Rating: 
Summary: No PC can compare to this computer
Review: There's very little you can't do with this computer. Edit video, page layout, rip cds, edit sound files, burn discs, dabble in computer programming, explore the world of unix, network with PCs and Linux computers, surf the internet on a dozen different web browsers, set up a preinstalled unix firewall, serve websites and/or e-mail,monitor network traffic, play cds, mp3, or ogg sound files, automate computer functions with shell scripts and/or applescript, simultaneously use the search engines of hundreds of websites with sherlock, manage digital photography with iPhoto, run maintenence checks with various Unix utilities like fsck, make presentations with Appleworks, create stunning visuals with Gimp, and share files or be your own webmaster with idisk. And all these things can be done without buying any additional software--with the software that comes with the iMac or with software that can be obtained free from the internet. What's more, these programs run on a machine that features an LCD screen that displays lettering with crystal clear sharpness and an operating system that's way ahead of the competition in terms of display capabilities, with anti-aliased font capabalities for easy reading of text and colorsync for professional quality color printing. And all this in a computer that takes up no more room than a large serving bowl and features a movable screen! For anyone interested in a heavy-duty multimedia machine that doesn't take up very much space, the flat-panel iMac is a near perfect fit. A word of caution, however, lest this review raise expectations too high. I said "near perfect" fit. No computer is absolutely perfect. The flat-panel iMac has a few minor imperfections. To begin with, it has no sound input. You will need a USB mike if you want to pipe sound into it. You will also need speakers. This model does not come with them. It also, admittedly, doesn't do an absolutely exemplary job of playing cds or sound files. (Earlier versions of the iMac did better on the sound side of things.) It still does a better job at these things then most PCs on the market, but there's obviously room for improvement. Some may also find it a little slower than some of the newer PCs, even compared to comparable MHz on PCs. OS X has yet to be optimized for speed, so internet surfing, navigation of files, open applications is often slower than PCs, especially the faster PCs. But computers are so fast these days that this doesn't really amount to much. This computer is still very fast and will be even faster after Apple releases it's next major OS update, which will be optimized for speed.
Rating:
Summary: Great Computer, Go Check it Out For Yourself
Review: I think most people who've placed a review here do not actually own or use this computer, so I'll just run down my experience. First, the machine. I got the middle of the line iMac as soon as it was available (and waited two months, two months too long.) I upgraded the sdRAM to 512, had 40 gigs of room, and the rest just basic. Since then, I have added an 80 gig external drive (for my 6300 mp3 files imported at 192-320 kbps,) the harmon kardon(SP?) iSticks speakers (awesome!!) the iPod, an m515 palm, and external floppy drive, office X, and a .Mac account. This computer can do quite alot without adding too much. I play Return to Castle Wolfenstein constantly on this machine while running the iTunes software in the background and it handles the graphics beautifully. (For those who experience slow/poor gaming, try increasing the sdRAM within the wolfenstein program code-- it runs much faster and better.) Basically if you take the time to figure out how to use this machine properly it will do everything you want without creating any problems. I have yet to experience a crash or serious problem besides a slow floppy drive. If you have a digital camera and a .Mac account, you can publish a webpage in less than ten minutes (even with dial-up)-- it is that easy. iTunes is the perfect MP3 software, with so many options and capabilities that I am always tinkering with it. I have a dial-up connection so I don't often do much with internet movies and never believed in downloading music, so no problems there. Now that there are mac stores all over the U.S. you can get a great feeling for what these computers can do from really sharp folks. Even the guy at comp usa was impressed with my machine and was hangin out showing me even more things I could do with photoshop and digital cameras. Do you have tons of negatives from normal film that you'd like to email or publish on the web or even print out at your leisure, or create a movie or slideshow or book? You can do all of this with great ease (and a scanner that scans film- probably the better alternative for digital cameras since film will always be better quality) on this machine. Every program is intuitive and easy to use, I have figured out how to do everything on this computer without ever opening any software manual (and maybe asking help maybe 3 times total.) Apple is definitely a company to partner with for your computing needs 'cause everything is intuitive, easy to use and they've taken care of it before you find a problem. Check it out, you'll be happy you did. Last thing: If I hadn't already waited six months to find out what Apple might possibly release Jan. '02 just so I could get the overhauled iMac instead of the old box forms, and was going to buy one today, I WOULD DEFINITELY SAVE MY MONEY FOR THE 17" beauty with DVD and CD burning capabilities!! Drool...
