[Albertr]

The best Mac for me was also a portable. The SE/30 was the portable in it's time in the Mac world. I remember seeing my trusted SE/30 tumbling down the into the baggage carrousel in an airport. My heart sunk! Arriving home I immediately plugged it and it worked. The keyboard! I miss this keyboard. To this day because of it when I want to delete I press the key. It had no number keypad making it perfect for a saving of desk real estate.

[specialK]

Throughout my 15 years of owning Macs, there was two that really stood out. The Macintosh Quadra 660av and the Power Macintosh 8500. Those had audio/video in/out. Great for making Mac movies when connected to a VCR.
Those were the days. :-)

[XMattingly]

My lineup:

# Performa 6400
# G4 400mhz "Sawtooth"
# G5 1.8ghz SP
# MacBook Pro (early 2008 model)

Sorry Andy, but I can't give the "best Mac" title to my old Performa. Anyone who used one of those should understand why; it was a decent enough computer, but as far as price vs. usefulness, it was a dud. Quite a bit shorter of a tenure with me than the others that followed -- I held on to it not much longer than 2 years.

Right now I would call it a tossup between my old G4 and current MBP. The G4 was/is a durable beast. Awesome work station, pretty darn expandable, and great design features such as the clam shell side panel. That one lasted me nearly 5 years, and is still in use today by a gentleman in a non-profit organization.

I was pretty apprehensive about moving to a notebook, but the MBP has proven to be excellent. It's every bit as capable as a desktop (though, with limited RAM), and the versatility is fantastic! It's a portable/desktop workhorse and - with an Apple remote - an entertainment center, all in one. All of my previous towers are computers that I lived with to make a living, Maybe I'm still a little enamored with owning a notebook, but this is the first Mac that I feel "lives with me."

G4 vs. MBP? Again, hard to say which is my fave. If it is cost vs. useful life, no question it would end up being the G4. I don't expect to have my MBP for another four years; in fact when better processors and more RAM become available, I'll probably upgrade again. But as far as its hardware features and packing a whole lot of punch into a tiny box, it's hands down the winner. Looking forward to the next 25 years of Macs!

[matthewmiller1234]

I also gotta agree with Andy. The best Mac you ever had was your first one. Mine is the one I'm typing this on, which is the May 2007 MacBook. It may not have NVIDIA graphics or a multi-touch glass trackpad, or a basic 120 GB hard drive, but it has Leopard, iWork '09, iLife '08 (upgrading to '09 after I make some money), and a ton of other stuff built in.

[SkateNewYork]

I never owned a Cube, but I would have loved to have owned one. What a beautiful machine. I'm so happy to read that it worked out so well for you. Another Apple product too much ahead of its time to catch on to the mass market. I'm recall reading once that the Cube was dispatched to the Smithsonian as an unrivaled work of art and technology.

[SkateNewYork]

Wow! I had an original Amiga 1000. What a great machine! It was that experience that steered me towards using Macs and saying goodbye to Microsoft forevermore. Thanks for the memory.

[SkateNewYork]

The Wall Street was awesome for its time. Especially the DVD versions.

[SkateNewYork]

Great post...that's what Apple does. Not only make products last and last, but make products they we continue to love using long after their life cycles.

[SkateNewYork]

Agreed. The Pismo was a great laptop.

[SouLab]

Andy's statement about your first Mac being your favorite makes for a strong argument. But if you've owned more than one, chances are that it's hard to choose...

I'm newer than many here to the Mac world, so my first was a G4 Quicksilver 733 Mhz (eventually upgraded the processor to 1.4 Ghz), which is the only one so far that I bought brand-spankin' new, in 2003. But that was around the same time when they introduced the Mirror Drive Door G4's, so I got a pretty good deal on the Quicksilver since they were closing them out... The day it arrived, brand-new in the box, was probably as exciting as my best Christmas gift as a kid! Even the packaging was cool, haha.

My intro to the Mac experience was great. Coming from using Windows 98, the thing that sticks in my mind the most was how if you renamed a file on the Mac, it would update it the file name live throughout the rest of the system. Try to open a previously-opened file you renamed in Windows XP, and it won't know what the heck you're talking about (did they update that in VIsta? Never used it...). Just that little feature alone impressed me, for some reason...

I got the Quicksilver to run a home music studio setup with Pro Tools under 9.2, which was great, but I did run into the occasional OS 9 crash/reboot drama, and I didn't get the full experience of using the Mac for general use until I got a used, but nicely refurbed G4 Sawtooth in 2005. Although it had a an upgraded 1 Ghz processor, it still wasn't a "screamer" by 2005 standards, but it was a rock-solid workhorse of a machine . They're the best Macs you can get for upgrades, to this day, IMO. I've shoe-horned that thing with so much stuff, and it just went along with no major issues at all. And since that machine was running OS X Panther, I was definitely hooked by then. My only complaint about the Sawtooth was that the fan noise was too damn loud for my taste... :-) The Sawtooth has been retired, but I seriously doubt I'll get rid of it. The Quicksilver has been donated to my parents, who will be first-time Mac users, too.

I've since gotten a (used, again) Dual 2 Ghz Power Mac G5 for music/audio stuff, and an Apple-refurbed early MacBook Pro for general use (which I'm typing on), and I love those too. They're great computers that do pretty much everything I need them to do. But I've got to say that the G4's are my personal favorites, for dependability, upgradeability, as well as design and aesthetics. They're simply the coolest looking to me, if nothing else.

I also have a G4-era ADC Cinema Display, which I simply plug into the computer, complete with 2 USB ports. NO POWER CORD NEEDED! I'd say to Apple, bring ADC back, haha... You can't beat that, if you ask me. Yeah, I'm a man of simple pleasures... :-)

There's no doubt that the Mac Pros are awesome machines that put the G4's and G5's to shame as far as power. But they're way too pricey for me. I personally can't see myself spending over $2000 on a computer for personal use. And the iMacs don't really allow you to add or upgrade anything, apart from RAM. I'm one of those who long for a mid-priced tower that you can expand when needed. I'd buy one in a second. But that's another topic...

So, my favorite Mac? My comments about the G4's aside, out of the ones I've owned, I'd say all of them!

[Solo500]

The Pismo. Of course.

[Dogtown_Artworks]

My favorite Mac is always the one I cannot afford.

[wintom]

Didn't anybody else have a Mac IIfx as their first Mac? O.K., it was the office machine (after the Lisa was abandoned) but it lived on my desk and spoiled me for ever making do with any lesser machine, especially a PC. However, it wasn't portable so to catch up on work at home on the weekends, I did make do very well with one of the office SE/30's. Even now, I think of our iMac 24" as portable.

[ckilner]

SkateNewYork said:

I never owned a Cube, but I would have loved to have owned one. What a beautiful machine. I'm so happy to read that it worked out so well for you. Another Apple product too much ahead of its time to catch on to the mass market. I'm recall reading once that the Cube was dispatched to the Smithsonian as an unrivaled work of art and technology.

Actually, I think the MOMA (Museum Of Modern Art) is where the Cube went....