The Most Beautiful Computers of all Time

Some are classy .Some are trashy.But scant few transcend such barriers to become works of art.

Cray 2
Seymour Cray is gone, but the spectacular design of his supercomputers remains. The original had a couch, but it's the sequel, with its freakish, science-fictional cooling fountain, that strikes the most beautiful (if not the most iconic) pose.

Sinclair ZX Series
At the turn of the 1980s, Clive Sinclair's gift was to make a small, cheap, user-friendly computers when many still bought them in kit form at great expense. Their good looks are easier to appreciate today than they were many years ago, when people actually had to type on those rubber chiclet keys. The ZX-80, left, fit into its tiny case (and equally tiny $100 price tag) by being less powerful than the clock on a modern microwave oven. The ZX Spectrum, right, could be mistaken for a modern UMPC with the display snapped off.

Golden Oldies: Babbage's Engines and The Antikythera Mechanism
You don't have to be electrical to be beautiful: any good steam-era aficionado will love the complex regularity of Charles Babbage's early digital computers. The Antikythera Mechanism, an analog computer used by the ancient Greeks for some mysterious purpose (likely navigation) has been recreated by scientists. Think you could stuff a mini-ITX motherboard in that?

Apple MacBook Air
Since it's the newest in the lineup, let's get it out of the way early. If you haven't seen one in person, go and have a fondle before denying this minimal slice of metal its rightful place as one of the most beautiful computers ever.

The Cubes
Cube-shaped computers wow with their simple geometry and space-saving proportions, but no-one has ever really got it right. The Jonathan Ive-authored Mac G4 Cube, center, won design awards but performed poorly. The NeXT Cube, fruit of Steve Jobs' Apple interregnum, was too expensive to succeed outside of institutional settings. And the Cobalt Qube, a much-loved server appliance that made Sun look dumb, was put to death — by Sun itself, when it bought Cobalt for no obvious reason other than to kill it.

Vaio Art
Sony's Vaio Art laptops, on their own, are attractive enough. Used as a canvas, however, they've become an intriguing counterpoint to the modern Macbooks for Windows-lovers. Where Apple is sleek, Sony's models, designed by artists like Maya Hayuk, are stamped with wild designs. Where the Mac offers minimalism, the Sony offers spendour.

All-in-ones

Of the current trend of all-in-ones, it's Gateway's One that makes the loudest design statement. Clear, crisp and revoltingly overpriced, it's such a bizarre product from the usually-milquetoast manufacturer it's hard to know exactly what to make of it. But it sure is pretty.
If people are wary of praising it, it's probably because it's so clearly inspired by Apple's recent iMacs. The prettiest of that lineup, however, remains the classic luxo lamp-style original. A finicky and unpleasant tool, it looked great all the same.

Let's not forget the original underpowered, overpriced all-in-one work of art, the 20th Anniversary Mac. Repeat after me: function follows form.
Coda
It's a short list, I'm afraid: not too many pretty computers out there, even to this day. Add your suggestions to the comments and we'll add them to the list—if they're hot enough!