There was some chatter last month regarding the best Mac ever, and I’m dismayed by the consensus pick: the Mac SE/30. Granted, it was a fine, state-of-the-art computer in its day (I used one on the newspaper staff at my junior high school); it also cost $4369. That’s $7,484.56 adjusted for inflation.
Under what sort of criteria do you describe a computer like this as the “best ever”? The best Mac, relative to every other computer available at its time, price is no object? I don’t get that. If you asked me what the best car ever was, I’d pick the Honda Accord.
I gotta go with the 400mhz, “Summer 2000” iMac. Design aside, it broke the $1000 barrier (not quite the first Mac to do that, but the first Mac that was any good), and the hardware specs were excellent for its day. And it came along right when Windows was starting to crack up and folks needed some real alternatives.