Rating: 
Summary: No good for games
Review: I bought my iMac just a few months ago with the expectation that I would get a few good years of use out of it. Instead with the very first game I installed (Warcraft Reign Of Chaos) I found I couldn't run it a the top quality settings. Oh the game will run, but I found the best I could get out of Allied Assault was vastly inferior to what my friends could get out of their PCs. It was embarrasing. It appears that the problem is not the CPU speed, but the graphics. This iMac comes with built in nVIDIA GeForce2 MX video card. This card does not support all of the latest video standard. To get that you have to get a computer with a new ATI or nVIDIA graphics cards. Apple sells systems like this, but they cost twice as much as this computer. Now the insulting part is that the new graphics cards only cost about fifty bucks more! Apple could easily put better graphics in this iMac, but then it would be as good it's more expensive offerings. Other than that I have enjoyed my system. I find it works great for ripping MP3s and surfing the web. It just burns me up that the day it arrived at my house it was unable to run at least one new game at the top settings. Was that too much to ask? Now I just have years of even worse gaming performance to look forward too.
Rating: 
Summary: Mac or IBM Compatable?
Review: That is the question. I think the answer depends on what you want to do with a computer. I have an old Compaq Lap top with Window 98 with Celron 400 or something. It is slow. But I only use it for word processing and surfing the web. But my lap top crashes a lot. I had to re-format the entire hard drive 6 times, and I had the lap top for 3 years. I bought an iMac in Jan 2003. I don't know how fast my iMac is compared to an IBM Compatable. I love this machine. Of course, I had to get use to the new operating system. But it didn't take me that long. After all, it is very similar to Window XP (or is Windows XP very similar to Mac OS X?). Any way, it does everything I ask it to do, including surfing the web, converting CD to MP3s, and downloading and printing digital photos. I bought the Window Office for Mac OS X. I can tranfer my documents (word, excel, powerpoint, etc) to and from others who own Windows operating systems without a single problem. I don't really play games on my computer (I have a Playstation 2 for that), and I don't do CAD or other engineering/drafting tasks. So if you are like me-MP3's, digital photography, email/web surfing, typing/creating documents, other "regular" stuff, I would definately recommend an iMac. I love the monitor and the computer does not crash. I think of an apple computer as having a BMW car. It is more pricey, not common (they don't make as many as GM does), and hard to find parts for it. But it is very reliable. So if you are going to use a computer, why not an iMac? I switched!! Because I appreciate the fact a company went beyond functionality. Wouldn't you rather drive a Mercedes Benz or an BMW? Only reason I am give it a 4 star is that NO COMPUTER IS PERFECT!!
Rating: 
Summary: This is my first computer, so........
Review: Let me say right off, there is no DVD Player on this Model (knew that going in, but Amazon.com includes it in its description). I bought this iMac in late August and so far I'm pretty happy with it. The thing you should know is that the Quicktime application is useless with a dial-up connection, so the very first thing I had to do was to download and install Real Audio for OSX to hear or see anything streaming on the Web. I've never owned a Windows PC so I can't compare the two, but this is a beautiful machine to look at, that was important to me since I'm going to be using it every day for the next 4-5 years, and, it is easy to use. I had some trouble with it connecting to my ISP, but I did figure it out. The CD-R is a very nice feature, that is where, for example, you can get some CD's at your local Library, and using your MAC you can put them onto a blank CD, which is pretty cool. That is also easy to do, even for a new user like me. Anyway, I should probably give it 4 Stars, but I've only had it for 3 months, so we'll see. Hope this Review helps you a little.
