New Apple iMac 21.5 inch All-In-One Desktop PC (Intel Core i5 2.5GHz Quad-Core Processor, 2X2GB RAM, 500GB HDD, AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 512MB graphics) (Launched May 2011)

As an avid PC user for as long as I can remember I finally made the switch to Mac after having experienced the joy and elegance of iPhones and iPads.

For me rather than buying a Mac purely on the Apple brand I bought this because I wanted to try my hand at creating iPhone apps and in order to do this you require a Mac.

First of all, I just want to crack open the proverbial nutshell here and say that this is a great piece of kit. I have owned a Mac for about 6-8 weeks now and it is fast, reliable, versatile and very easy to use.

As many others have mentioned, many of the plus points relate to its look and performance. The machine is certainly very elegant - and with only one wire required, it makes my desk far more clutter free as the mouse and keyboard are both wireless.

Performance wise, it probably starts up in between 20-30 seconds. This is not too dissimilar to PCs that I have owned, but what has impressed me more is how the machine is ready to use as soon as the desktop appears. Far too often on PCs you have to wait a couple of minutes before the PC is truly usable due to its loading of various background programs. Not so with a Mac - you can load up the desktop and be browsing on Facebook extremely quickly.

Shut-down time is about 5 seconds for me - very very fast. I am a fairly hefty user of a computer and I'm pleased to say this Mac holds up very well. I did upgrade the RAM from 4Gb to 12Gb (bought 2x4Gb RAM from Crucial for about £35) - which means that at no point has my Mac ever slowed down due to a lack of memory.

A lot of people will worry about what programs can be run on a Mac that don't on a PC. This clearly depends on the user but for me all programs I use regularly on PC port over to Mac easily. These include Microsoft Office, Portal 2, Football Manager 2012, MSN and audacity.

There are some neat little features on Mac that I like that I haven't experienced on PC - things like when you receive a Facebook event or an email, or an MSN or similar you get those little red circles with numbers to indicate you have a notification of some sort. Nothing groundbreaking but a nice aesthetic difference to the flashing bars you generally get on a PC.

I have had no virus issues so far and have no antivirus installed. I think common sense and diligent care is needed here - everyone knows Macs don't generally get infected as much as PCs due to the PCs share in the market but Macs are certainly not virus-proof - just be careful what you click and download and you should be fine. You can get virus checkers for Mac but in my PC experience virus checkers tend to hog a lot of memory so I will refrain from this as long as I can.

500Gb space is fine for now as my hard disk space - it's plausible I will need more in the future but for now it is fine.

I don't really play graphically intensive games so I cannot really comment on this but it plays both Football Manager and Portal very nicely without any dropoff in framerate.

Sound is very clear even without external speakers - I have no complaints at all about this.

I will admit it can take a bit of a while to switch from PC to Mac. I still don't feel confident enough to be able to fix a problem should I encounter one but I haven't had cause for concern so far. You will have to adjust to how to navigate a Mac and to store/find files - but this is something that just comes in time and becomes second nature the more you use it. In the first few days I was not ruing my purchase but a bit concerned at the complexity of navigation to find certain files etc - but as mentioned this was just a newbie thing and has improved drastically over time.

Is 21.5" a big enough screen? Overall, probably yes - the jump to a 27" screen is heavy on the pockets but for those not willing to pay extra, you certainly won't find this small. I would say that something more like 24" is more optimal, but this is not available on the current set of Macs. In hindsight I think I should have got the larger screen, but this is not a dealbreaker. Note that as this is an all-in-one, you cannot upgrade the screen without upgrading the whole Mac.

In terms of the Magic Mouse and the keyboard - I like one and dislike the other. The magic mouse to me while fairly innovative is not quite to my liking. It's easy to scroll with and is nice to look at - I do even now have some trouble with right clicking and zooming with it. I would probably prefer to use a different mouse but in truth I haven't been too bothered to change.

I really like the keyboard. It's nicely built and I like how you are not going to be able to dirty the keyboard with crumbs and other foodstuffs getting stuck in there. A few people have complained about no numeric keypad. This is true but to me it's no big deal - and I work with spreadsheets often.

iTunes is excellent on the Mac. It's much faster and sleeker than iTunes on a PC. Same goes for iPhoto - while I can easily do the same on a PC, the Mac makes me feel like everything is much more organised and together and I'm not spreading my pictures and music all over my Mac. It's just very... tidy.

