Apple iMac Desktop Computer Review

  I got my Apple iMac desktop computer in January 2002, and I still love it!  I chose it after two years of using and enjoying my landlord's iMac, and using iMacs in college libraries (as well as some PCs), so I had a good idea what I was getting.  It's been wonderful.  I started with OS 9.2 and Internet Explorer 5; three years ago when I moved I upgraded to OS 10.3.9 and began using Safari and then Firefox for a browser, and the difference in speed and performance has been astonishing.  I have to say that it no longer crashes, and it hardly ever freezes - even when it used to crash using IE 5, I never lost any more than just the page I happened to be viewing, while I heard PC owners complaining about losing files and all sorts of large amounts of material.  That just doesn't happen with iMacs!  I can do pretty much whatever I want to on my iMac - listen to live radio stations, upload pictures from my digital camera (and edit them), scan in images from my Lexmark all-in-one printer, or print practically anything off the internet.  Power failures don't faze this iMac - I just turn it back on, and it boots up normally.  The hardest thing I ever had to do to my iMac was to replace the CMOS battery; that was a real pain, but I did it myself successfully (not looking forward to the next time...).  The worst thing about my iMac is that I don't know how I'll ever be able to replace it when there are no more usable browsers for it.  Unless something new comes along, I think I've taken this little Apple about as far as it will go.