Apple eMac

Apple's iMac computers are gorgeously designed but their use of flat-panel screens does mean that they're pretty expensive.

To cater for those of us on a tighter budget, Apple has come up with the less expensive eMac.

The 'e' stands for 'education', as the eMac was originally designed specifically for the education market.

However, Apple has recently decided to sell the eMac on the high street as well. It should sell pretty well too, as it packs a lot of features into its shiny white chassis.

Like the iMac, the eMac has an all-in-one design, with the monitor and all the computer components combined into a single unit.

But instead of the iMac's TFT screen, the eMac has a 17in CRT monitor. This provides excellent image quality at resolutions up to 1280 x 1024 but it also means that the all-in-one unit is fairly large and heavy.

Our review unit was equipped with a 700MHz G4 processor (roughly equivalent to a 1.5GHz Pentium 4), 128MB of memory and a 40GB hard disk. It has a built-in 56K modem, network socket and two FireWire ports.

The graphics card is a GeForce 2MX, which isn't the fastest card around but it's more than adequate for playing the somewhat limited range of games that is currently available for the Mac.

Apple long ago dropped floppy disk drives from its computers but the eMac has a combination DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive that will allow you to back-up important files onto CD.

There are also three USB ports that can be used to connect other types of storage device if you want.

The eMac has a set of built-in stereo speakers that produce quite a good sound but it also has additional audio input and output sockets if you want to use external speakers or a set of headphones.

There's also a second eMac model that has a DVD-R drive, 800MHz processor and twice as much memory, although that will cost an extra £300.

In addition to these hardware features, the eMac also includes a good set of bundled software.

It comes with the latest version of the OS X operating system, which is Apple's answer to Windows XP. This includes a video-editing program called iMovie and an online chat program called iChat.

Continuing the 'i' theme, there's the iTunes audio player, and iPhoto for importing and organising digital photographs.

Basic office software is provided in the form of AppleWorks, a software suite that includes word processing, spreadsheet, graphics and database tools.

Remembering that the 'e' is for education, Apple throws in a copy of the WorldBook multimedia encyclopaedia as well.

Admittedly, the eMac doesn't have the sheer style of the iMac but it's no slouch in terms of either features or performance.

And at just £899 it's one of the most affordable Mac models that Apple has ever produced, so it's well worth a look if you are after a good computer for less than a grand.

DETAILS
Contact: Apple 0800 0390 1010
www.apple.com/uk