So in hindsight, getting a Mac was a very good idea - for me it was quite forced in that if I want to create an iPhone app I needed one anyway. Would I pick a Mac over a PC in the future? Hmmm... this is hard to say. I definitely enjoy Macs - but I also enjoy PCs (when they are working well!). There is no real supremacy I can give one over the other - so when it comes to my next computer, I probably will favour Macs slightly more, but would also have no problem turning to a PC again. I must say though don't underestimate the joy of having a device that does not lag - this is a godsend when you consider other computers that churn very slowly after a few years of use. I am still very new to Macs so I cannot determine how it will perform in a couple of years time - but this is certainly a great start so far.

Also note that this review was written in May 2012. It is widely expected that a new series of iMacs will become available soon - so it may be worth holding out for those if Apple keep the same price point. Also, a new Mac OS will be out soon called Mountain Lion. It may be worth upgrading to this OS once it comes out - which will have some neat upgrades, such as notification centre (akin to that in iOS 5 and above).

Having owned an iPad (fantastic - just get one) for about 6 months I finally succumbed to the lure of the iMac with promises of legendary usability, speed and quietness after a lifetime using various versions of Microsoft operating systems and PC/Laptops.

Let's be clear, while the iMac usability is great, it does take lots of time to adjust to the way Apple does things and things that are "second nature" have to be re-learnt. Also, I am not convinced that the usability between the very latest Windows versions and Apple are that great although undeniably the iMac (Lion) interface is excellent and certainly wins any beauty contest.

Other benefits? Well it looks fantastic, boot up times are incredible and it is so quiet compared to my (admittedly old) PC. I ended up buying Office for iMac as I am just used to the way it works and Outlook migration is easier if you have archive (.pst) files.

Is it worth the extra £500 compared to the "all in one" Lenovo I was also considering? After a month of ownership I would probably say just about, but if you don't have the spare cash and are an experienced PC user then don't fall for the Apple Mafia hype as modern PC's are also very good.

Coming from a 20yr old. Having owned and used an iMac for around 3 months.

I won't go too much into the general specs of the iMac as this can be found on multiple reviews and the apple website so what's the point. However I will tell you something of my own experience with my iMac and Apple.

Before I took the plunge and converted to apple I was very afraid and very skepticle of buying and using a Mac. Questions on my mind were things like "Can it do everything I do on my pc?", "Will it be a nightmare to learn a whole different system?" and "Is it really worth the high price tag?".

Ever since I got my iMac Apple has not only met but exceeded my expectations by far. To answer my previous questions:
-Yes a Mac can do everything you can do on a pc and more (if your a gamer go bootcamp, its what I did)
-No learning to use Mac OSX was far easier than I imagined and much smoother and user friendly than windows in my opinion. (The only thing I couldn't get the hang of was the one button click but I set that on preferences to left and right click so I could keep my beloved right click)
-For me yes it was definately worth every penny. Although as with all things it depends on what your looking for. If you want the best though just go for a mac and don't look back. Sure you could get a cheaper pc but chances are it: won't look as nice, work as fast, last as long (important one) or just generally give you as much pleasure using a computer as a mac will.

Yes I have fallen for Apple. But they won me over because I feel they make vastly superior products with vastly superior customer service.

I will conclude with a few examples of how good customer service was for me with Apple. (With Apple Care, although I got it very cheap being a student)
-When after just 2 days after I bought my mac the imac models were suddenly all upgraded Apple took back the old model I had bought from the store and gave me the new model! No fuss
-When I had trouble connecting my wireless keyboard at one point I phoned up Apple Care and I got the issue fixed quick by some really helpfull friendly people
-After about 3 months of using my imac I had bought a razor mouse and wanted a touch pad I simply brought in my old magic mouse that came with my mac and they exchanged it for a new magic touch pad

Apple are awesome. No they're not perfect but when I look back to using my pc's it just seems painful. I would advise getting Microsoft Office for mac however.

All in all I found the 21.5 2011 iMac a truely wonderful desktop computer which I find a joy to use every day.