The $1,299 price tag and the all-in-one design won't please anyone who was hoping for a cheaper Mac or a headless Mac, but the new iMac G5 -- "from the creators of iPod" -- offers better value than the computer it replaces.

The new 17" iMac G5 costs $1,299 -- the same as the former entry-level 15" iMac G4. The new iMac G5 has a larger, widescreen LCD, a faster G5 processor running at 1.6 GHz (up from 1 GHz), a better video card and twice as much video memory.

The differences between the new 20" iMac G5 and the model it replaces are even more dramatic. The specs went up but the price went down.

iMac G4 $2,199 20-inch widescreen LCD 1.25GHz PowerPC G4 256K L2 cache 167MHz system bus 256MB DDR333 SDRAM NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 64MB DDR video memory 80GB Ultra ATA hard drive SuperDrive

iMac G5 $1,899 20-inch widescreen LCD 1.8GHz PowerPC G5 512K L2 cache 600MHz frontside bus 256MB DDR400 SDRAM NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 64MB DDR video memory 160GB Serial ATA hard drive Slot-load SuperDrive