Macintosh 128k

The best designed consumer product is the Apple Macintosh 128k (Macintosh from now on) which, in the mid 80s, revolutionized the way people communicate with machines.
 
The graphical user interface and the mouse are the most important features of this model. The Macintosh was the first home computer to have a Windows style interface and a mouse, allowing users to easily understand and navigate the labyrinth of files and directories necessary to operate a computer.It introduced a desktop, icons, windows and the cursor to the world, all at once. This was a giant leap forward for user-friendly computing, and an advancement used in all modern computers today.

The packaging itself is also more user friendly. Incorporating the main computer and a 9 inch monitor into one package, the design is less overwhelming when compared to other computers of the time. The included monitor meant the Macintosh didn't need to be connected to a television. In the recognizable Apple minimalism, they abandoned the tech look: excessive fan  vents and expansion ports; and focused on making a simple, user-friendly, approachable, and relatively affordable home computer, both in interface and physical form.

The Macintosh did suffer from a few problems however:
No fan. This meant that the Macintosh was not actively cooled, so there were often problems with machines overheating.
Not much RAM. Only 128kB of memory meant many multimedia programs could not be effectively run. The Macintosh 512kB came out less than 2 years later, fixing this problem.
No hard drive. No internal memory, other than RAM. All storage had to be done on floppy disks.

Although the Mac 128k isn't the world's best computer in any way, as a consumer product it is one of the leaders. With it's graphical interface to replace tedious command line controls, and its revolutionary mouse input, it showed how intuitive and inviting a home computer can be, and set the benchmark for user-friendly personal computing for years to come.

Scott Everitt