To some consumers, performance is often the most important factor in buying a computer. Performance doesn't necessarily mean how well the computer performs potentially, but only on specific tasks. Both iBook and iMac are designed for home users, most of whom neither care about number of floating-point operations per second, nor know what it means. Very few home users will pay $500 for Photoshop 5.0 to edit photos on their PC. The more likely uses for home computers are: word processing, browsing the Internet, and 3-D gaming. Since the most popular word processor is developed by Microsoft and allegedly optimized for Windows, it would be unfair to compare the Mac version of MS Word with the Windows version. However, comparing the performance in 3-D games and the Internet is fair.

Even though PC Magazine specializes in PCs, it reviewed the iBook as soon as it came out. The article focused on performance of the iBook and compared it

Most home users don't want to spend thousands of dollars on buying a new computer each year. PC owners have a wide choice of components for their computers, and can save money in the long run by upgrading PCs instead of replacing them.

Computer industry changes every month; what was considered top-of-the-line a couple of months ago, is now obsolete and no longer in production. There are two ways to keep up with the constantly changing technology: buy a new computer every time a faster one comes out, or simply upgrade your old computer (Perry xvii). Adding more RAM, changing hard drive, replacing CPU, and installing a new video accelerator, can greatly improve computer's performance. Installing TV-tuners, CD-recorders, and audio cards, adds new functionality to computers. However, in order to add components, computer must have room for expansion, which Macs lack.

As one can see, the IBM-compatible platform offers users more options for consumers- those who want a fast PC that will attract attention, can buy it. People, who want a computer that looks good, can buy a PC that runs faster than a comparable Mac. There are also other advantages that PCs offer, for example expansion options.

Some common words found in the essay are:
PC Magazine, PC Card, Turbo Pro, Sony Slimtop, PCs Macs, LCDs IBM-compatible, MHz RDRAM, ThinkPad's Celeron, TV-tuners CD-recorders, PC PCs, video accelerator, pc magazine, home users, hill 53, disk drive, floppy disk, floppy disk drive, rage 128, expansion options, rage 128 vr, home computers, 3d games, rage turbo pro, pc magazine 1, 1 dec 1999,
Approximate Word count = 2021
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)