The newest Apple iMacs feature a bright 21.5-inch or 27-inch LED-backlit display with a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, a wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse standard. Now with dual-core Intel processors starting at 3.06GHz and soon to be available quad-core Intel processor(s) that boost performance up to 2x. The new iMac meets ENERGY STAR 5.0 and EPEAT Gold requirements, is free of many harmful toxins, and is made from highly recyclable materials. All in all, bigger screens, bigger hard drives, faster processors and the ability to add more RAM in the two extra RAM slots.

Apple has gone back to offering two different models of the low-end 21.5 inch model. The low-end offers the 9400 Nvidia graphics card and a 500GB hard drive while the higher end model offers ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics card (with 256MB video RAM) and a one terabyte hard drive needed by graphics design people and extreme gamers. So if you're into high-end photos or gaming (WOW), I recommend the $1499.00 model. For most folks the $1199.00 unit will do fine for everyday computing.

The 27inch 2 core 3.06Ghz models start at $1699.00 which if you're using it to view several applications at the same time works really well. There is not much to say against these machines other than the fact that you need some room to set it up. I always said I never met a bigger monitor I didn't like and this one makes movie watching a dream as well as having room for all my stuff on screen at the same time. The 4 core 27 units start at $1999.00 but with add-ons can easily reach $2500.00. Keep in mind the base model (2.66Ghz 4 core processor) is plenty fast enough for higher end people. However I have been told by people who do testing with muti-theading that the i7 2.8Ghz is wickedly fast. Of course if you are adding that option you may as well add the 2TB hard drive to hold all that information you are generating. Yes all this and the ability to add up to 16GB of RAM if you can handle the price of an extra $1400.00. I would suggest waiting on the RAM, it will come down in the next year. You can however bump it up to 8GB for only $200.00 extra by filling up the extra RAM slots with a couple 2GB chips.