The shape of the future? (Power Mac G4 Cube)

Member Name: spiffo

Product:	Power Mac G4 Cube
Date:	10/05/01 (142 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks lovely, Erm... it's got a very fast processor

Disadvantages: The G4 towers have even faster processors, It's expensive, It was designed for use with the 22" monitor, and most people don't have one of these.

I recently used the Apple Cube for the first time, and yes, I did use with one of those huge flatscreen monitors (you know, the 22" one that costs more than the computer).

For those of you who don't know, the Cube is the latest design of computer to come from Apple. Designed by the same team who designed the iMac, it's an 8-inch high cube of plastic with a box containing the CPU, etc. inside.

When a company like Apple produce such a new design, the first question has to be: Why? The iMac was designed for home use. The price and configuration was aimed at the home market, and making it look as if it belonged in the living room would add to its appeal. The regular G4 machines are lightning fast and quite expensive, and are in a case that looks stylish and professional. They're perfect for business use and (unlike the similar but blue box for the G3) look good in an office.

So who is the Cube aimed at? Will it help Apple to expand their market share by tempting people away from Windows?

The answer seems to be no. The cheapest version of the Cube is advertised as costing £999, but this price doesn't include VAT or a monitor. Even if you just want to get Apple's regular 17" CRT monitor, you'll pay a total of about £1600, which is far more than a home user is prepared to pay, especially when they can get an iMac for about half the price.

Despite this high price, the Cube is ridiculously under-specified. It comes with 64 Mb of RAM (this is how much my iMac came with when I bought it about 8 months ago... and I'm planning to upgrade to at least 192 Mb as soon as possible) and just a 20 Gb hard drive. This specification is low by the standards of a home computer, but since they've been priced out of buying it, they are far too low for the kind of people who Apple think are going to buy one!

There are other specifications available (rumours say that the base-level one now comes wit
h 128 Mb of RAM, but I haven't seen any evidence of this) and there is a separate model of Cube which has more RAM and a bigger hard drive, but which costs about £400 more.

All this means this means that it's too expensive for a home user and not powerful enough for a professional user. And those people who need a powerful machine will just buy Apple's regular G4 Machines.

But what's it like using one?

Well, the first thing you notice about it is obviously the looks. If I ever get the studio flat I'm planning to buy (this is the stage after "get a highly paid job" in my plan), a cube with a 22" monitor would look better in the corner than any modern art.

As my friend turned the computer on, I felt the sort of anticipation while waiting for it to load that I haven't felt since I was taking my SNES out of it's box and connecting it to the TV about 10 years ago. I will admit, though, that this was in part because he had loaded Mac OS X onto his computer and I was looking forward to seeing what this was like as well.

It was a joy to use the computer, but it wasn't until a few hours after I'd finished that I thought about it and realised how little the actual Cube itself had added to the experience. If it hadn't been for the large monitor and the new Operating system, I would hardly have been able to tell I wasn't using a regular G4 or even an iMac. The processor was fast, but the lack of RAM meant that the whole thing wasn't running at even close to the speed of a G4 tower with the same clock speed.

The Cube has it's CD drive on the top, and you put the CD in like you would toast into a toaster. I didn't actually use any CDs while I was using the computer, but my friend did encourage me to try putting a CD in and taking it out a few times. I have to say that I was jealous that I can't put CDs into the top of my iMac, but I'm sure the nove
lty must wear off after a few days of using the Cube.

The Cube is a lovely looking machine, and to use it with the 22" monitor (which, incidentally, costs over £3000) is a joy, and I'm sure that if you boosted the RAM and found a way to satisfy yourself with the storage (ie. upgrade it or just don't do stuff that takes up a lot of hard drive space), then it could be the best computing experience around.

Unfortunately, at this price it simply isn't worth it for most people... unless you really, *really* want to invite your iMac owning friends over and show off.

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