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What do you think is/was the prettiest Apple Mac ever?

For me:

- 12" iBook G3/G4 (the white ones, not the clamshells)
- TiBook
- Cube
- Aside from the fact that I hate tower designs, I do like the B&W era PMs with the artists' easel style LCD ACDs. 🙂

I don't know why I don't really care for the AlBooks.... I like the metal, in principle, but they don't look distinctive to me.
 
no one seems to be on my side.

for a desktop, i love the looks of the g4 imacs.
i never got a chance to own one, but we have about 20 at my school.

as for a laptops, i love the aluminum powerbooks.
i can't wait until mine arrives!
 
Laptop ------- PowerBook G4 15" (ALU)
All-In-One --- iMac G5
Tower ------- PowerMac G4 (MDD)
 
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iMac G4, hands down. I almost screamed of excitement when I first opened that box. 😀

Real geek, I am.




irmongoose
 
iMac G4. Then with no particular order:

PowerBook 15 inch, PowerMac G5 (dual 😀😉), iMac G5, mini.
 
Anyone know of a website having pics of most, if not all, of the apple machines over the years. With all the mac enthusiasts (ie., freaks!) lurking about , there's got to be one.. right? I can't really rank them objectively without seeing them side by side.

Subjectively going off memories, I'd say the G4 powermac was one mean looking piece of hardware. That one stands out the most.

-- J.
 
My choices are clear...

My choices are clear, my 17 inch PB AND My Dual 867 PM with mirror drives. But, can't wait to see the new generation of INTEL PM's.......
 
To me the prettiest Mac ever - hands down winner - is the current iMac, the 20" model in particular. With a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, it's minimalism at its maximum.

2nd best and how lovely it is, the Aluminum PowerBook G4.
 
Honestly

Honestly, how can you go wrong with the sexiness of the TiBook the Al Book and PowerMac G4 Mirror drive and Quicksilver...

No offense but the PMG5 has too many holes, and the iMac is too white...
(not that they aren't good looking machines I wouldn't mind on my desk)

1.PM G4 MDD
2.AL PB G4
3.Ti PB G4
4.PM G4 QS

And we all must remember the forgoten Cube who wouldn't want one of those hooked up to their Home Theater Systems just for fun!
(Thanks "eAspenwood" for giving the Honorable Mention to this worthy contender)
 
iLamp
Power Mac 6400/6500 (the first of the "rounded" towers)
Blue Dalmatian iMac (somebody has to love it!)
 
briangig said:
12" Powerbook...no matter what angle its at...I think the bottom looks cooler than the top.
Click to expand...

You are right, the angle doesn't matter.. as long as you don't look at the display *rotfl*
 
How many people have picked their first Mac as their favourite? I know I did. There's just something so beautiful about the first Mac you buy. 🙂
 
The iMac G3 was the best looking Mac specifically the 5 flavour varieties. I remember when I got my Tangerine iMac - the AppleCentre had all 5 coloured macs arranged just like the poster. A beautiful sight - the one that really saved Apple.


aussie_geek
 

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Actually I don't see the sense in questions like this. Reminds me of these radio shows where listeners can vote for the top100 of the best songs of all times and then 90% of the top20 songs are not older than one or two years or are an actual top10 hit of the last few weeks. I think you have to see the design especially of computers in context with the esthetics of the time when it was released and what was technically possible at that time.

Today we find beige boxes ugly... in the late 80's that didn't bother anybody at all. It's a question of fashion and zeitgeist. Maybe wooden enclosures will be the next big think for computer manufacturers and we'll find the metal enclosures from today totally ugly! If we don't take that into account, the question doesn't make sense...

For example in my opinion the G5 case design is not bad compared to other enclosures on the market, but it is far from being beautiful. Especially the size I don't like, it's too big! I remember all the people complaining on this forum how ugly they were when they were introduced. After a while it grew on the people and now everybody thinks the G5 design is the holy grail. Maybe it is funtional... but beautiful? No, Sir!

There are four Apple enclosures that were really nice in context to their time:

1) SE/30
It was a really cool computer back then and any PC didn't come even close!

2) LC case
Small, functional, quite. THE incarnation of the perfect pizza box.

3) Quadra 840AV
I just love(d) the mini-tower design of that machine.

4) Quicksilver
The best looking enclosure of the "newer" Macs. I like it way better than the all aluminum design of the G5.

The Laptops are all OK. I don't have any favourite. The only ones I didn't like were the toilet seat iBooks. And the quality of the iBook enclosures in general wasn't exciting at all. Especially the G4 iBooks have a cheapness factor regarding the quality of the enclosures.

groovebuster
 
eAspenwood said:
Anyone know of a website having pics of most, if not all, of the apple machines over the years.
Click to expand...

http://www.macinfo.co.uk/Extras/Evolutionary Tree/ipodfamily.html

Shows most of the computers at once instead of aving to click on links:

For me the iMac G4 is far the prettiest which is why i still use one now, but I am suprised so few have said the original Bondi Blue iMac, I still think that was the best colour and least complicated CRT iMac design.

As for laptops I think the Titanium was the prettiest without many ports on the side and the sleek lines of different materials, I have the feeling with the newer Alu ones that they had to sacrifice design for cost cutting so reduced amount and quality of the materials used for the shell.
 
The Carbon Dual-Core Yonah MacIntel PowerBook, no contest. Until then, the TiBook. It was a revolution at the time and is still beautiful today.
 
My all-time favorite: I actually really liked the tangerine clamshell iBook (was very close to getting one in 1999/2000, but then the Pismo came along and we got those instead... 😀). I still think the tangerine iBook looks better than the Pismo (which BTW is very nice, too) but we went for power over looks...

ibook_orange.jpg


The Mac mini also has the potential to be a design classic, given a bit of time. Holding one of those in my hand and then trying it and find out it just blew my iBook G4@800 out of the water, was a mindboggling experience... 😉

mac_mini.jpg


(Images from apple-history.com.)
 
The G3 All-In-One! 🙄

Just kidding!

iMac G4 🙂

Because that is the only Mac I've owned so far, the only other Apples I've seen in person are a tray loading iMac G3 and a PM G3.
 
I don't know if it is the prettiest, but I think the iMac DV+ line was pretty nice (the one with the refined colors....ruby, indigo, sage, graphite).

Thought I think the current Powerbooks are the nicest ever designed.

How come no one put done the eMac? 😀
 
For Laptops: The alu PowerBooks, especially the 12-inch, the Ice iBooks G3's, and the "toilet seat" iBooks.
For Desktops: The iMac G4, G4 Cube, iMac G5, the Ruby iMac G3, and the mac mini.
 
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