When I saw it in person, the first thing that came to mind was a song by Huey Lewis, "It's Hip to be Square, but in this case, "Cubed." Apple has once again outdone themselves. This piece of high tech wizardry looks like it came from a 24th century Star Trek episode.

It's something you really have to see in real life to do it justice. And while it's not the most powerful Apple Macintosh out there, it's respectable. Boasting a Power Mac G4 Processor running at 450 Mhz with 1MB of backside cache and its built in Velocity Engine, the G4 Cube can do over 1 billion calculations per second. It ships standard with 64MB RAM, a 20Gb Hard Drive, a DVD-ROM drive, 2 USB and 2 FireWire Ports, a 56k Modem, Gigabit Ethernet, with video powered by a 16MB ATI Rage 128. All this neatly packed into a tiny, 6.4 kilo cube that measures just over 19 centimetres square by 24.5 centimetres high.

It's cool - really

The cube's unique and efficient design allows it to run without a fan. With its acrylic casing diffusing the rumble of the drives, it runs very cool and virtually silent. (Warning: Don't put your hand on top of the cube to see if it is cool or you'll put the cube to sleep!)

The power supply is often where most of the heat build-up comes, so the G4Cube is supplied from a transformer that can easily be hidden under your desk. The Cube also ships with 2 Harman Kardon globe shaped speakers that deliver a proud, crisp sound. Rounding out the product is the new optical Apple Pro Mouse, and a matching 108 key professional keyboard that includes functions like audio control and disk eject.

Match this up with a flat screen crystal framed Apple Studio Display that connects to your Cube with Apple's new slim ADC connector, and you have one futuristic, smart-looking and powerful computer that's also a work of art.

Other updates

The fruity flavours are gone and the artistic colours are in. Also history is the hockey puck mouse - it's been replaced with the Apple Pro Mouse. All the current Macintosh models, except for the entry level iMac, have built in FireWire ports and offer Airport (wireless) capabilities as an option.

The entry level iMac's flavour is now Indigo. The processor remains at 350 MHz, the hard drive has increased by a gigabyte to 7. The iMac DV is similar to its predecessor, except for the colour. The iMac DV+ now has a 20Gb drive, a 4x DVD drive and a 450Mhz processor.

To round off the iMac line, the loaded iMac SE, Special Edition, is now available in a Snow colour as well as Graphite, running at a zippy 500Mhz and includes a 4x DVD, 128mb RAM and a 30 GB hard drive to get you started with digital video. All iMacs now ship with iMovie2

Apple's G4 Tower models, the G4 400Mhz and the 450 Mhz (now called G4 DP), have remained virtually the same except for larger hard drives, 10/100/Gigabit Ethernet and the new Apple Pro Mouse available on all G4 models.

The G4 500 model now comes in 2 flavours - both with a 40GB Hard disk. One has a DVD-ROM and the other has DVD-RAM which has re-write capabilities.

Apple's displays have just some slight differences, and the G3 Powerbooks and iBooks have also changed - but we'll save those for another day. For more detailed information, go to http://www.apple.com/.