Like we said, not all iMac G5s experience excessive fan noise-- unless you count the incessant "oohs" and "aahs" from the admirers clustered 'round them three deep. Jon Ive's latest industrial design may have left a few diehard Mac fans scratching their heads, but the "white slab on a metal stand" look is winning rave reviews from what we have to imagine is the new iMac's target market: Wintel-using iPod fanboys. If Bill Palmer is right and the "Switch" campaign is just now starting to show results (because any Wintellians swayed by True Tales of Apple Defectors are finally finding themselves in the market for a new computer), the iMac G5 is no doubt Stage II of the plan, timed brilliantly to pull those fence-sitters right over onto the Light Side of the Force.

Or it could be a coincidence. Whatever.

What we can say is this: people from the Wintel set certainly seem to be smitten by the new iMac's looks, specs, and even its price tag. For instance, faithful viewer David Poves forwarded us PC Magazine's review of Whitey the Tiltable Slab, and wouldja believe that Wintel-leaning publication just happens to have awarded the iMac a full five... well, we guess they're circles, or something-- out of five? No, honestly! Full marks for Apple's latest "design coup," and a list of "pros" as long as your arm and jam-packed with drippy doe-eyed adjectives like "stunning," "gorgeous," and yes, even "quiet." It's even listed as an "Editor's Choice." Go figure.

In fact, PC Mag could only dredge up two gripes about the system: first, that the graphics subsystem isn't upgradable, which is a legitimate beef, we suppose; home users include gamers who are going to want to take advantage of technology's ever-increasing ability to render airborne gallons of blood and flying severed limbs and heads more realistically than ever. Some insist that the iMac's GeForce FX 5200 Ultra is already obsolete, while others say it'll be passable for a year or so; either way, once again hardcore gamers are expected to pony up for the Power Mac for upgradable graphics. (The fact that the iMac's "midplane assembly" is user-replaceable is intriguing, but don't get your hopes up for a graphics upgrade kit that won't cost as much as a new iMac itself.)

The other complaint is that the built-in speakers-- you know, the ones crammed into a space the size of a pair of matchbooks-- "don't deliver much bass." Try not to keel over in shock.

Overall, though, the review is just rave, rave, rave, and we're more convinced than ever that Apple explicitly set out to design a computer that would win over as many Wintel users as possible. That may have resulted in a game plan as straightforward as "let's make it look like an iPod," or it may have incorporated a number of design strategies too subtle to describe in the clumsy, imprecise terms of written language. All we know is that we haven't yet run into a Wintel user who doesn't rate the new iMac at least mildly positive. Dare we say that we detect the heady odor of market share on the wind?