I got what seemed like really cool 20" imac with a blazing!!11! 1.25 Ghz G4 and all the goodies, I own my own business and actually traded a dual Athlon system for it but thats another story. So I didnt pay full price for it... thankfully.

At first I was like the dude in the article, it was "new" and interesting and I found myself checking it out long into the evenings... I really liked the freshness of it all. OSX is cool, and learning a new OS is always interesting.. but it doesn't do anything XP can't do, plus I have yet to pay $129 for the annual OSX upgrade which to me is just silly. The freshness soon wore off however. Everyone likes a new toy, they’re fun to play with… Apple is smart to give people just long enough to play before that new car smell wears off.

My home built XP2500 box with a 128M FX5600 ultra sits right next to my iMac, and I really don't care what any Mac cultist says the iMacs G4 CPU and overall architecture are weak relative to most any new quality PC, what I'm used to anyway. It certainly cant hold a cup of urine power wise to my PC. I found myself getting frustrated waiting longer for CD's to burn or the extra time it takes to crunch video / RIP MP3's.

Americas Army plays "ok" on my iMac, but I'm so used to my PC's much better performance I simply couldn't use the Mac for gaming either... maybe I'm just spoiled by speed and my iMac just doesn't impress me.

For daily mundane things like checking your email and surfing porn, it's good enough... great for grand ma, mom, dad or a clueless sister. I could sell this thing, buy a 1.6 G5 and be at about the same speed and pay double for a similar video card.. I suppose... but looking at a different colored GUI to get things done isn't my #1 concern. Plus I want my investment to grow, taking an hour to drop in a new CPU mobo every year (or sooner), or 5 minutes to upgrade a video card ensures my PC will not only gain value, but perform up to a level that the latest software can take advantage of.

My iMac will never have AGP 8x or s-ata, the chipset will always be the same, if it breaks who knows how I'll get it fixed, how much it'll cost or how long it will take.. as a PC builder paying someone else to fix my machine is offensive, even more offensive is knowing they'd just be replacing the same old stale parts without upgrading a damm thing. Sure the form factor is neat looking, but by the time I add a USB sound card, extra 1394 drives, perhaps an external (faster) CD burner just to get it where my PC already is (RAID, etc) it's starting to look like an octopus and take up more space with an external drives / devices & wires here, there and everywhere.

Exchanging software with my friends aint a happen'n since not one owns a Mac. I'll never be able to drop in a 5.1 sound card...Digital hub? with no 5.1?.. more like digital flub. I suppose I could buy some expensive Mac specific USB card if I looked around and found one... no place I shop has much, if anything, for Macs. Then again why bother, my on board nvidia Soundstorm 6.1 sound is already much better, as is my Audigy.

Again, I was really liking this thing at first but once the freshness wears off and it's time to rock'n roll, meh.. it's just a 'slower' computer to me.

I could see how some people can get by just fine and even like these things, to each his (her) own, and even I get sick of my friends taunting "Macs suck", they really don't "suck" at all, but they are FAR from the magical crash proof little machines full of love and fairy dust that Mac loyalists describe them as. My iMac has crashed, or panicked (was it scared?), more than my XP box in the same time... probably because I've been able to download XP's free updates / service pack and refuse to pay Apple $129 for similar fixes.

If I had invested anywhere near $2000 in this thing that will never evolve and always be less powerful than my ever growing PC, I'd be pretty p**sed right now.