New Apple MACs Spoil Microsoft's Party

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The redesigned Mac computers are lighter and cheaper than previous models and include such features as touch-based mice and edge-to- edge glass.

Yesterday, Apple announced a 17% jump in Mac sales with laptop sales surging by 35%.

With their new line up, Apple has introduced a 27-inch display, a Snow Leopard Server, a wireless mouse that uses the same multi-touch technology found in the iPhone, and started offering a redesigned low cost MacBook.

The upgrades come a day after Apple reported that Mac and iPhone sales drove profits to $1.67 billion for the quarter and revenue to nearly $2 billion.

The latest iMacs include an LED-backlit, high-definition display with a 178-degree viewing angle. The 27-inch model features a 2560x1440 pixel screen offering 60% more pixels than the previous 24-inch model, which has been dropped along with the old 20-inch version. Apple now offers a 21.5-inch iMac, along with the 27-inch model.

The smaller iMac starts at $1599 with a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4 GB of memory, a 500 GB hard drive and a Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics processor. The 27-inch model starts at $2199 with the same processor and system memory as the smaller version, but with a 1 TB hard drive and an ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics chip with 256 MB of cache.