Ooh, shiny

Passing along Tottenham Court Road, London's primary repository of furniture and computer shops, this afternoon I couldn't resist stopping in Micro Anvika to have a fiddle with one of the new iMacs . Interesting beasties they are, utilising an all-in-one design of the sort Apple were widely predicted to introduce with the last iMac, before confounding virtually everyone by introducing a computer that appeared to draw inspiration from an angle-poise lamp instead.

Having seen it in the flesh, I'm not wholly sold on the design. Although I can't deny that Apple have shown their usual attention to detail, the proportions of thing just look off to me. The large white space under the screen where the Apple logo's located is just about acceptable on the 17" model, but appears absolutely vast on the 20". That said, it's a solidly constructed device, displaying in full all of the elegant little touches you've come to expect from Apple. Stock features of other personal computers, such as the appearance and placement of the speakers and ports are subtly blended into the overall design - even the "L" shaped base, a single solid piece of aluminium, looks gorgeous.

If I were a potential purchaser (which I'm not - I'm still holding out hope for a G5 Powerbook at some point next year) I'd a little concerned about some of the specs. 256Mb of memory is rather low end these days, as is the Geforce 5200 graphics card. Admittedly, those looking for high performance gaming machines aren't likely to be looking at Apple, but these are the sort of specifications I'd expect on a cheap PC, and given the iMac is far from a bargain basement option such choices smack of stinginess on Apples part.

Still, whilst it's not quite as unique a concept as the angle-poise iMac, it's an unusual and interesting design which I can see blending nicely into many a living room, which I suspect is ultimately the point.