Apple iMac G5 M9250LLA Desktop

Compact Case Is Designed for Smaller Work Areas

This compact computer is smaller than the standard and midsize tower PCs that fit under your desk, making it ideal for limited work areas. Small case designs vary, too. However, such PCs tend to be underpowered (especially on gaming), and mini cases also have few available expansion slots and drive bays. Generally you'll have to expand the system via USB, FireWire, or eSATA peripherals, so make sure your compact system has a large number (and assortment) of ports.

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PowerPC Processor Works Well With Earlier OS X Versions

The presence of a PowerPC CPU on the motherboard indicates that this system is almost certainly an older Mac machine. Apple switched over to Intel processors in 2006 and has gradually dropped PowerPC-processor support from the Mac OS X operating system. A late-model PowerPC-based Mac is fine if one of the still highly competent earlier versions of OS X meets your needs. But if you want to keep up with Apple's latest operating-system revisions going forward, you should opt for a newer Intel-based Mac.

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A PC With Little Included RAM Can Do Light Work

This system offers less than 1GB of memory, which is the bare minimum that any full-featured new computer should include. Whether this amount of RAM is optimal for you depends on the PC's operating system: Windows Vista and Apple's Mac OS X don't run well with less than 1GB, Windows XP is fine with 512MB and not too bad with 384MB, and Windows 98 is good with 256MB. Depending on the distribution, Linux can run with as little as 128MB, but most Linux users are better off with at least 512MB--and 1GB is better.

The more installed memory your PC has, the more applications you can run smoothly at once, and the better the system will perform. Upgrading memory in a desktop after you purchase the PC is a snap, but usually it's worthwhile to buy the amount of memory you want preinstalled with the system.

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Adequate Hard-Disk Capacity for Business or Light Home Use

With respect to hard-drive space, this system is in the low-to-midrange tier. Whether that's important depends on your needs. Though video gobbles up drive space at a prodigious rate, most other data types take up far less than 500GB.

For basic business purposes or light home use, even 80GB or 120GB might be enough. A better minimum is 300GB, especially if you download movies or music. Compact desktops that use smaller, 2.5-inch laptop drives offer less capacity. In that kind of setup, 120GB is a more realistic minimum, though 80GB will be enough for most users.

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Monitor Size Is Standard for Most Systems Today

This computer's bundled flat-panel monitor falls within the typical size range for the majority of systems sold today. Resolutions on a 19-inch normal-aspect 4:3 monitor will most likely top out at 1280 by 1024; a 19-inch wide-screen model will reach up to 1680 by 1050. Both are suitable for most tasks and will display moderately more information than a 15- or 17-inch monitor will.

Newer 20- and 22-inch displays tend to be exclusively wide-screen and offer features very similar to those of 19-inch models (often adding options such as tilt, swivel, or pivot maneuverability), but their typically higher native resolution (1680 by 1050 to 1920 by 1200) lets you fit even more on screen.

Note: Only monitors capable of at least 1920 by 1200 resolution can play Blu-ray movies without down-converting the image. Down-converting causes details to appear less sharp than they would be on a monitor with a higher native resolution. 

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5xxx-Series nVidia Graphics Are Fine for 2D Performance

This system has the nVidia equivalent of a Model T Ford. While 5xxx-series graphics chips were good in their day, they can barely make it up the hill under current gaming standards; this is especially true of the lower model numbers, which are integrated onto motherboards and use system memory instead of dedicated video RAM. This computer likely uses an AGP port for its graphics card (versus the newer PCIe standard), though a couple of 5xxx graphics-board models were produced for the newer bus. Many boards/chips in this series don't support the highest resolutions of currently available large wide-screen displays. For the most part, though, these DirectX 9/OpenGL 2.0 cards are fine if all you want is good 2D performance at lower resolutions.

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Apple Mac OS X: Elegant, Stable, and Intuitive

This system is running the elegant Mac OS X operating system, the current version of which is OS X 10.5.x (Leopard). Though OS X itself can't run Windows programs, you can run Windows (or Windows applications) on the latest Intel-based Mac hardware using software utilities such as VMWare Fusion, Parallels Desktop, or Apple's own Boot Camp. Because OS X has robust Unix underpinnings and isn't required to support as wide a range of hardware as Windows is, it's extremely stable as well as visually pleasing and intuitive to the new user.

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FireWire Port Allows Rapid Data Transfer

The FireWire connection (also called an IEEE1394 or i.Link port) in this computer can rapidly transfer data to and from a range of devices, most commonly video cameras, external hard drives, and advanced sound cards.

Generally desktop PCs have a full-size six-pin FireWire port on the rear, often on a front panel. Some also include the smaller, unpowered four-pin connection that you can find on laptops and certain consumer electronics devices. (Camcorder makers often bundle a six-pin-to-four-pin FireWire cable because of this.)

The newer FireWire 800 (IEEE1394c) implementation is not backward-compatible and uses a nine-pin connector. If your peripheral (such as a video camera or external hard drive) uses FireWire 800, you should double-check to confirm that every desktop PC you're considering supports it, too. 

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