Rating:
Summary: A great all around computer
Review: I really love my IMAC. The good looks are obvious, the operating system is wonderful. I enjoy using it everyday. I have several Mac's. Two at home and 5 in my practice running the business.
I noticed one very bad review, where slowness of the OS was a serious problem for the writter. I'm sure if that fellow had bothered to keep up-to-date with OS updates (10, and 10.1 were slow), he's be using OS 10.1.5, like all the rest of us and loving the speed, beauty, and utility of the this OS. And with 10.2 (which Amazon sells, so you can buy it at the same time) being released in a few days. There is no way anyone would be able to say any windows operating system is superior to OS 10.1.5 or greater.
In short,will all windows people enjoy the change to the Mac OS? Of coarse not; we all resist change, and it's more comfortable to stay with what we have and thoroughly understand. But the people who open their minds to change will be rewarded by a superior system. My computer has been on with a number of programs open and running with out a single crash for many months. And I have never in 8 yrs had to reload an operating system EVER...
Rating:
Summary: Time to switch to mac
Review: OK once I saw this computer I knew it was time to switch over to the mac world. this machine is a work of art it is so nice to look at, takes up little space, great flat screen display best I have seen, and is quite fast. I love this and will never go back. My pants off to Apple for making this!
Rating: 
Summary: Apple can do better than this
Review: I love Apple, but this computer manages to be both incredibly underpowered and overpriced. Let's look at the specs: Processor: 700 MHz PowerPC G4 compares with a 1 GHz Celeron or 900 MHz PIII. Did you notice that Intel stopped selling them a year ago (and that was at fire sale prices). This CPU should be retired. Ram: 128 MB of 133MHz SDRAM. PCs come with 512 MB of 266MHz DDR-RAM and cost less! HDD: 40 GB That was a lot before the days of MP3s, MPEG-4 and games that want 10GB. The PCs that Wal-mart sells for two hundred bucks have HDD bigger than that. Video Card: nVIDIA GeForce2 MX. Which was discontinued by nVidia years ago and is beyond out of date and is verging on being prehistoric. 90% of the new 3D games coming out today will crawl like baby on this thing. Display: 15" 1024x768. Hmm, even the cheapest 15" LCD is 1280x1024 and has twice the contrast ratio. This screen is built by Hon Hai and really isn't an added value (it's kind of the Kia of LCDs). The quality was great two years ago but the world has moved on and LCD screens have gotten much better. How does Apple expect me to stay loyal selling ancient hardware for 2-3x what a more powerful PC cost? I used to work for Apple and I loved it there. A lot of my retirement is sitting in Apple stock and I am starting to worry. Honestly I don't know how they stay in business selling stuff like this. I'm surprised it doesn't come with an 8-track and a Beta VCR.
Rating:
Summary: Apple keeps getting better and better!
Review: The iMac 800 is the fourth Apple computer I've owned and I've loved every one. From the looks, to the ease of use, to reliability, the Mac is the only computer I will EVER own. PC's and Windows will always play catch-up to Apple, as Apple is THE innovator and industry leader. The Mac is what a computer should be...
Rating:
Summary: Great design, no funcionality
Review: I tried to abandon my PC for the iMac. The iMac looks great, has great speakers, great monitor, and that's about it. It is not very PC compatible at all, from peripherals to software. Running virtual PC is painfully slow and it's difficult to work with. The tech support is limited to 90 days and they remind you every time you call that you will be charged ... per call unless you sign up for an overpriced service plan. If the product is good, there should be service for at least a year without any charge. The environment is not intuitive at all either. Overall, the computer is slow and software is still limited, particularly for statistical and analytical software. Essentially, it's an overpriced stereo. Apple does provide a useful monitor post that simulates a neck for those times when the user needs to express frustration, which is often.
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