One hopes the arrival of Mac OS X will provide the requisite reliability. It is fast, near silent in operation, except for the soft chugging of the hard drive when it's reading or writing data. One rather annoying flaw is actually a natural byproduct of one of its coolest features, the proximity sensitive power button. Just pass your hand over it to power up the unit or place it into sleep mode. The feature is shared by Apple's new line of displays.
Problem is that it's just too easy to activate by mistake.
Then again, I never thought the hockey puck mouse that Apple inflicted on the world with the original iMac was practical either. So perhaps this too shall pass. The Cube will soon travel back to Apple and go to another reviewer or be used for product placement in a film or TV show. Despite the little flaws, it sort of grows on you, and it will be missed. Since Mac OS 8.5 came on the scene, if you have to force your Mac to restart due to a system crash, Disk First Aid will automatically check your startup volume at the beginning of the startup process.