Reviewer Bliss Leads to iMac Purchase

A reviewer for the Houston Chronicle was so enamored of the Apple iMac he was using for a project that he talked his accountant-wife into buying one for himself, according to his story in the Houston Chronicle on Monday.

It wasnit Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus either; it was a book author, Dwight Silverman, who was doing research for a book on running Windows on the Mac.

"Perhaps the ultimate compliment a hardware and software reviewer can pay to a product is to spend his or her own money on it," Mr. Silverman wrote. He noted that heis installed Vista on the iMac, and "it runs that operating system as well as the highest-end PCs Iive tried."

After some serious accolades, the iMac didnit escape without some criticism. The reviewer bought the fastest 2.8 GHz iMac with a 24-inch screen. He reported that some users of 20-inch system have complained about non-uniform backlighting on that model. Also, at first, as a writer, he didnit care for the short-throw, ultra thin keyboard, but he changed his mind after awhile. Finally, there is the iMac freeze problem that may be related to a video driver. Fortunately, the review unit he used was not affected and Apple expects to have a fix out soon.

While some of these small problems may give some buyers pause, Mr. Silverman concluded, "But the overall experience of working on an iMac is probably the best testament yet to Appleis philosophy of designing hardware and software so they work in tandem."