If you'd have asked us yesterday, we would have told you that now is absolutely, positively, no-questions-asked the best possible time to buy an iMac. After all, the processor speed's been bumped up slightly, the disk capacity's been expanded by 50%, and the price has dropped $100. And on top of all that, you can choose between five fruit flavors. What could possibly be better?

A price war, that's what. A price war of epic proportions. See, according to Computer Reseller News, Apple has just lifted the Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) restriction on the "classic" iMac. For those of you just tuning in, MAP is the lowest price at which a reseller is allowed to sell a given Apple product. The MAP for the iMac, until last week, was $1299. Resellers who advertised the iMac for less than that (as in the case of Best Buy's recent panicked iMac fire sale at $999 and then $1099) were subject to Apple's MAP-violation penalties, which, as far as we can make out, include the withholding of "co-op" advertising funds (money given to resellers by Apple to use for advertising Apple's products) and a severe frowny face. Losing the co-op funds is tough, but man, that frowny face is murder; after all, Best Buy soon stepped back into line with their iMac pricing once Apple cast its frown in their general direction. So most resellers play ball and stick to Apple's MAP.

Now, MAP for the new "Life Savers" iMacs is $1199, and the official Apple price for the revision B iMacs has dropped to $1049. But now that MAP restrictions have been lifted, resellers are free to sell the revision B systems for whatever price they feel like. It's a smart way for Apple to clear the channel of "classic" iMacs to make room for the new systems-- and it means that within days we bet there will be several resellers dropping prices like mad in order to squeeze as many rev. B's out the door as possible. If you don't mind Bondi Blue, you should be able to pick up a rev. B iMac for a song. Just don't wait too long, or else everyone will be out of stock and you'll be out of luck.

Let's recap: the new iMacs cost $100 less, have a slightly faster processor, a bigger hard disk, and come in five colors. Sounds like a solid upgrade, right? Except that what Apple's not shouting from the rooftops is that the "iMac 266" is actually missing a couple of things found in the "classic" iMacs. (Hey, that price drop had to come from somewhere.

First on the cut list is IrDA support. A lot of people forget that this was ever even a feature in the iMac, because it's not terribly useful right now; since the IrDA port is on the front of the iMac, building an infrared link between your iMac and a PowerBook requires holding the PowerBook up in front of the iMac, which is awkward at best. And don't even think about using an infrared-capable printer, because the positioning would require that you wear the printer strapped to your chest-- again, not optimal from an ergonomic point of view. Apple is apparently of the same opinion, since a TechNote states that IrDA support was dropped in the iMac 266 because Apple is focusing on USB as the connectivity method of choice. So our dreams of a wirelessly-syncronizing MacMate palmtop are dashed upon the rocks of cost-cutting reality. Boo-hoo for us.

Much more troubling, though, is another TechNote which states that the Mezzanine card slot on the iMac's motherboard has vanished in the new iMac 266. The Mezzanine slot was based on PCI, and therefore several companies have announced Mezzanine products which expand the iMac's capabilities in various and sundry ways; you could add SCSI, for instance, or a super-fast Voodoo 2 3D gaming card. I guess now we all know why Apple was so adamant about telling developers that they shouldn't plan any products around the Mezzanine slot; hopefully those companies who have Mezzanine products can at least break even by selling to the more than 800,000 Mezzanine-equipped iMacs already sold. All of this means that those of you who bought a revision B iMac over the holidays only to be faced with the speed bump/price drop announced earlier this week, your funky blue guy has a couple of features that the iMac 266 doesn't. Granted, they aren't features very many people would ever use, but isn't it a consolation that there are things your iMac can do that the new iMacs can't?

Sometimes it's easy to forget just how much a product can change during its development cycle. Take a look at Yosemite, for instance, and note the number of features that differ from earlier prototypes described on the web: it's iMac-colored instead of dark blue, it has no AGP slot, it has no IrDA port, there's no media bay that allows the swapping of modules with PowerBooks, etc. Yosemite is quite a different beast than we were all originally led to believe. We point this out because P1, the consumer portable we've been hearing about for many months now, is still several months away from introduction, so any information on prototypes at this stage is hardly indicative of what will actually ship.

That said, NoBeige has more information on the P1 as it currently exists. According to their sources, yes, Virginia, there is a P1 at the Expo. In fact, there are two. And they're completely different from one another. Only a very select few were given sneak peeks at the early P1 prototypes by Steve Jobs himself, who is reportedly looking for feedback on the two designs. The first unit is apparently reminiscent of the ill-fated eMate, using curved and colored translucent plastics and "advanced shock absorption technology--" another page borrowed from the eMate's book, since the eMate was capable of surviving a four-foot drop onto a concrete surface without damage. The second P1 prototype, however, is reportedly a plainer super-slim notebook. Sony's had some pretty solid success with its own incredibly thin VAIO laptops, and Apple is considering a similar design for the P1.

Our vote? Well, it's tough to say for sure without actually seeing them, but we're leaning towards the "eMate 2." We always liked the eMate-- both its looks and its ruggedness. And while the idea of a really thin laptop also appeals to us greatly (since it leaves more room in the bag), we'd rather have a "gee-whiz" portable that we can toss around and drag all over the world without having to worry so much about damaging sensitive equipment. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. In the meantime, we'll wait to see what Apple actually ships.