Specifications

Mainstream
Desktops
By Joel Santo Domingo
Mainstream is a broad category. The new-
est mainstream systems we’ve seen cost
as little as $1,200 or as much as $3,000. If
you’re looking at a $500 PC, you’re try-
ing to get the most bang for your buck
while holding your purse strings tight.
With a top-end PC, you’re looking for
something more specifi c, such as gaming
performance. A mainstream system falls
somewhere in between. I tend to define
mainstream desktops as those systems
you want to buy because you need more
features than you’d get with a simple $500
PC, or because your old PC is just too darn
slow. Two of the systems we review are
all-in-one PCs that combine the best parts
of notebook computers with the larger
screen and design presence of a desktop
built into a LCD panel. Meanwhile, the
towers are multimedia powerhouses, with
the expansion space, hard drive space, and
computing power you can’t fi nd in a note-
book (yet).
Apple iMac (20-inch, Aluminum)
$1,649 direct
llllh
Apple’s latest iMac continues the
design excellence that placed pre-
vious versions at the top of the
all-in-one PC heap. Improvements
include a new metal keyboard, a more eco-
friendly aluminum-and-glass recyclable
exterior, and updates to the excellent iLife
08 software suite. Aside from its lack of TV
tuners of any kind (that’s what the iTunes
store is for), the new iMac is the epitome
of simple-to-use multimedia. The built-in
webcam, the ability to suck virtually any
digital media off your digital camera or
• Dell Inspiron 531 (Blu-ray)
• HP Pavilion Media Center TV m8100y PC
66 PC MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 6, 2007