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

Rupley, Sebastian. "iMac Overhaul." PC Magazine. 1 Dec. 1999: 34

Hill, Jon. "iBook Report." PC Magazine. 1 Dec. 1999: 53

Looks are the only reason for iMac's popularity; however, several PCs that look just as good as the iMacs exist. Sony Sliptop PC comes only in blue, but has a stylish 14-inch LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) panel. The Gateway Astro comes has an all-in-one design, and more USB ports than iMac. Computers from eMachines look exactly like the blue iMacs. Many other computers from companies like Gateway and NEC come with flat built-in LCDs.

As Hill writes in the article from PC Magazine, the new iBook "is one of the largest notebooks we've ever seen" (53). Considering the relatively small screen of the iBook by today's standards - 12.1 inches, the iBook is extremely large and heavy. On the other hand, the IBM ThinkPad, even with the 14-inch screen, is just less than a pound heavier, and about a centimeter thinner than the iBook. Although ThinkPad is the only IBM-compatible notebook currently available in different colors, more of such notebooks will soon be released.

Let's take a look at the performance in 3D games, which is another possible application for home computers. Apple claims that a 400-MHz iMac with RAGE 128 VR AGP 2X shows almost eight frames per second (fps) more than a 500-MHz Celeron-based PC with RAGE Turbo Pro AGP 2X. (Apple) The frame rate is reported by Quake III, a game that is so far from finished, that the test-demo is allowed to be distributed only electronically - it's not even a beta version, the manufacturer is only testing how the test-demo runs.

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)