Apple Power Mac G5 Desktop M9020LL/A (1.60-GHz PowerPC G5, 256 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD-R/CD-RW Drive)

Rating:
Summary: Superfast and beautifully executed machine
Review: This machine is absolutely the most pleasant computer to use...and as an IT director in an architecture firm I've used many a system over the years! Apple's Mac OS X Panther is truly superb on so many levels: more secure than Windows, far more stable a system, and much easier to figure out even complicated tasks. Apple does a brilliant job making hard things easy.

Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of all -- and one I think outweighs the pain of some missing Windows-only software -- is the fact that Macs don't catch viruses. And malicious "spyware/adware'? Forget about it, those bad guy miniprograms don't run on the Mac. The Internet feels just like it did back in the days before viruses were a plague like they are today...only much faster of course.

In order to converse with my Windows-dominated office, I got Microsoft Office for Mac (latest version). Many experts think it's better than the Windows version. I think it's a toss-up. Word, Excel, Outlook, typical office stuff all work fine in Windows World. So does online banking with Apple Safari browser -- which is way cooler than Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Best of all, Apple's digital iLife Suite of applications have no competition in the Windows world. Think of iTunes on Windows and think of that for digital movies, digital pictures, dvd creation, etc etc. If you know how great iTunes is you know what I'm talking about. Apply that to the rest of your digital life and you'll soon realize that computing doesn't get any better than this.

A very happy Apple customer.