Apple Power Mac Desktop M8667LL/A (1-GHz Dual Processor PowerPC G4, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB hard drive)

Rating:
Summary: A work of art, but a lousy computer
Review: Check out the benchmarks before you buy - this dual G4 can't beat a single CPU P4 (and you could buy 3-4 P4s at this price). Of course it doesn't help that it come with a GeForce4Mx (which is just a GF2 with a new name). Don't try and play the latest games on this thing, the frame rate is too low.

Of course if you just love the Mac and you have money to burn then buy, buy, buy.

The rest of us live in the real world and expect real numbers to add up. Of course Apple is afraid of the truth so they stopped submitting to Spec.org (the only platform independent benchmark, it is used by IBM, Intel, AMD, Mips, Hitachi, Toshiba, Alpha, etc... but Motorola or Apple stop submitting results years ago).

Rating:
Summary: This thing should be named Pentium Killer.
Review: I bought my Power Mac G4 Dual 1 GHz in February. Since then, I have been editing videos, playing with my pictures, and doing some things with digital audio. This computer is simply amazing. I have a 2.0GHz P4 Dell and this machine blows it away easily. Running SETI @Home, the Dell takes about 17 hours to complete a cycle. The G4 takes approxamately 9. If you want a system that can do it all, look at the Power Mac G4, you won't be dissappointed.

Rating:
Summary: G4 Macs ROCK!
Review: I find it very difficult to read the words of the PC "faithful" who just don't get the big picture. PC's are a lame excuse for Power and Usability. Windows is an antiquated spinoff of MacOS 7. That's just on the software side. This G4 dual processor has plenty of speed and power. Add a Virtual PC package and it runs 95% of all Windows software (depending on the version of windows you select). On top of that, I have all my former PC documents and they save rather nicely on the Mac.

The future, my PC friends, is OPEN SOURCE. No more monopoly for Microsoft, and watch the prices fall! If it weren't for Apple's existence, Do you really think the PC manufacturers would sell boxes at the margin levels that they are? Not a chance, they would rip you off. What keeps them at bay is the threat of an alternative platform. Think about that, before you focus your energy on the PC's low prices. Get inside and check out the corners they cut to put a PC in every home!!

Now, tell me again about all the integrated software that a box maker puts in your PC system? Tell me about the mysterious PC crashes, or windows crashes that have become a standard on the WINDOZE platform? If one of my apps crash, I don't have to reboot my system, just restart the app. Or, if an App freezes, I can Force Quit and restart the app. OS "X" rarely freezes. In fact, my machine has been running now for 8 months since I last shut it down.

Apple will continue to "change the world" one user at a time. Someday, you'll be thankful that they did.....

Rating:
Summary: Wake up, smell the obsolete processor on your PC.
Review: I. Hate. P.C. Users. Who. Put. Down. Apple. Because. It. . Has. A. THEORETICALLY Lower MHz. There's more to a CPU than the clockspeed: I mean, for one, who needs a 4.4 GHz Wintel With 30 USB 2.0 ports? Plus, the PC's processor (oooooh, it's a pentium 4 (i didn't capitalize "pentium" because it hardly deserves to be considered a proper name))may theoretically be better than, say, a veteran such as the omnipotent G4. The p4 (what sounds better: p4 or G4, think about it) may be a bigger water tower (metaphors!) but your letting it come out through a bendy straw (more metaphors!) A G4 may be a smaller water tower, but it's comiknbg out through a 3-foot pipe. Am I the only ne who recalls where Firewire came from? APPLE! iLink a) steals a lower case "i" from iPod and iBook. It's just another example of Microsift, Dell, IBM, and all their Wintel honchos being too lazy to figure out their own stuff and grifting it off Apple. And that hoopla about Apple's graphic's? It might not be the hardware, just the fact that your Mac doesn't want to play an inferior Wintel game. If your thinking "well, PC's are still cheaper", well, your right. But hey, in today's world, you get what you pay for!

Rating:
Summary: AN ACTUAL OWNER REVIEW HERE IGNORE THOSE PC LAMOS
Review: It's amazing to me that after all these years the anti-Mac (read windows users) establishment continues to be brainwashed. There are a couple of one star reviews here from PC owners, not owners of this Mac system or ANY Mac system for that matter. I can tell you this: I have used Macs since day one, AND I have used Windows machines for years. The Mac was a better computer 18 years ago and it is today and will continue to be. One reviewer mentions the various firewire ports, USB 2.0, video card, hard drive, yadda yadda ports etc...on the PC that for some reason he thinks are better (hello? who coined the term firewire and MADE it mainstream, not Microsoft or Dell) -- ask that same person how seemless it all is, how it really is NOT plug and play and how completely horrifying WindowsXP is because most of your old software will not be compatible! Ask any Windows user how easy it is to troubleshoot their machine and they'll tell you to ask their PC support guy who charges $95/hr. There is a bit of a premium for a Mac, yes. But always remember that you are buying the ONLY fully integrated hardware+software system in the world that's easy for a layman and pure sophistication for the UNIX geek. Go Man and you won't look back.

Rating:
Summary: Don't get tricked by the flash
Review: This computer isn't worth the money. For 2999.00 from gateway for the 700XL you get a 18inch flatscreen , excellent quality, not as good as the cinema display but better than the 17inch apple display. On the gateway you get 3 Firewire ports (1 on the front for easy access) 2 USB2.0 ports on the front and six on the back, a DVD Burner, a separate CDRW burner, 1GB of RDRAM , instead of Apples poor 512MB of second rate CL3 SDRAM. Also the video card blows the PowerMac's wimpy MX card. 120GB of disk space on the 700 XL vs 80 on the Mac.

The good part of the PowerMac is that it does come with iTunes, iPhoto,iDVD and some other basic applications that are well made and easy to use the 700XL doesn't have these basic apps.

Beware of Apple, it is up to it's old tricks with the Screensaver rebate with this and a 22inch monitor. They will do anything to get out of paying the $500.00 rebate. This why they will always be a 5% player.

I purchased both the 700XL and the PowerMac, the 700XL is clearly the better computer but uglier then PowerMac. Also the dual 1GHZ isn't that much faster than a single 933. Under OSX the other processor get's used more often but still felt slower than the 700XL. If you love the mac, get a PowerBook or 933 not this piece of junk. For the 22inch monitor consider first the monitors...

Rating:
Summary: beautiful but frustrating
Review: This is an aesthetically gorgeous system, hardware and software alike. I have the 22" Appple display, and it's an amazing thing to work on, as pretty as a picture. OSX is visually an improvement on the older OS, but it's even more condescending and authoritarian. If you're a Windows user you'll be contiually thwarted in your attempts to have things you're own way. But that's Apple, so you already know what you're in for.

My biggest concern is that current applications are very buggy. I've had more trouble in one week than in the 10 years previous. Software supposedly OS native runs on my G4 Powerbook but not the dual processor PowerMac; HP printer support is dodgy at best; even the stuff like Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro--produced by Apple itself--needs fixes and/or immediate upgrades. The support pages of these manufacturers can barely keep up. Adobe has already mailed me a new cd for InDesign (which still didn't work) and now I'm waiting on a new fix they're just now trying out.

So there's frustration. However, eventually things will sort themselves out, and we'll be left with a powerful machine that can do just about anything you'd ask of it.