Yesterday, right after Apple’s “Spring Loaded” event, I wrote that the new iMac stole the entire show. I still think that’s true, and having had some time to process everything, I thought I’d take a deeper look at the new iMac.
The new design
I still think the new iMac looks gorgeous, especially when seen from the side. It’s amazing how thin Apple has been able to make it (only 11.5mm), but then again they have years of experience making powerful thin devices like the iPad Pro. A lot of the thinness is thanks to the new M1 chip, which makes it possible to have a much smaller logic board. Also, in this generation of the iMac, there’s no need to have space for a large spinning hard drive (it’s all SSD now) and thanks to M1’s lower heat generation, there’s no need for big fans either.
The iMac now comes in seven colors, but it’s worth noting that the cheapest model is available only in four colors. The seven colors to choose from are blue, green, pink, silver, yellow, orange, and purple. Purple is my personal favorite and I like the fact that the color is so prominent on the backside, which in many spaces will actually be the first thing people see.
The new iMac has a gorgeous design and the color is very prominent on the back side. Image credit: Apple
Apple has been able to slim down the bezels around the screen, which looks great, but unfortunately there’s still a fairly big chin. Some people were optimistically hoping that the chin would have been removed entirely in favor of a design similar to the Pro Display XDR monitor that Apple released in 2019. Thus, ironically the least beautiful side of the new iMac is the front side that the user will be most of the time looking at.
The stand looks sleek and robust enough, but it’s definitely not a Mac Pro $1000 stand. The only thing you can adjust is the viewing angle of the display, but you will not be able to adjust the height.
24” is the only display size available and the bezels have been slimmed down, but the chin is still heavy and accentuated if you choose a strong color. Image credit: Apple.
The display
The new iMac has an okay display, but it’s far from a pro display. Already the size 24” will be a limiting factor for many artists and designers. For the time being, it’s the only size the new iMac comes in, which is notably smaller than the 27” the previous generation had on offer.
For home use the specs of this 4.5K Retina display are decent. Max resolution is 4480-by-2520 at 218 pixels per inch with support for 1 billion colors. It features P3 wide color, True tone technology, and 500 nits of brightness. Compare that to the new iPad Pro, which has 1000 nits brightness with up to 1600 nits of peak brightness.
The fact that the only display alternative is 24” is a big minus, especially if you want to do photo and video editing. Furthermore, there’s been no indication so far that a larger version might be coming later this year.
Performance
A lot has been written about the new Apple-designed (and Arm-based) M1 chip and we’ve had plenty of time to run benchmarks with the M1-powered Macs that were launched in November (Mac Mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro 13”). Therefore, I’m not going to write too much about it here. Suffice it to say that the new chip has been very well received and people have been blown away by its performance, low heat, and positive impact on battery life in laptops.
Compared to the previous generation, it’s clear that a new M1-powered iMac will deliver significant performance gains. Apple claims that the CPU is 85% faster, the GPU is 2x faster, and machine learning is 3x faster thanks to a 16-core neural engine. They also said you’ll be able to handle 5 streams of 5K video and 1 stream of 8K video in video editing without dropping a frame.
All models of the new iMac feature an 8-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. The only drawback with the cheapest model is that you get a 7-core GPU instead of an 8-core GPU.
Storage
No surprises here, as storage starts at 256GB of SSD and can be configured up to 2TB. Note that the cheapest model supports only up to 1TB. It’s SSD all around and thus the spinning hard drives are finally a closed chapter.
Memory
No differences here between the different models. Memory starts at 8GB, and that’s way too little in my mind, but can be configured up to 16GB. With the current M1 chip architecture, that’s the maximum. This is of course something that the upcoming M1X chip (or whatever it’ll be called) must correct, because even 16GB of memory is tight for a number of use-cases.
Also, remember that the 8GB of RAM is unified memory, meaning that it will be consumed also by the GPU.
Connectivity
No more USB-A ports, but that’s hardly a surprise. All iMac models now come with two USB-C ports (USB 4 / Thunderbolt) and the high-end models have two additional USB-C ports (which are USB 3). With the Thunderbolt port you could in theory drive a 6K display like the Apple Pro Display XDR, but I can’t see many customers building such a setup.
There’s a 3.5 mm headphone jack, which based on photos is located on the lower left hand side of the screen. It’s good that there’s a headphone jack, because for audio editing wired headphones are a must.
I also like the fact that the ethernet RJ45 port is now located in the power brick (which will typically be on the floor) and that the ethernet signal runs inside the power cable, which then magnetically attaches itself to the backside of the iMac. This will keep your desktop a bit less cluttered.
Camera and audio
The new camera is a significant improvement to the previous generation, and to Mac cameras in general. Here we now have a 1080p FaceTime HD camera with M1 image signal processor, which will result in much better video image quality especially in low light conditions.
Apple claims the new iMac delivers the best sound system ever in a Mac and I would love to test how the six-speaker sound system actually sounds. I’m also very curious if the “studio-quality” three-microphone array can replace a decent USB condenser mic, such as the famous Blue Yeti used by a lot of podcasters like myself. I would assume that the answer is no.
In any case, thanks to the improved camera and sound system, it’s clear that the new iMac will deliver a major boost to many video meetings.
Peripherals
Not much to say about the new Magic Mouse or TrackPad, they look the same as before but come with matching color alternatives. The main thing worth highlighting is that the new Magic Keyboard now comes in three alternatives, one without Touch ID, one with Touch ID, and one with Touch ID and a numpad.
Interestingly, in order to make the Touch ID secure in a wireless keyboard, Apple had to add a secure processor into the keyboard itself, so that they’re able to protect your fingerprint end to end.
Currently I’m typing on the previous generation Magic Keyboard with a numpad, and it’s got a pretty good feel and travel, but the numpad is completely unnecessary for me. Should I get a new Magic Keyboard, it would definitely be the one with Touch ID but without the numpad.
Pricing
The basic model starts at $1299, but as mentioned above, it comes with a number of limitations. The 256GB mid model starts at $1499 and the 512GB model starts at $1699.
The default amount of memory is always 8GB, which as said isn’t enough, so there’s an upgrade and an additional cost that will hit you immediately.
Conclusion – and will there ever be an iMac Pro again?
To sum up, I’m still impressed by the new iMac and it’s a big improvement to the previous generation. The new form factor is fabulous, despite the slightly oversized chin, and after a long break we got some color alternatives again!
Much of the improvement is thanks to the small but powerful M1 chip and this new iMac proves that Apple is making good progress on their 2-year transition to Apple Silicon. The thinness and the amazing boost in performance – all of that is enabled by the M1 chip.
The main drawback is the size of the display and I would have loved to hear that they’re planning to release a larger (say 27” or 28”) model later this year, but that was something we didn’t get from yesterday’s event.
I’m also curious if the iMac Pro is really dead. Yes, the previous generation of iMac Pro has been discontinued (i.e. the space grey one with Intel chips), but has Apple ever actually said that there won’t be a new iMac Pro with Apple Silicon?
I think it would make a lot of sense that a new iMac Pro, with a larger and better (say Pro Display XDR quality) screen would be released once we get the M1X-iteration of the chip, which also should allow for more RAM and I/O.