Apple shows off 20-incher

Apple yesterday introduced its latest iMac, featuring what it claims is the largest ever display in an all-in-one desktop.

The 20in computer, which joins the 15in and 17in iMacs in Apple's consumer desktop line, offers twice as much screen area as the 15in display model, allowing users to view more than two full pages side by side.

The widescreen display, which offers pixel resolution of up to 1680 x 1050, is designed for tasks such as video editing, creating or watching DVDs, or browsing the web with multiple pages open at once.

Apple claims that the screen gives "twice the brightness, twice the sharpness and twice the contrast ratio of a typical CRT display".

It comes pre-installed with Mac OS X 10.3, known as 'Panther', the latest version of Apple's operating system. Features include Exposé, a facility for instantly viewing all open windows at once; and iChat AV video teleconferencing software.

The latest iMac line uses PowerPC G4 processors running at 1.25GHz in the 20in and 17in models and at 1.0GHz in the 15in model.

All models include 256MB of 333MHz DDR SDRam and an 80GB Ultra ATA/100 hard disk drive running at 7200rpm. The 20in and 17in models include nVidia's GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics processor with 64MB of DDR video memory.