They're good-looking machines clearly aimed at the holiday selling season and renewed competition with Microsoft 's new Windows 7 operating system. They are now faster, and they have more memory and larger storage capacities, but they also still come with the higher prices typical of Apple's computers.

Apple will start selling a new $999 MacBook based on the same single-enclosure, "unibody" design as the more expensive MacBook Pro laptops. Apple says it's the first major redesign of the MacBook since May 2006. The latest MacBook has a 13.3-inch backlit LED screen, 2 gigabytes of RAM (double what came before), 250-GB hard drive (up from 160 GB) and a glass multitouch track pad that was also inherited from pricier MacBook Pros. When it comes to the MacBook battery, Apple giveth and it taketh away: The company says battery life on the new MacBook is rated at seven hours, up from five hours on the previous generation. But unlike the predecessor model, the battery is sealed.

Apple also is bringing out new widescreen 21.5- and 27-inch iMac all-in-one desktops. The smaller models come in two base configurations of $1,199 or $1,499. Apple has also finally added an SD memory card slot to the iMacs. The main difference among the configurations is that the $1,499 version has a 1-terabyte hard drive, double the 500 GB on the entry machine. It also has higher-end graphics.

However impressive, the 21.5-inch iMacs are relative dwarfs next to the new 27-inch models ($1,699 or $1,999 for the base configurations). The most expensive 27-inch model features a 2.66-gigahertz Intel Core i5 quad-core processor. Unlike the other new Macs, which arrived in stores Tuesday, it becomes available next month.

The latest iMacs come with Apple's wireless Bluetooth keyboard, plus a wireless Bluetooth Magic Mouse. The entire top surface of this new pointing device serves as a multitouch display: You can use iPhone-like finger gestures to scroll through documents, pan across pictures, or swipe backward or forward through pictures. Unlike the iPhone, however, you can't use the mouse's surface to pinch or spread your fingers to zoom in and out on a picture or to rotate an image.

The new mouse, which I got to very briefly try out, does take a bit of getting used to. Though included with the new iMacs, Apple plans to also sell the new mouse as a $69 accessory.

© 2009 USA Today under contract with MarketWatch. All rights reserved.