LCD panels are high-quality displays, as good as Apple's standalone flat-panel screens. The problem of changed viewing angle affecting the image is remarkably slight. If you're hyper-critical about colour you should test these before buying, but they are among the best examples of this screen technology. If you want a general-purpose Mac, the 17in model should be ample, but if you intend doing much design work, audio editing or using any other kind of application that demands lots of space, you'll appreciate the extra screen area given by the 20in model.

The iMac G5 design lacks any serious expansion options, having just two RAM slots, one internal hard drive bay, and no PCI or AGP sockets. However, most users won't need these features. Plan ahead with memory purchases by getting the largest-capacity cards you can afford, use FireWire hard drives for storage expansion, and you'll be covered. As we showed, the upgrades

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that can be done to an iMac aren't hard to do (see iMac G5 surgery, 13 May 2005, p60) so although iMacs are more limited in scope than the Power Mac G5s, they're not sealed boxes.

The built-in speakers are good for their size, although you wouldn't get very far trying to entertain anyone other than yourself with these. They're built into the bottom face of the iMac's shell, facing down towards the keyboard. You get a reasonable stereo separation with music or games if you're sitting in front of the Mac, but for anything more demanding than that, you should invest in a set of powered speakers.

In terms of looks, the iMac is attractive enough to have on display anywhere. Its slim white body is modern but not overly technical in appearance, and it helps keep cable clutter to a minimum. If you're looking for a computer for the home, then the iMac G5 line beats the Mac mini and eMac for speed and looks, although not price. Having said that, the difference between the cost of an iMac G5 compared with a Mac mini plus an equivalent Apple LCD display isn't quite as great as you might think, especially when the cost of the iMac's bundled AirPort and Bluetooth hardware is factored into the equation - for £899 you get a 17in model with a 1.8GHz G5 processor, while £1199 will buy you the 20in 2.0GHz model.

iMac G5s are fast, but not a match for a well-specified Power Mac G5. The motherboard architecture is partly to blame, although in the end it is largely down to having one processor rather than two. If your work includes regular juggling of high-resolution images or complex multimedia work, the iMacs may not keep you entirely satisfied. On the other hand, if you don't push things to the limit all the time, an iMac will perform marvellously. Give it enough RAM for the work you're doing (the default 512MB is acceptable for general home and office uses, but get at least 1GB for professional design tasks) and you should be more than happy.