Five Best Macs, Five Worst Macs…So Far

The rumor sites are perpetually stalking the next iteration of iBooks. Rumored since January, the MacBook (as most people expect the laptop to be named) has been said to sport Core Duo processors or a Celeron, lack FireWire or have both 400 and 800 ports, be a radical redesign or stay largely unchanged, come in colors or remain all white, feature a widescreen,…the list is just too long to continue. At this point, the MacBook can be anything you want it to be.

So, with such a wide range of options for the long rumored MacBook it could be Apple’s best computer or worst computer. Likely, it will be somewhere in the middle but, the questions arises: What kind of competition will the still fictional computer have for the hall of fame and hall of shame? Time for a look!

Five Best:

5) G4 PowerBook

The Dope:
400 or 500 MHz G4 processor, 10 GB Hard Drive, Wide aspect 15.2” screen (1152x768), $2,599, Debuted January, 2001.

You should still love it because:

Clad in titanium (a material engineers some thought too expensive for a notebook) the original G4 PowerBook oozed coolness. If you’re wondering why it was so great, you can equally wonder why it is so great. The stunningly good-looking machine hasn’t changed much over the years. Different ports, faster processors and switch from titanium to aluminum but the style remained the same and the PowerBook er, MacBook Pro still looks great 5 years later.

4) Apple LaserWriter

The Dope:
Motorola 68000, 8 pages per minute, 300 dots per inch, introduced in 1985 for $6,995

Kids don’t smell the mimeograph anymore:

At this point you’re saying that the LaserWriter wasn’t even a computer, it was a friggin’ printer. You’re right that the machine was sold as a printer but inside the printer was a computer. It used the same chip that powered the Mac and the circuit board was designed by Burrell Smith, the electronics whiz that designed the original Mac. More importantly, the LaserWriter was the machine that introduced the desktop to publishing. Before the LaserWriter “what you saw” was decidedly not “what you got” when you printed a document. After the LaserWriter WYSIWYG became an acronym most people understood.

3) Mac II

The Dope:
68020 Processor, 1 MB RAM, dual floppies, optional hard drive, massive expansion via 6 NuBus slots, first modular Mac, introduced March 1987 for $3,898

It deserves a bronze bust because:

Before the Mac II came along every Mac was all in one and expandability was limited. That changed when the Mac II rolled out. Made from the scraps of the failed Macintosh Office project the Mac II was code named “Little Big Mac,” featured the first color support in the Mac line and was a computer that pros, geeks and businesses could love.

2) Original iMac

The Dope:
4 GB Hard Drive, 32 MB of RAM, 233 MHz G3 processor, on sale August 1998 for $1,299.

A computer that deserves a spot on the walk of fame:

The original iMac was more about glomming on to the rise of the internet than completely new functionality, USB excepted. Even though the computer didn’t do anything original it did help Apple reclaim some lost market and influenced designers the world over. Years after the iMac was first revealed you could walk into Home Depot and find a colored translucent stud finder. That’s one far reaching computer case design.

1) Original Mac

The Dope:
128K RAM, 9 inch integrated monitor, single floppy, introduced (famously) in January 1984 for $2,499.

You’re using one right now:

The GUI had been conceived by Vannevar Bush and implemented at Xerox PARC. When Steve Jobs saw the GUI in action he was moved to forcefully ask:

“Why aren’t you doing anything with this?”

Thus, the seeds for the Lisa were sown. The designers of the original looked at the Lisa and culled all the things they didn’t like (say goodbye to the triple click) and improved the things they found useful. What was left was the original Mac. The first consumer oriented computer with a GUI interface is the computer most responsible for the look of the computer interface everyone uses today.

The Five Worst Macs:

5) Original Mac

The Dope:
128K RAM, 9 inch integrated monitor, single floppy, introduced (famously) in January 1984 for $2,499.

Reason to dynamite the machine:

While it was shipped as a final product, the original Mac couldn’t do much. If you were writing a letter it had better not be any longer than eight pages, the single floppy drive made copying disks unnecessarily hard, there were no expandability options and it lacked (purposely) cursor keys. All in all, it was a very compromised machine and, at $2495, a stone cold rip off.

4) Mac Portable:

The Dope:
68HC00, 9.8” screen, 1 MB RAM, 40 MB hard drive (optional), introduced September 1989 for $6,500.

Should be exposed to a flamethrower because:

While Jean-Louis Gasse oversaw the successful development of the Mac II he also oversaw the Mac Portable. The portable used lead acid batteries and, at over 16 pounds, it was portable only in the sense that it could be carried with great effort. While the screen was said to be crisp it also lacked backlighting making it completely useless. except as a unwieldy weapon, in a darkened room. Before he left Apple Steve Jobs hadsaid “Amac in a book in five years” this wasn’t what he had in mind.

3) PowerBook 5300

The Dope:
PowerPC 603e, 8 MB RAM, 640x480 screen, 6 pounds, 500 MB hard drive introduced August 1995 for $2,300.

Why you’d throw it into the caldera of Mount Doom:

The PowerBook 5300 was the first PowerPC based PowerBook so a cursory glance might lead one to think the machine was a must have. Unfortunately, the PowerBook 5300 was riddled with quality problems. The lithium polymer batteries were prone to over heating and, occasionally, bursting into flames. If the batteries weren’t bad enough the case was overly fragile and recalled by Apple. The PowerBook 5300 has one more claim to shame: It was featured (for a hefty fee) in Mission Impossible as a command line based machine.

2) Mac Classic

The Dope:
Motorola 68000, 8 MHz, 2 MB RAM, 40 MB hard drive, single floppy, introduced October 1990 for $1499.

If you want one, check the dumpster because:

If you bought a Mac Classic what you purchased was basically 4 year old technology in a subtlety redesigned case. The Mac Classic could easily be compared to the Mac Plus spec wise and would have been a nifty computer in 1986. In 1992 it was dog slow. The machine was one of Apple’s first low cost Macs and proved popular among gullible first time Mac buyers (the author included).

1) Any Mac with “Performa” in the name

The Dope
The specs for the Performa line varied widely

Why the computers should have been flushable:

The Performa line had a million permutations, an examination of the myriad of names and specs would have left Einstein a befuddled sobbing mess. While the models were confusing, they were also tainted by quality problems. Upon taking the helm of Apple Gil Amelio looked at what had become of the Performa name and decided to kill the line. The only upside was that the Performa name was so horrible that it spurred development of the iMac.