I thought, I'd take on Steve Jobs challenge, when last Monday while unveiling the new iMacs, the Apple chief suggested Apple's computers were not necessarily the pricier alternatives they are generally perceive to be. It took me a while to come down to a small selection of what I think are the closest competitors to the new iMacs. Because none of the competing machines matched the high-end iMac in screen size (24"), I had to compare them with the entry level 20" iMac.

And to my surprise, Apple's computer was actually the cheapest out of the 4 "volume" PC makers of "All-in-One" machines I've looked at: Gateway (yes, I did say volume!), HP and Sony.

First, we can already brush aside the Gateway Profile 6 with a design so "20th Century" and a price close to $1,700 for an ugly 19" system. That's $500 more than the new 20" iMac... I wonder what you would do!


VAIO All-in-One: way too expensive
The next comparison is with the nicely designed Sony VAIO All-in-One VGC-LS37E (that's a mouthful!). That's the latest All-in-One PC from Sony shipping on Aug 11th. It's only a 19" system but with characteristics very close to the iMac. I liked two features on the Sony PC that was not on the iMac: the ExpressCard and PCMCIA support and the TV Tuner. But it's also a whopping $650 more expensive than the 20" iMac! For that price, I can *almost* buy a nice external TV Tuner, the Apple TV and an iPhone ;-)

HP TouchSmart: expensive but has a touchscreen
Last but not least, is HP's "kitchen PC". At first I hesitated to bring up the HP machine because it's not truly an All-in-One: the base unit houses the motherboard, processor, disk drive, DVD... But it's close enough. The HP machine comes with a 1.7GHz AMD Turion and I compared it with the 2GHz Core 2 Duo entry-level iMac. Like the Sony VAIO, the HP TouchSmart is also a 19" All-in-One PC but with this unique distinction that its screen is touch sensitive, just the like the iPhone. I guess that's one of the reasons it's also $300 more expensive!

"We think it [a multi-touch screen] makes a lot of sense in the iPhone, but not so sure it makes a lot of sense on an iMac. So who knows. But I'll classify them as research project", said Steve Jobs at the launch.