It feels like just a few weeks ago I was justifying the fact that Apple's hardware line lacked a machine with a gigahertz clock speed. I backed up my argument with numbers showing how in our lab tests, Apple's 733-MHz G4 was neck and neck with Pentium chips that were "blazing fast." Well, no sooner had I said "Megahertz don't matter" when Apple decided to surprise the world with a new line of G4s, the top maxing out at 1 GHz. But Apple doesn't give you just one gigahertz, it gives you two, which will give you the right to thumb your nose at your speed-hungry PC-loving friends.

A suite deal

Always trying to stay ahead of the pack with price, the introduction of new G4s also brought down the prices. Apple's last high-end machine -- the Dual 800-MHz G4 -- sold for $500 more just a day before the introduction of the dual 1 GHz. The price reductions also hit Apple's mid- and low-range G4s, knocking upwards of $100 dollars off each of their price tags. Considering you still get an 80GB Ultra ATA hard drive, the new Nvidia GeForce4 MX, 512MB of SDRAM and Apple's DVD-R/CD-RW SuperDrive, the price is right.

To take advantage of all that horse power, you also get the full line of Apple's digital hub software, iMovie, iTunes, and iDVD (iPhoto is noticeably absent from the included lineup, so you need to download it from the Apple website), so within a few minutes out of the box, you'll be working.

Plus, keeping simple in mind, Apple has continued to make its machines easy to get into. Upgrading RAM, adding a hard drive, or installing an AirPort card doesn't require you to unscrew some unsightly case, you simply pull the handle latch, and the side of the machine drops open, giving you easy access to everything you need.