"Hey, AtAT," you ask, "how come you still haven't tackled the juicy topic of Gateway's upcoming flat-panel iMac rip-off?" Well, Timmy (if that is indeed your real name), it's like this: there just really isn't that much to go on, yet. See, when faithful viewer Dave Nagler posted a link to a CNET article in the fabulous new AtAT Forums (last one to register is a distant relative of Steve Ballmer!) a few days ago, most people who glanced at the story were so understandably distracted by the included picture of one seriously hideous computer that they missed a few important details.

It's like this: while the article mentions certain "sources familiar with the product" who claim that the "fourth-generation Profile" is due this summer and plans to go head-to-head with the iMac in the consumer-targeted, LCD-based all-in-one arena, most folks were too absorbed by the car-crash visual nightmare to read much deeper-- or, indeed, to notice the picture's caption. That scary-looking chunk of Cow Computer offending your aesthetic sensibilities is the Profile 3, which Gateway has actually been selling for a while, now; heck, we told you about it a year and a half ago. So we can't slam the "new" Profile's looks, because we haven't seen it yet... and devoting an entire scene to slamming the old one's looks would put us about eighteen months behind the curve, which would drop our Coolness Quotient from its current "Fonzie" levels to hovering just north of "Potsy" territory.

There's also the fact that said CNET article contains a major factual error, which makes it a little tough for us to take the subject matter seriously: "Gateway, however, did beat Apple to the punch with the first all-in-one computer to feature a flat panel." Oh, izzat so? Then what would you call the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (aside from insanely overpriced)? That sure looks like an LCD-based all-in-one to us, assuming you don't count the subwoofer, and it came out over two years before Gateway's first Profile limped onto the market. "Why must you turn my office into a house of lies?"

Anyway, we'll take on the Profile 4 when it rears its probably-ugly head this summer. So far, we're not too concerned, as far as iMac competition goes; despite the alleged inclusion of USB 2.0 and one model with a 17-inch display (features that we wouldn't be too surprised to see come to the iMac in a revision at some point), the early rumors about Gateway's coming "iMac-killer" don't exactly have us shaking in our boots. As for looks, well, need we remind you that this is the company who designed the Gateway Astro? 'Nuff said.