The 21 most iconic PCs of all time

Released for the first time in 1973, the Xerox Alto was the first computer to introduce a GUI, a graphical user interface. The metaphor of a "Desktop" was born on the Alto, which ten years later will inspire Apple's engineers to create first the Lisa and then the Macintosh.

The MITS Altair 8800 will go down in history as the first commercially successful Personal Computer. Built in 1974, it was purchased mainly through mail orders, with thousands of units sold in the following years. It was the first computer to prove that there was a demand for computers outside universities and the military.

With the aptly named Personal Computer, IBM set the stage for the success of microcomputers for the home and defined what a PC would look like for years to come. The Personal Computer was still primarily marketed as a business tool for the professional, who could use it to crunch numbers when not in the office. Still, its price of only 1600$ was a revolution in itself for the times.

The Apple II was the cornerstone on which Apple was built. The iconic computer contributed to igniting the personal computer revolution in the eighties and financed many other Apple projects like the Macintosh, which were not that successful right off the bat. 

The British Broadcasting Corporation put its name behind a new microcomputer built and distributed by Acorn computers in the early eighties. The goal was to promote computer literacy in British schools and homes. Despite some initial production hiccups, the BBC Micro sold in the millions.  

The ZX81, and its successor, the ZX Spectrum, were the devices that really popularized personal computing in British homes and around the world during the eighties. Design-wise, the ZX computers were the reference for computers you would hook up to the family TV, with a small plastic frame and an embedded keyboard to type in programs and control the games.

Along with the ZX Spectrum, the Commodore 64 defined home computing in the eighties. More than 17 million units were sold between 1983 and 1986, thanks to the PC's affordable price and great tech specs. The distribution also played a significant role, as consumers could buy a Commodore 64 in retail stores instead of electronic shops.

On January 1st, 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh, the product that would establish the myth of Steve Jobs. Now regarded as the turning point of personal computing thanks to its revolutionary design and its never-before-seen graphical interface, at the time, the Macintosh was all but successful. 
Initial sales were underwhelming, and its commercial performance was undoubtedly an element that contributed to Steve Jobs' ousting from the company he co-founded less than ten years earlier.

In 1985 Commodore tried to build on the Commodore 64's success by introducing the Amiga, the first line of successful PCs. In some configuration, the Amiga pioneered the gray box look that Personal Computer would adhere for a decade to come. Mouse and GUIs were the new trends, and the company followed suit with a new operating system as well.

At the end of the eighties, the idea of making a computer not just personal but even portable started enticing designers and engineers. The Compaq Portable III, launched to much fanfare in 1987, was among the first to explore this concept. It wasn't lightweight nor precisely easy to carry everywhere, which is why most tech enthusiasts called it luggable, more than portable.

Actually portable PCs would arrive a few years later, in the early 90s, when the personal computing revolution was in full swing, and having a PC at home was not really the hot new thing anymore. 
The Thinkpad, a name that survives to this day and is still used for Lenovo's laptops, wasn't the first portable on the market, but its innovative design by Richar Sapper and its commercial success defined how a “notebook” would look like for years.

In the second half of the 90s, the commoditization of PC parts made it possible for enthusiasts to start building their own PC systems. Many brands that are still in business today would thrive on selling their motherboards, RAMs, Hard Drives, and more in the open market. There's not a single brand that stands out, in this case, but the assembled PC, as a broader concept, is still a fundamental step in the contemporary evolution of personal computing.

One company that profited from the assembled PCs trend was certainly Alienware, which started building expensive gaming PCs with colorful chassis when the goal was to bring the PC prices down and every computer was just the same dull beige box.

The new iMac G3, designed by Jony Ive after Steve Jobs' return at the helm of Apple, really questioned the status quo of anonymous beige computers. The iMac kickstarted the all-in-one market segment and implemented materials and production processes that were innovative in themselves.

After releasing new clamshells laptops as colorful as the iMacs, in the early 2000s, Apple moved to its white polycarbonate phase, which would last more or less a decade. From a design and materials choice standpoint, the choice was groundbreaking, and Apple stayed the course until developing the tougher and environmentally friendlier aluminum unibody concept.

The history of computing is full of fads. The Netbooks were indeed one, despite people swearing that the diminutive and underpowered laptops of the late naughties would represent the future of computing. 
Nonetheless, computers like the Asus EEE PC were breaking new ground in terms of size and affordability, in a moment when those were possibly the most crucial selling points for computers.

Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project is one of the saddest missed opportunities in PC history. The idea was to broaden access to computing and the internet in developing countries through a small and affordable laptop. Unfortunately, the "100$ dollar computer", as it was swiftly named, turned soon into a failure, primarily because of the project's inability to adapt to local customs and cultural nuances. As The Verge aptly pointed out in a recent retrospective, Negroponte was sure that every child in the world should have a laptop, but he never really stopped to consider if they actually needed it.

In terms of PC democratization, the Raspberry Pi has achieved a lot more than the OLPC in its 14 years of existence. The Pi is a complete Linux system contained within a small and inexpensive PCB board. Electronics enthusiasts have been using it for all sorts of projects, from powering weather stations or personal dashboards to building custom retrogaming emulation systems. With the 4th version of the product, the Raspberry Pi foundation introduced a keyboard case that recreates a setup similar to the Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum.

Introduced in 2012, Microsoft's line of Surface touchscreen computers has been growing in popularity since. 
The Surface line is best know for the portable tablet hybrids, but it includes an all-in-one (the Surface Studio) and a regular laptop, aptly named Surface Laptop. Microsoft uses the PC line to set a design example for other OEMs who license Windows on their PCs.

With the transition to its proprietary M1 chip, Apple has shaken up the PC market once again. The technical specifications of the new chipset are giving Cupertino's designer a never-before-seen freedom from form-factor and thermal restraints. The result can be appreciated in products like the new iMac, with a rediscovery of the all-in-one's original chromatic variety and a new ultra-thin brushed aluminum chassis.

Lenovo's latest take on the future of PCs is a foldable computer (or foldable tablet, if you prefer) introduced at CES 2022. First of its kind, it comes equipped with Windows 11 and sports Intel's hybrid chips. Despite being commercially available, the X1 Fold strikes us more as a design experiment with a very high price point than a product Lenovo expects to sell consistently. Despite that, we can see a lot more use for foldable screens in the PC space compared to what we've seen for far in the smartphone market.